3. Thailand: Pad Thai

Pad Thai (ผัดไทย) may not be the actual national dish of Thailand, but it's certainly the most famous one, and the dish that most people have when first exposed to Thai cuisine. Experts might point to Tom Yum Soup as the more revered national dish, and one that is more likely to be served in restaurants than Pad Thai, which is normally a street food.

But I'd never made Pad Thai on my own, and since it's one that my family knows and likes a lot, I decided to go with it for my Thailand entry. First, some Thai facts:

About Thailand

Capital City: Bangkok
Population: 66,720,153 (2011 estimate)
Language: Thai

I did a lot of research into Pad Thai before embarking on making it. Lots of recipes are out there, all of them different. I settled on this one, with some tiny modifications. I didn't use the pickled radish/turnip, because I couldn't find it. I skipped out on the tofu because at the last minute discovered I didn't have any and didn't feel like going to the store. Finally, I decided to omit the dried shrimp because the ones at my asian store still had shells on, and I was almost certain it would be a deal-breaker for my family.

Unfortunately, these three ingredients comprise an entire step in the process, so while I followed the "authentic recipe," I'm afraid my results were short of actually being authentic.

If you decide to make Pad Thai, here are some lessons I learned:

• Allow for at least an hour of prep time. 
• I recommend buying pre-shelled peanuts. Shelling peanuts and making sure the paper skin was off was easily the longest part of my prep.
• Get the real Chinese or garlic chive for this dish if you can! They taste much better than scallions in this context. If your Asian grocer is Vietnamese, look for something labelled Hẹ. It's the real thing!
• Have your mise-en-place set to go before you start cooking.
• Buy fresh shrimp, not pre-cooked. I bought fresh and was glad I did, even though I needed to take the shells off of each individual shrimp.
• Don't let fish sauce scare you, and unless you're a strict vegetarian, do not substitute out for it. It will not taste like pad thai.
• Don't substitute for the tamarind paste. Try your best to find it! It's also called tamarind concentrate, which is what I ended up buying.
• Get into a rhythm of adding ingredients. I made a list of steps and pinned it to just above my stove-top, where I could quickly refer to it during the process. By my fourth time through, I had it memorized and felt like I'd been making it for years.
• Depending on the size of your pan or wok, do either 1 or 2 portions at a time. Pad Thai isn't like a stew where you make the whole thing at once. Your portions will be much better if they are given appropriate individual care.

Now some necessary photos!

Sauce ingredients: fish sauce, tamarind paste and brown sugar	fresh rice stick noodles	Chinese or Garlic chives
my mise-en-place for the evening	My personalized instructions based on the recipe proved invaluable.	This is one portion being cooked!

And the final plating, nice and big:

This is definitely one of those dishes that even though I hold in such high regard, I don't think I'm going to make it again. More prep than I'm normally willing to do for a dish, it made my kitchen smell pretty bad for a couple of days, and my favorite restaurants can make it ten times better than I can.

Still, the finished product wasn't too bad. The family liked it, the wife was impressed, and it was a fun experience. Now I have to get to another southeast-Asian country to use up that fish sauce I bought!

Next country: Costa Rica. This is going to be fun! I love cooking Latin dishes.