I should start by saying I love Thai food and I have no Asian heritage whatsoever.  My first introduction to Thai food as a teenager was at a local restaurant with my parents, and Pad Thai was what I ordered. Wow my taste buds went crazy! I loved it and it was so different than anything I had tried… The fish sauce, cilantro, and even the glassy rice noodles were a taste and texture explosion. I could not wait to go back and try it again, and I wanted to taste everything on the menu.

I started poking around with recipes and investigating ingredients. It turned out I could make my own Pad Thai with shrimp with relatively mainstream ingredients as long as I went and procured the signature flavor… The fish sauce. And they had it in the grocery store, lucky me!  So I started making my own and tweaking it each time until it was just the way I liked it.

Years later, my work was running an awareness campaign for the Asian Pacific American Forum, which is a network that supports and provides networking opportunities for Asian pacific Americans at work. There are similar organizations for women, African Americans, Hispanics, veterans, gay / lesbians, you name it. The awareness campaign was a recipe contest, and you could enter for different categories like soup, side dish, chicken, fish, beef, etc. so I entered my Pad Thai.  I was sure I had no chance of winning, not only because there we’d so many entries but I sensed that my tweaks had made it less ‘authentic’ somehow. I was one of 5 winners, and I was shocked.  My recipe was made and judged by a panel.  I won 100 bucks and they made my recipe in the work cafeteria with all the other Asian recipe winners with my name posted large and bright.  I was definitely the only white winner.

I was very proud, and will never forget the honor to have won. Enjoy my take on ‘probably not very authentic but nonetheless delicious’ award-winning Pad Thai.

Shrimp Pad Thai

January 18, 2021

by Adrienne

Cuisine thai

Category Recipe Blog

Persons

4

Ingredients

• 4 tbsp peanut oil
• 1 tbsp crushed garlic
• 1 pound raw shrimp / prawns, cleaned
• 2 eggs, lightly beaten
• ½ pound flat rice noodles, cooked as directed until al dente
• 1 cup purple cabbage, chopped
• ¼ cup chopped cilantro (if you hate cilantro, arugula works too)
• ¼ cup peanuts, chopped
• 4 scallions, thinly sliced
• 2 limes, cut into wedges
• Sauce:
• 3 tbsp. water
• ¼ cup fish sauce
• 3 tbsp. ketchup
• 2 tbsp. sugar
• ½ chop chopped tomato (DON’T use more than this, as it will change the flavor of the sauce)

Instructions

• Make the sauce by mixing the water, fish sauce, ketchup, sugar and tomatoes in a bowl. Set aside.
• Heat a saucepan of high heat. Add 2 tbsp peanut oil, garlic and shrimp and cook until the shrimp are opaque. Remove the shrimp from the pan with tongs or a slotted spoon and reserve on a plate. DO NOT clean the pan. Add 2 remaining tbsp. peanut oil, reduce the heat to medium, and scramble eggs until cooked but still tender. Add sauce and noodles to the pan and toss until well-mixed. Add purple cabbage and shrimp and mix again. Place on a serving platter or individual plates and garnish with cilantro, peanuts, scallions and lime wedges.
• Note: You can easily replace the shrimp with chicken tenders (I pound, cut into 1-inch pieces) if shrimp is not your thing.
• Another note: Purple cabbage turns everything blue when you save these as a leftover. This dish is WONDERFUL leftover but it may look horrible in your refrigerator… if it’s just the next day, it’s probably fine even if it looks blue and crazy.

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https://urbandreamer.org/2021/01/pad-thai/

Another note:  Purple cabbage turns everything blue when you save these as a leftover.  This dish is WONDERFUL leftover but it may look horrible in your refrigerator… if it’s just the next day, it’s probably fine even if it looks blue and crazy.