I Cracked the Code on Pad Thai

What's up, dude? I've always wanted to make pad thai that's just as good as my favorite takeout spot, and I think I finally cracked it. So without further ado, let's make us some pad thai. Now let's go! Now, quick disclaimer before we begin. A lot of the recipes I post here on YouTube, I try to keep things relatively simple so it's easy for you to recreate. This is not one of them. As a chef of 20 years, these kind of recipes are really exciting for me, so I'm just giving myself this one. And I'll tell you what, I did an immense amount of research watching Thai chefs make pad thai in Thailand, everything from Michelin star chefs to street cooks, and I learned a lot. So without further ado, let's try to make some absolutely bangin' pad thai here in America. And we're gonna start by making this incredible pad thai sauce. Here's how you do it. I loaded up my wok with peanut oil and brought the temperature up to 350 Fahrenheit, and I'll start by dropping in all my thinly sliced shallots, and we're gonna cook these until they're nice and golden brown and crunchy. And after eight to 10 minutes, depending on the heat of your oil and how much onions you use, they will be nice and golden brown and crispy. Get them out on a paper towel and you're good to go. Next, I'm gonna fry up some tofu the exact same way. This just took about five minutes until it was nice and golden brown. I drained it off on some paper towel, then just hit it with a little bit of flaky salt and set it to the side. Now, to build this pad thai sauce, you want tamarind puree, and specifically a Thai one and not an Indian one. The Thai version is definitely a little bit lighter in color and not as intense as the Indian version. The Indian ones are super thick and black and concentrated. You could still probably make good pad thai with it, but you would definitely need to reduce the amount. I'll put a link for the one I use in the description if you really wanna make this. So into a pot it goes over medium-high heat, and I'm just gonna add a little splash of water to get the rest of that out. Now, once it comes to a boil like that, we're gonna add some white vinegar, just plain white vinegar. Then I'll reduce the heat a little bit, and I'm just gonna start adding in palm sugar. I ordered that online. I'll put a link for that as well. It's absolutely delicious and used in a lot of Thai recipes. In it goes. We're also gonna cut it with a little bit of white sugar. Just give that a nice little mix until this sugar melts in and it's all smooth again. Once that sugar's dissolved, I'm gonna turn the heat off, and I'm gonna add in my fish sauce. Just give that one more little mix. And last but certainly not least, we're adding in most of our onions. I'm saving a little bit of these for garnish, but onions go in, and I'll tell you what, the flavor that these add to the sauce is absolutely ridiculous. And all we're gonna do now is give it one more little final taste for seasoning. So pad thai should be sweet, sour, and salty with a nice healthy balance of each. You know, some people like it a little more sweet, some a little more sour, some a little more salty. For me, this just needs a little more salt. Fish sauce is our salt here, so I'm just gonna keep adding like a couple teaspoons at a time, and then just re-tasting this till I get it to that salt level I like, but it tastes really great already. Just needs a little more salt. All you gotta do now is cool this down, stick it in a jar, put it in your fridge. It will last for a very long time in there. Now, for these rice noodles, you want these medium-sized flat rice noodles, and the best way to do this is to do a slow soaking. And by that, I mean just cover them in cold water and let them sit there for a few hours. If you're in a rush, you could definitely use some like lukewarm water and probably accelerate that to an hour, but for the best texture, you really wanna do that slow soaking. And when they're done, they should just easily bend over your finger like this without snapping or breaking. They're not cooked right now, but they're just softened. Now, before moving on, if you've been looking for the most convenient way to get the best coffee, well, then this is it. Because our sponsor Trade is a coffee subscription that matches you with coffee based on your actual taste. The beauty of Trade is that every bag is roasted to order by local roasters across the country and delivered right to your doorstep. I've been using Trade for two years now, and I've genuinely loved every single bag they've sent me. They just don't miss. 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And for that, you're gonna need some thinly sliced shallots and garlic, a couple traditional but optional ingredients for you. If you wanna leave these out, you can. There's cured salted radish, which is a traditional ingredient in pad thai, little bit of chili powder if you want it spicy. And we also have bean sprouts and green onions that we'll go in later. And then for garnish, we have lime, more bean sprouts and roasted chopped peanuts. We're gonna start by getting this wok really hot. I don't have a wok burner here, so you wanna overcompensate because there's gonna be a loss of heat when we put all these ingredients in. Now, the first thing we're gonna do is add a healthy amount of oil to our wok. We need this oil to combine with the sauce that we made. And all I've done with my shrimp here is season them up nicely. Just a little salt. We're just gonna fry these off first. Just about 90 seconds, and we'll give them a flip. Same deal on the other side. Now, I'm gonna get these shrimp out onto a little plate. I don't wanna leave them in here because they'll definitely overcook. Now, here we go, my friends, starting with shallot. And we'll throw in that garlic right after. Our radish. Another 15 seconds, and we're gonna add in our soaked noodles. And then we'll immediately go in with our sauce. These noodles cook really quick once soaked, so you do not wanna hesitate here. Just a minute with the sauce. Now, we're adding our bean sprouts and our green onion. Shrimp back in. Little toss. Another 30 seconds, and you see that everything's starting to wilt. Now, we'll add in our tofu. That's completely cooked, so we just need to quickly toss it in. Little chili powder if you want it spicy. I meant to add that earlier, but it's all right. Now, push to the side, and we're gonna add a little more oil over here. Tilt the pan back, eggs go in. And we don't wanna mix too early, so we're gonna keep that pan tilted and just cook our eggs over here. And once they're scrambled like so, we can go ahead and toss everything together one final time. Boom, whole process only takes a few minutes, and we'll go ahead and plate it up before any more cooking takes place. Noodles are looking perfect. Now, a little pile of sprouts here. Big pile of peanuts right over there. Lime on the side, and there is your pad thai done, my friends. All right, there we go. Piece of cake. Marcus, pad thai, dude. I'm just gonna go, I'm gonna get a shrimp just like. You're going straight shrimp? I'm going fat, shrimpy bite. I have tail on this shrimp, just so you know. Here we go, look at that. Noodles together. I need another bite. I don't know what pad thai's supposed to taste like. This tastes good. I, on the other hand, am a pad thai connoisseur. I've always loved pad thai. Here in Austin, there's a few places I go to get it. One of my favorites is Kine D, although they messed it up last time. It was too saucy. That, for me, is like, I'm not trying to toot my own horn here to like the Thai restaurants, but that's like a level above what I've had at most Thai restaurants here in Austin, and I'm not just saying that. It's really good pad thai, and I think it really boils down to that pad thai sauce. You know, if you want to make this as well, you can use chicken. Chicken would be good. You tried the lady in the tramp, man. It's sticky, it's sour, it's sweet, it's salty. It's got everything I love from a good pad thai, so this is an absolute win, and I hope some of you will actually make it. Make it.