Saturday 19 May 2012

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Photo / Jess Daniell

For an easy, healthy (ish) weeknight dinner, check out Jess's recipe for a standout Pad Thai...

This Pad Thai, full of flavour, at least hints at being healthy. I added mange tout to up the five-a-day count and lots of crunchy beansprouts to give the dish a fresh lift. It has all the classic elements of a tasty Thai meal: hot, salty, sour and sweet, with lashings of fragrant coriander to finish. Chicken, prawns, tofu; whatever your protein of choice it will work well with these flavours. I used flat rice noodles and egg noodles because I had half packets of each, and it was a surprisingly good mix - the noodles weren't too heavy and didn't 'glue' together.

While it's not technically an authentic Pad Thai without tamarind, you're likely to have a fair amount of the ingredients below already in your store cupboard and a quick trip to the supermarket will see you pick up anything you're missing.

Method
First tip: get all of your ingredients ready first, even the sauces, because you're going to need to cook this fast. And second tip: don't use olive oil, even if you think it's the healthiest oil. It's far too heavy for this dish and the flavour of the oil itself will overpower the delicate Asian notes. I used sunflower oil because I had it in the cupboard, but a groundnut or rapeseed oil will also work well.

Heat 2-3tbsp oil in a wok until it's hot and smoking. Add 2 beaten eggs and quickly fry until the omlette is just cooked. Remove and set aside for later. Add a little more oil to the pan, then your prawns (or other protein) along with 2 cloves sliced garlic and 1-2 sliced chillies (depending how hot you like it). Stirfry over high heat until the prawns are just pink. Add noodles (pre-soaked/cooked and drained thoroughly if you're using dry noodles) and stirfry for 30secs. Add the juice of one lemon, 3tbsp fish sauce, 1tsp brown sugar and stirfry for another minute, moving the noodles around the wok constantly. Add chopped mange tout, spring onions and a handful of fresh beansprouts. Stirfry for 30secs longer. Turning off the heat, add a few splashes of light soy sauce, some more fish sauce if needed (season to taste) and juice of one lime. Add the cooked omlette cut/torn into pieces, roughly chopped roasted peanuts, chopped coriander, dried chilli flakes if you want a heat hit and extra crunchy beansprouts on top. Serve with lime wedges and extra chilli.

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