help me make decent pad thai

[kimpossible]

Hi.

I just want to know how to make decent pad thai at home. I'm fine with cooking rice noodle and the other ingredients but I used this sauce in a jar and it sucked. I don't need to make super-authentic pad thai but palatable would be nice.

Or is there a sauce in a jar you would recommend? I don't know squat about Thai food but I do have the fish sauce with the squid on it and I know what tamarind paste is. Otherwise, explain it like you would to a 5 year old.

[Craig]

No lime juice ?

[>:^|]

I do one of two things when I make pad thai. Either I use this dry packet mix called "Thai Chicken" (and ignore the stuff about the chicken) or I use a recipe from Tommy Tang (don't laugh). Here's the latter:

1/4 c olive oil
1 tablespoon chopped garlic
16 medium shrimp, shelled and deveined (I don't eat shrimp so I ignore this)
2 oz. firm brown tofu, cut into dice
2 eggs, beaten
1/2 c tamarind juice
1/4 c chopped unsalted peanuts
3 tablespoons fish sauce
2 1/2 tablespoons rice vinegar
1 tablespoon sugar
2 teaspoons paprika
1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper
3 oz. bean sprouts (I never weigh them; I just buy some)
1/4 c leeks cut into 1 1/2 to 2 inch shreds (I use green onion)

Heat olive oil in a large skillet over high heat. Add garlic and saute until lightly browned, about 1 minute. Add shrimp and tofu and saute 1 minute. Add eggs and stir 30 seconds. Add noodles, tamarind juice, peanuts, fish sauce, vinegar, sugar, paprika and red pepper and stir constantly 3 minutes. Remove from heat and transfer to platter. Sprinkle with bean sprouts and leeks and serve.

As Craig noted, I serve with wedges of lime.

This is pretty hard to screw up; I rarely measure ingredients and it still works okay.

The Thai Kitchen brand (which one of my friends calls "Oriental food for yuppies who don't know better and who will pay a lot) isn't all that bad but the pad thai mix kit makes an incredibly small amount of pad thai for a fairly high price.