Shrimp and Tofu Pad Thai

2010-6-25

Pad Thai with Shrimp and Tofu

I made this for some friends from church, four of seven members of a family were attending. I had promised another couple I'd make some Pad Thai for them. And, there are four of us in our family. So, with a total of five adults and four children and with no specific knowledge of everyone's appetites, I wanted to make plenty for everyone to eat.

I basically doubled the recipe from the last time I made Pad Thai, on June 4th. Last time, I made Tofu Pad Thai; this time, Shrimp and Tofu Pad Thai. Be not surprised that I'm going to copy much of the text from the last time I blogged on this dish. If you'd like to refer to my last blog post about Pad Thai, go here.

Some changes I made from the last time I made Pad Thai include: 1. the addition of shrimp; 2. using a red onion (instead of a sweet onion); and 3. the difference in cooking time of the rice noodles. Do NOT wait until the soup (with the noodles in it) are boiling and start counting five minutes after that. Cook the noodles for a total of five minutes, on high, regardless of whether the soup is boiling or not. Otherwise, when the noodles cook too long, they break fairly easily.

Ingredients:

• 2 14 oz package of rice noodles (Thai style - Pho)
• 1 14 oz package of firm tofu
• 6 eggs, lightly beaten with chicken broth added
• 8 green onions - rinsed, whites separated from the greens - whites cut extremely thin and greens cut roughly half an inch. Used a combination of store bought green onions and onions from my dad's garden.
  
• 1 red onion, cut very thin
• 8 minced garlic cloves
• chicken broth - roughly half a box - 16 oz.
  
• water - approximately double the amount of chicken broth
  
• olive oil - just enough to caramelize the onion, stir fry the eggs and the tofu; all individually
• lime - cut into wedges
• fresh bean sprouts - rinsed - roughly three handfuls for cooking and more to serve when ready to eat
• 48-50 crushed cashews

for the sauce:

• 6 tbsp (tablespoons) soy sauce
• 4 tbsp tamarind paste
  
• 6 tbsp fish sauce
• 4 tsp (teaspoons) chili powder
• 6 tbsp cane sugar
• 2 tbsp rice vinegar
• 4 tbsp oyster sauce

Directions:

• Mix the ingredients for the sauce in a bowl and set aside.
• Soak the rice noodles in hot water and set aside.
• In a pan, with some olive oil and some minced garlic on low medium heat, once the garlic sizzles for a bit, cook the onion until it starts turning clearish and then set aside in a bowl (leave any juices and oil from cooking the onion in the pan).
• In the same pan, add a bit more garlic, leaving the stove on lower medium heat. Like the previous step, with until the garlic is sizzling and cook the lightly beaten eggs that were mixed with some chicken broth. Once done, put in a bowl and set aside.
• In the same pan, add some more minced garlic and olive oil. Like the preceding three steps, wait until the garlic is sizzling and then drop in the cut tofu, adding some soy sauce (a few tablespoons?). Cook for a few minutes and then set that aside in a bowl of its own.
• Drain the rice noodles.
• In a large pot - drop in the rice noodles, water, chicken broth, the remainder of the minced garlic, the whites of the green onions - on high heat. Make sure there's enough water and chicken broth that the noodles are barely submerged. Once the mixture has been boiling for 5 minutes (be careful not to wait too long, or the noodles will start breaking quite easily), add the sauce mixture, caramelized onion, eggs, tofu, three-ish hands-full of bean sprouts, and the green parts of the green onion. Stir well. Right before serving, add in the shrimp, stir well; the Pad Thai is ready to serve with fresh bean sprouts, crushed cashews, and lime wedges.

***

Photo details of this recipe are as follows:


Ingredients

1 package of firm tofu, 20 jumbo raw shrimp, 6 eggs (beaten with some chicken broth), 2 14 oz packages of Pho rice noodles.



Also needed: olive oil (just enough to cook the red onion), a fair amount of chicken broth, loads of water.


Also needed: 8 cloves of garlic, a medium sized red onion, 8 green onions. Oh, and bean sprouts are needed.


Condiments. These go on each individual plate, when ready to serve and eat. Ingredients needed: bean sprouts, cashews (peanuts are fine as well), lime wedges.



Sauce. Seven ingredients are necessary for this: 1. fish sauce, 2. tamarind paste, 3. chili powder, 4. soy sauce,


5. cane sugar, 6. rice vinegar, 7. oyster sauce.


The process:

Peel and mince the garlic. Thank goodness for my garlic press.


Drain the tofu of the water. Cut into small squares or rectangles. My husband cut the tofu into small squares.

Break six eggs into a bowl. Gently beat. Add some chicken broth and mix well.


Preparing and Cooking the Pad Thai - The Final Steps

1. I cooked (pan fried) four ingredients separately. I caramelized the red onion and set that aside (leaving any juice in the pan) in a bowl. In the same pan (I didn't wash the pan after every use), I added a bit of garlic and cooked the shrimp. Once the shrimp was done, I set that aside, leaving any juices in the pan. Add some garlic to the pan and cook the eggs. Whilst cooking the eggs, I added some sea salt and red pepper flakes. Once done, set aside. Add a bit of olive oil and garlic to the pan and cook the tofu. Add in soy sauce and let the tofu simmer for several minutes. Then set the tofu aside.

2. Assemble and stir the ingredients for the sauce in a bowl of its own. Set aside when done.

3. I had to use a large stock pot to make sure I could accommodate all these goodies. Probably made 20-30 servings, after all. In the stock pot, insert the rice noodles (I pulled the rice noodles out of the water; add fresh water), add in loads of water and about half the amount of chicken broth.

Also add in the remainder of the garlic as well as the green onions. Turn the stove on high.


After a few minutes of the having the stove turned on high, add to the pot: eggs (which were set aside), about three to four hands full of bean sprouts,

tofu, onion, and sauce - all of which have been set aside in separate bowls. When ready to eat, at the last minute, add the shrimp to the pot and mix well with other contents.



4. On each individual plate, for serving, add a lime wedges, fresh (uncooked) bean sprouts, and crushed cashews (I don't have any photographs available of a bowl full of crush cashews).

***

Here, again, is the finished product.



The eight and ten year old guests repeatedly said just how tasty the dish was.