Shrimp Pad Thai

I first ate a Shrimp Pad Thai at a restaurant a few years ago. It was really delicious, but somehow I never tried to make one myself until now. I looked at many recipes online, but somehow they were not exactly what I was looking for, so I decided to make my own, but keeping some of the classic elements of a Pad Thai.

There are a few ingredients that may not be a staple in your pantry if you don’t cook Asian food on a regular, so I will include a list with some links at the bottom of the page.

Ingredients:

• 19-20 shrimps
• 2 scallions
• 1/2 red onion
• 1/2 carrot
• 2 tbsp ghee
• 5 cloves of garlic
• 160g rice noodles(weigh before cooking)
• 2 tbsp tamarind paste
• 3 tbsp fish sauce
• 2 tsp coconut sugar
• 4 tbsp water
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 green chili (or any kind of fresh chili)
• a handful of roasted peanuts

Method:

1. Prep the shrimp. In my case I had to peel them and remove the vein. I kept 10 whole and the others I chopped into smaller pieces.
2. Prep the sauce. In a bowl mix the tamarind, fish sauce and coconut sugar. You can add the water now, or later. I added it directly in the pan.
3. Prep the noodles: Follow the indications on the pack. Usually for rice noodles, you have to add them to a bowl and pour hot water on top of them. I left mine for 6 mins, after that I drained them and added a touch of sesame oil so that they don’t stick to each other.
4. I diced the red onion, thinly sliced the scallion and cut the carrot julienne.
5. Let’s get cooking. On medium heat, add the ghee in a wok/pan, and when hot, add the whole shrimps in. I then added 2 minced cloves of garlic and sautéed them together for a few minutes. Once they are cooked – pink and juicy – remove them from the pan and add the red onion.
6. Cook the red onion for 2-3 minutes and add the rest of the minced garlic. When the garlic is nice and fragrant, add the carrot. Cook for 2-3 minutes.
7. Add the chopped shrimp and then the whites of the scallions. Stir them up and then it is time to add the sauce. After I pour the sauce in the pan, I also add the water. I finely chopped half of a green chilli and added that in as well. The best part of shrimps is that they cook very fast, so by this time the chopped shrimp should be cooked already. At this point I added the salt. You can taste it first and adjust the salt level as you like.
8. Add the noodles on top of everything and mix them together. Make sure that all the noodles are covered.
9. I chopped the peanuts with a big knife and now it is time to plate everything. I added the noodles and garlic shrimps in a plate, garnished with scallions and peanuts (don’t skip the peanuts, they just complete the dish, not only in flavour, but also in texture).

The quantities above make two portions.

This is one of my favorite shrimp dishes, and it is also quite fast to make. Let me know if you try it out, and if you follow me on Instagram, you will most probably find the video version there too.

Enjoy!