birthday phad thai

Last week, this boy had a birthday. We made some Thai food - green curry and phad thai, yum! - and I made an apple crumble for dessert, his favorite. An odd combination, but sometimes our favorites don't go together. :)

I used some recipes from the cooking class I had in Bangkok last year. Here's the one for Phad Thai (courtesy of the Silom Thai cooking school):

PHAD THAI
(easy and so good! This serves just 1-2, so I quadrupled it, which changes the measurements a bit, but it's very forgiving so just go to taste on most things.)

Ingredients:
100 grams of rice noodles - presoak in warm water until soft, drain
5 medium sized prawns
2 TBS vegetable oil
1/4 cup chive or green onion, cut into small pieces
1 TBS palm sugar or brown sugar
2 tsp fish sauce (or for vegetarian, use soy sauce)
1 egg
1/2 cup raw bean sprouts (or cabbage)
1 TBS minced garlic
1 TBS minced shallot
1/3 cup extra firm tofu, cut in 1 cm strips
1 TBS tamarind paste (or white vinegar)
1 TBS picked white radish, finely chopped (if you can find it, at an Asian market. Dried also works)
1 TBS ground roasted peanut or cashew
1 pinch red chili powder
1/2 lime

Preparation:
1. In a wok or large sauce pan, heat the oil over low heat, add garlic and shallot and fry until fragrant.
2. Add prawns, tofu, beansprouts, onions/chives, stir until prawns are cooked.
3. Crack the egg straight into the wok, stir rapidly until it becomes cooked and scrambled.
4. Add noodles and season with fish sauce, sugar, tamarind paste and pickled white radish. Mix everything together. Keep frying.
5. When the noodles become softened and translucent, remove from heat.
6. Top with ground peanuts and chili powder. Season to taste. Squeeze the lime over the noodles.
Yum! (Photo from my cooking class)