Pad Thai

The start of the year has been so cold with so many snowy days. This winter has been the coldest in Britain for the last 3 decades. My snow excitement might have fizzled away as it's quite common to snow lately. How I wish it could be slightly warmer.

If I can't change the weather I can make my food spicier to ward off the Big Chill. So I decided to make Pad Thai tonite.

Pad Thai
Ingredients (for 3-4 persons)

• 300 gm dry pad thai rice noodles- soak in water for about 15minutes, drained.
  
• 500 gm bean sprouts
• 3 duck/chicken eggs-duck egg is tastier
• 50 gm chopped pickled turnip/radish
• 250 gm king prawns-de-shelled & de-veined
• 1/2 cup ground roasted peanut
• 5 cloves garlic-minced
• 1/2 cup vegetable cooking oil
• 3 tbsp sugar
• 3 tbsp fish sauce-nam pla
• 1 tbsp of tamarind paste+ 5 tbsp of water-make into tamarind juice
• 50 gm Chinese chives
• 2 shallots-chopped
• 2 green chillis- sliced (medium hot)
• 1 cake tofu bean curd-cut into smaller cubes

1. Heat 3 tbsp of oil in a frying pan and sautee garlic and shallots. When it is fragant, add the noodle and stir fry. Add just enough water to soften the noodle, continue to stir fry them to prevent noodle sticking to the pan. If you've a big pan, you can remove the noodle to aside, else remove them from pan.
2. Heat another 3 tbsp oil in the pan, when it is slightly smoky, add in the prawn, pickled turnip, tofu cubes and chillis. Stir fry for a minute or so. Return the noodle into the pan. Add in tamarind juice. Mix thoroughly.
3. Make some space on the pan to make the scramble eggs. Heat 2 tbsp of oil, when it is hot, break the 3 eggs and scramble them.When set, mix thoroughly with noodle. Add the bean sprouts and chives and off the heat immediately, this will prevent the sprouts and chives for being overcook. This will give you the crunchy bites of the bean sprouts.
   
4. Serve on a plate, garnish with ground peanut and chilli flakes.

Looking outside my window, it's quite pretty things cover in white........the tune of let it snow, let it snow, let it snow comes naturally.