Making Pad Thai at home

Picture: D Schmidt, About.com
Picture: D Schmidt, About.com

I recently bought a large tub of tamarind paste in order to make Nigella Lawson’s amazing Keralan Fish Curry. The tamarind paste is cheap, only about €2.50 for a tub that will last for ages. I’m hoping to use up the paste before it goes all horrid in the fridge, so have recently been scouting around for other recipes that use tamarind.

I was pleasantly surprised to find out that I can use it to make Pad Thai, a delicious Thai noodle dish.  Pad Thai is a really satisfying combination of flavours and textures – peanuts, noodles, beansprouts, veg – and you can make it with any meat, or do a vegetarian version.

It’s perfect weekend food, as you can pick up the ingredients if you’re going around food shops or markets on a Saturday or Sunday, it’s  quick and easy to put together, and perfect for cooking for a group.

You do need to have a few Asian condiments such as the fish sauce and soy sauce to hand, but like the tamarind, these are all worth getting as they are really versatile and useful.

I got my Pad Thai recipe from About.com, and it turned out really well.  I couldn’t find any beansprouts on the day, but it’s the kind of big pot luck meal where I don’t think it’s important to follow the recipe to a tee.  You can use whichever variety of  noodles you most enjoy – it was rice vermicelli noodles for me.  A squeeze of lime over the final result really makes it.