Vegetarian Pad Thai

Pad Thai is the national dish of Thailand. It is believed to have started its life as pho in neighboring Vietnam. Once it was imported to Thailand it was modified to suit thai tastes. It is a popular street food and is available in restaurants all over the world. Phad Thai is stir fried rice noodles and vegetables in Pad Thai sauce.

This used to be my husband's go to dish in Thai restaurants. I always found it spicy. Whenever I make it I cut down on the spices. I also cut down on the peanuts as my daughter does not care for them.

Fish sauce and tamarind give the sauce its classic taste. Recently, I read that fermented bean curd is a good substitute for fish sauce. I don't use fish sauce so I tried to make the Pad Thai sauce using fermented bean curd in place of fish sauce. Before mixing it with the other ingredients I did a taste test with the family. My husband did not care for the taste and my daughter thought it was too sour because she does not care for tamarind. The soy sauce and lime juice based recipe got 5 stars on the taste test. I figured it was better to cook something everyone liked. So I went with the recipe given below.

You will need
8 oz. rice noodles
2 carrots
1/2 onion
2-3 pods garlic
8 oz. extra firm tofu
5-6 shitake mushrooms
small bunch chives
2 scallion

For the sauce
4 tbsp. soy sauce
4 tbsp. light brown sugar
2 limes (you could use 1 tbsp. tamarind paste)
1/4 cup water

For the garnish
10-15 roasted unsalted peanuts (you can crush then if you like)
10 chives, chopped
1 scallion, chopped

To make the sauce
Cook all the ingredients for about 10 minutes on medium heat stirring occasionally. Turn off heat and keep aside.

Chop the onion. Crush the garlic. Wash, peel and cut carrots into matchsticks. Slice the tofu and the mushrooms. Chop the chives and scallion. In a pan fry the tofu in 2 tbsp. olive oil until brown. Take it out of the pan and cut it into pieces.

Heat olive oil in a pan and saute the onion on high heat.

Next add the garlic and carrots and saute until the carrots are cooked but crunchy.

Prepare rice noodles as per package instructions. Mine had to be boiled in water for 8 minutes. Some rice noodle have to be soaked in cold water. Drain the water once the noodles are al dente (cooked but not mushy) and keep aside.

Add the mushrooms and tofu to the pan with onions and carrots.

Add the noodles and the sauce to the pan along with chopped chives and scallion. Mix well.

To serve put the Pad Thai in a bowl and garnish with peanuts, scallion and chives.

Serve hot.

This is my entry for week one, day three of BM #37 for the theme National Dish. Check out the Blogging Marathon page for the other Blogging Marathoners doing BM#37.