I love Pad Thai but hate the fishy smell that the fish sauce lends to the dish. So once I naively asked my server to omit the fish sauce and the resulting dish tasted totally different and was much sweeter than any Pad Thai I have ever had. So I resigned myself to not ordering this dish and just sighing loudly whenever I saw it on the menu.
That is until I came across Chez Pim 's blog, she posted Pad Thai for beginners. And when I read that article I realized that I could easily adapt this to my taste sans the fish sauce and still maintain the flavor balance of the dish. So thanks to Chez Pim, I can now enjoy a hot steaming plate of Pad Thai whenever I want.
I omitted the fish sauce and substituted it with some soy sauce, some extra lime juice, a tad bit of salt ( as the fish sauce contributes to the saltiness of the dish ) and a little bit of chili peppers. Once you assemble all the components of the dish, you can make this dish in under 5 minutes. The Pad Thai sauce is the main component of this dish, once you get its taste right you can be assured of a properly balanced and flavorful Pad Thai.
Even though I have given measurements for the sauce, use it as a guideline as we all have different taste-buds and you should check the taste of your sauce and adjust it accordingly. Pim describes the sauce to lead with a salty flavor, followed with a mild sourness, then just a little sweetness and lastly a mild burn from the chili at the back of your throat. She also mentions that even though you can make Pad Thai to feed a crowd, you should cook no more that one to two portions at a time in the wok, just like they do on the streets of Bangkok. If you need to make more than two portions, cook them one at a time, wiping the wok clean between each session. I mentioned wok a lot, but you can cook it in a large saucepan as well. For those in India you can use a kadai too.
I omitted the eggs, you can add it if you want. Just push the lightly browned tofu, noodles and sauce to one side of the pan and crack the egg directly into the wok, let it set for 15-20 seconds and then mix everything together. Also the pickled radish is optional. It adds an interesting texture to the dish. This dish does not disappoint. its many flavors meld together to create the perfect Pad Thai.
Pad Thai/Phat Thai
