Pad Thai Recipe (ผัดไทย) - Part Five: Making Pad Thai

In order for this final post in the Pad Thai recipe series to make sense (or become clear as to why it is sketchy or seems to leave out important details), it is assumed that all of the earlier posts have been read in their entirety. Therefore, if you have not done so, may I please invite you to visit the following posts before continuing?

Pad Thai Recipe Part One: The Pan - In this post, I discuss the importance of choosing the right type and size of Pad Thai pan to create the closest replica of what respectable Pad Thai stalls in Bangkok produce.
Pad Thai Recipe Part Two: The Noodles - In this post, I discuss the right type and size of noodles to use in this dish and how to prepare them.
Pad Thai Recipe Part Three: The Notable Ingredients - In this post, I introduce to you some of the ingredients and garnishes routinely used in street Pad Thai in Bangkok but often omitted at Thai restaurants overseas.
Pad Thai Recipe Part Four: Pad Thai Sauce and Seasonings - In this post, I share my favorite Pad Thai sauce recipe and discuss the seasoning of Pad Thai on and off the stove.

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Pad Thai Recipe (ผัดไทย) - Part Four: Pad Thai Sauce

In this good news-bad news scenario, I've already given you the bad news in Pad Thai Recipe - Part Two in which I opine that it's not the way Pad Thai is seasoned that makes or breaks it; it is how well or how badly the noodles are cooked. And what makes this bad news is that getting the noodles right happens to be the hardest part about Pad Thai. There are too many variables and too many scenarios generated by the combinations of these variables.

The key – and this will be addressed more fully in the final post in the series – is to use heat and moisture in such a way that you end up with well-seasoned noodles that are soft yet chewy and not clumpy, soggy, or tough. This sounds simple, but is not easy. But we’ll leave that for later.

Now the good news.

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Steamed Pumpkin Cake in the Style of Thai Khanom Tan (ขนมตาล)

In the midst of all the uncertainties in my childhood, there was one thing I was sure of: every Saturday at 10:00 am, on the dot, our doorbell would ring. And, unfailingly, the opened front gate would reveal a tiny old lady hawker, Pa ("Auntie") On, who always had on her face a huge grin that unveiled betel-stained teeth speckled with gold fillings and on her shoulder a bamboo stick on which two baskets full of traditional Thai desserts hung.^[1]

With its inhabitants always fully committed to buying enough of her various steamed treats in banana leaf packets to last them a week at a time, Pa On never had to wonder if she'd make a sale at this house. The moment she set her baskets down at the front gate, she knew someone would come out with a wallet and she would depart with her baskets weighing about half of what they did when she’d arrived.

This house was her Destination Unload Point.

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Century Egg Salad with Pork and Fresh Ginger (ยำไข่เยี่ยวม้า) -- with Video

This salad shows how some poverty and a lot of unpreparedness can result in something so great it's worth making again and again. There is a point I'd like to make, no, reiterate through the making of this quick main dish salad, but I will save that for a future post on the basic Thai salad dressing.

For now, let's just make this aesthetically-challenged dish that happens to be one of the most delicious things I have ever improvised.

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