Making Pad Thai

Yesterday evening I attended Heidi Fink's Truly Thai at Home Advanced cooking class and brought home another booklet full of recipes. As always, I learned a ton of information and came home excited about trying out all the recipes for myself.

Heidi made Tom Kha Gai for us which is Thai Chicken Soup with Coconut Milk. What impressed me the most about this soup is that it seems quick to prepare- you don't need to use homemade stock to make it taste great and the ingredients are simmered in the broth to add flavour and strained half way through. Thin strips of chicken breast are added towards the end and simmered just until the chicken is tenderly cooked.

What I enjoyed even more was the Pad Thai. It's the healthiest tasting Pad Thai I've ever had. It's not too sweet and is so much more then just fried rice noodles (which is what Pad Thai sometimes tastes like). As promised, this is the first recipe I tried out, making it for dinner tonight for Jeremy and I.

The key to this recipe is tamarind paste and a balance of tofu, prawns, dried shrimp, peanuts, bean sprouts, scallions and cilantro. No ketchup. It took no more then an hour to make and was so much better the Food Court in Cook Street Village (sorry). And, we both have lunch tomorrow.