Vegetarian Phad Thai

After trying phad thai in a number of restaurants, my tasting buds have kind of settled on the taste of genuine phad thai. This recipe gave me the genuine taste of phad thai that is served in restros. The problem with cooking international cuisine in India is that many of the ingredients are very hard to find...well, the good news here is that all the ingredients that go into making phad thai are very easily available in India, though I am not too sure about bean sprouts, but I am sure that it can be found at Nilgiris or Spencers Daily [ with a little search of course].
We had this dish at home today, served with a banana milkshake on the side, also go ahead and try iced coffee instead.

Ingredients:

1. Phad Thai sauce[ see below]

2. 1/2 cup peanuts[ roasted and then ground]

3. 10 ozs noodles [ flat noodles is ideal though for this recipe I used the regular wheat noodles, it still tastes great]

4. a bunch of spring onions, cut fine

5. 1/2 an onion cut fine

5. 4 garlic pods, crushed/ minced

6. 1 cup bean sprouts

7. 1 cup tofu, cubed

8. a few coriander leaves, chopped fine

9. two eggs, whisked

10. salt to taste

1. First we make the sauce and this has to come out just right to give us the real phad thai taste.

For the sauce:

The trick to this recipe is getting the sauce just right.

1. 4 tablespoons soy sauce

2. 1 tablespoon tamarind paste, if using tamarind water, use quarter cup tamarind water

3. 2 teaspoons chilli sauce[ increase by one teaspoon if you want really spicy phad thai]

4. 6 tablespoons brown sugar

5. 6 tablespoons water/ 1/2 cup water

Mix all the above and boil slowly over a flame for not over 5 minutes till it acquires sauce consistency. The tamarind and the sugar would have blended well by now. Keep aside to let it cool.

2. Next boil water and when it is still hot turn off the flame and soak the noodles in it for 5-7 minutes. The noodles must be of al dente texture[ be careful not to make the noodles too soft or it will make the phad thai very messy when you stir fry the noodles]

3. Heat a pan, add a tablespoon of oil and quicky scramble the eggs, with a teaspoon of salt, remove from the flame and cool.

4. Put 4 tablespoons of oil in a pan and fry the onions, crushed garlic and carrots. Once the onions turn transparent, add the cubed tofu and shallow fry it till it turns light golden brown [ it may not be possible to turn the tofu completely golden without breaking it, this depends on the type of tofu that you are using, a light golden brown colour will do]

5. Once the tofu has become soft and light brown, add the noodles and bring the flame to medium. Add the prepared sauce a little at a timeand continue to stir fry the noodles. Add the scrambles eggs and the bean sprouts and continue to stir the noodles for 3-4 more minutes

6. Put on a plate and serve with ground peanuts, some more bean sprouts on the side, and with coriander and spring onions on the top.

Bon apetite!!!