As mentioned in previous recipes, our tastes are a bit on the Anglo side (Just sayin’) and I wanted a vegetarian pad Thai recipe I could live with. There are stacks of recipes on the ‘net, so I trawled through them to find one which would work for us. I experimented a bit but found that one of the, what appeared to me to be key, components was a taste that neither of us cared for ie tamarind paste. So I did a bit more experimenting and added a couple of bits that we like and what I came up with is the recipe below, which needless to say is sans tamarind paste and so it is not authentic pad Thai, thus it is Not Pad Thai – enjoy!
Ingredients
• 200gm rice noodles (pad Thai style),
• 2 eggs
• 4 cloves garlic (minced)
• 3 tbsp. onion (diced)
• 3 to 4 heads of baby bok choy (if you grow these at home, sometimes the leaves can get somewhat bitter. If so cut them off and use the white stalks, they work very well)
• I small carrot, julienned
• 1 cup peas
• 2 cups sliced mushrooms
• 2 to 3 cups bean sprouts (grow your own, learn how here)
• 2 spring onion leaves (sliced)
• 3 to 4 tbsp. oil
Ingredients for the Not Pad Thai Sauce:
• 1/4 cup vegetable stock (or my vegetarian chicken stock powder, made up)
• 3 1/2 tbsp. soy sauce
• 1/2 to 1 tsp. chili sauce
• 3 tbsp. brown sugar
Method
1. Bring water to the boil in a saucepan and add the noodles, stir with a fork to separate, boil for 6 minutes and then drain and run under cold water.
2. Make up the Not Pad Thai sauce and stir well to dissolve the sugar and set aside.
3. Whisk the raw eggs with a fork and cook in a hot wok scrambling until the egg has formed slightly browned pieces – set aside.
4. add the oil to a hot wok, then add the onion and garlic, stir fry for 1 – 2 minutes until fragrant.
5. add in the bok choi, carrot, peas and mushrooms and stir fry for 2 – 3 minutes.
6. add in the egg and stir fry for another 2 minutes.
7. add in the drained noodles, followed by 1/3 of the sauce and stir fry.
8. keep adding the sauce and stir frying for 3 – 6 minutes until the noodles are soft but still chewy.
9. Turn off the heat, add bean sprouts and sliced spring onion leaves, toss and serve.
Serves 2 – 3 depending on how hungry you are!
