Pad Thai

Pad Thai or Phat Thai just means as far as I know “fried Thai style". Made with noodles with eggs, fish sauce, tamarind, chili and bean sprouts served with prawns, chicken, or tofu and garnished with crushed peanuts, coriander and lime. It is light refreshing and popular, in CNN poll World's 50 most delicious foods, it came in at number 5. Now a interesting fact is that although Pad Thai has been around for hundreds of years it was made very popular by the Thai prime minister  Luang Phibunsongkhram in the 30s and 40s. It was part of a campaign to promote Thai nationalism and centralization. Also to reduce domestic rice consumption to increase the amount for available for export. As the Thai economy was heavily dependent on rice exports he hoped to encourage the consumption of noodles and export the rice. It must have worked as now Pad Thai is one of Thailand's national dishes.

You will need.

1tbsp vegetable oil

1 large banana shallot, finely sliced

1 red chilli, sliced

2 garlic cloves, finely chopped

1 tbsp grated fresh Galangal

150g/5oz fresh large prawns

400g/14oz cooked rice noodles

125g/4½oz beansprouts

2tbsp tamarind paste

2tbsp fish sauce

1tbsp soy sauce

1 lime, juice only

3tbsp roughly chopped fresh coriander

2tbsp roasted salted peanuts, crushed

Now apart from the chopping this is an easy thing to make, and it you want use chicken not prawns or no meat at all it is just as good. Make sure that you have everything ready for it does not take long to cook so once you have that ready you are ready to go.

Take your wok and heat it until hot then add the oil, shallot, chilli, garlic and ginger and stir fry for a minute.  Then add the prawns and cook for another minute or two to allow them to start to turn pink. Then bank in the noodles and bean sprouts and stir fry to heat through.

Once your noodles are warm add the tamarind paste, fish sauce, soy sauce and lime juice and stir it all together making sure that everything gets a good to coating. Then last of all throw in the chopped coriander.

Now out on to a plate and then sprinkle with some crushed peanuts. No wonder it was voted number 5 in the world.