Welcome to my Pad

Want a good laugh? Read Alton Brown’s Pad Thai recipe. I’m not sure what upsets me more: the fact that seven of the ingredients are unnecessary (and four of these are hard to find), or the fact that if you followed the recipe to a tee, you would have, I don’t know, Pad Alton maybe, but not Pad Thai. Salted cabbage . . . tofu marinated with five spice powder . . . it’s enough to make a grown man cry.

I’ve been thinking about writing this post ever since my bit on branding. In that post, I forgot to mention one of my favorite brand name products, Annie Chun’s Classic Pad Thai. In this little box, you’ll find one packet of rice noodles and one packet of sauce. You’ll need to supply the cooking oil, tofu, meat-of-choice, eggs, bean sprouts, green onions, lime wedges, peanuts, and cilantro. Why bother buying it, then? Because Annie gets the sauce just right — not only the flavor, but also the volume.

Yes, one of the key secrets of Pad Thai is the ratio of rice noodles to sauce. My early disasters consisted of gummy, gloppy rice noodles in a horrific too-salty, too-spicy soup. The key is to have one-third cup of sauce to one packet of rice noodles.

Please, use the wide rice noodles, not sai fun or mai fun (rice stick, deep-fried as an addition to Chinese chicken salad). I don’t know what Alton Brown was thinking.

My idea of perfect Pad Thai: eating it off this woman’s naked body (almost work safe). But I digress.

Pad Thai kicks ass over any Chinese dish (save, perhaps, Peking duck) because of the balance of tastes, textures, and colors. It looks as good as it tastes, as you will soon see. Dammit, don’t scroll down. Be patient.

The soul of Pad Thai consists of five ingredients: rice noodles cooked al dente; tofu; bean sprouts added at the very end, so that they are warm, but still raw; lime wedges; chopped roasted peanuts. This bare bones combination would have a lackluster appearance but would still be delicious. Additional items add to the complexity: meat (usually chicken, shrimp, or pork), green onion, roasted red pepper flakes, grated carrot, cucumber, cabbage, cilantro. You can do just about anything, which makes Alton Brown’s recipe all the more appalling, since he seems to do all the wrong things.

Mise en place (everything in its place) is essential. I set up everything before I start cooking. From left to right:

Grated carrot, lime wedges, shredded purple cabbage, sliced cucumber, cilantro, bean sprouts, tofu, sauce mix (more on that in a moment), chopped roasted peanuts, one brick of extra firm tofu (diced), 2 beaten eggs, a pound of shrimp, and one pork loin chop, sliced.

Annie Chun’s sauce is freaking awesome, but in case you can’t find this product (or you don’t want to order it online — see link, above), I’ve tried to reverse engineer the sauce based on the sauce packet’s ingredient list. It’s not as good as Annie Chun’s sauce, but it ain’t bad at all:

1/4 cup packed brown sugar
1 tablespoon rice wine vinegar
2 teaspoons soy sauce
2 tablespoons fish sauce
1 tablespoon paprika
1 teaspoon onion powder
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper
add water to make 1/3 cup of sauce

There you go: not a single funky ingredient, assuming your supermarket carries fish sauce and rice wine vinegar. Next time around, I’ll substitute a tablespoon of tomato paste for the tablespoon of paprika and get my red color that way.

Is your mise en place ready yet? Not quite. Soak the dry noodles in hot (not boiling) water for ten minutes, then drain. Now you’re ready.

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These are Annie Chun’s instructions. Once again, I can’t improve on perfection, so here they are verbatim.

Heat 2 tablespoons of canola oil in a wok — highest flame. If you like your tofu fried to a golden brown, do so now. We prefer our tofu soft, not fried, so we add it later.

Add the meat (sliced chicken, prawns, or pork) and stir fry for 2-3 minutes. Push meat to one side, away from the hot spot, and add the two beaten eggs. Scramble the eggs. Reduce heat, pour in the sauce, add noodles and mix well. Add tofu now if you prefer unfried tofu. Stir everything until it has heated thoroughly, then add the bean sprouts (roughly two cups).

Plate it out and add garnishes. Here, I’ve added lime wedges, more bean sprouts, grated carrot, cucumber slices, cabbage, cilantro, and chopped nuts. I might also have added chopped green onion and roasted red pepper flakes. Didn’t feel like it.

Isn’t it gorgeous?

Maybe you’re wondering how much tofu, how much meat, yatta yatta. Annie Chun’s box says 2 ounces of tofu, 4 ounces of chicken breast. Maybe that’s fine if you’re cooking for two little people, but I’m cooking for three little people. I use a whole block of extra firm tofu and at least one pound of some kind of meat. Tonight, I included the tofu, a pound of shrimp, and one pork loin chop (about 1/4 pound). We didn’t have any leftovers.

It would be difficult to scale this one up. You would need a larger than average-sized wok, or else you would have to make your Pad Thai in batches. What a drag! Here’s an idea: if you’re cooking for a larger group and want to be sure you have enough food, make these ribs.

Questions, anyone?

D.