Pad Thai

"Pad Thai" ( ผัดไทย ) is a popular street food dish made from rice noodles with meat or prawns, eggs and tofu. All of this is seasoned with a sauce made from tamarind, fish sauce, chilli and lime juice, which gives the dish its characteristic sweet and sour flavour. Pad Thai is typically served with ground peanuts, fresh sprouts and coriander.

The dish has an exciting history, as it was first popularised under the name ‘Pad Thai’ in the late 1930s. The then Prime Minister Luang Phibul Songkhram declared the dish, which had arrived in the country in a similar form with Chinese immigrants a long time ago, to be the national dish. On the one hand, this was intended to counteract a rice shortage, and on the other, the dish was supposed to give the then still young nation a common cultural identity.

Recipes

• hot-thai-kitchen.com
• hungryinthailand.com
• Cooking with Poo P. 86
• Pok Pok P. 221