Thai cooking with Joy recipe:
Phad Thai – ” ผัดไทย “
A stir fried rice noodle dish found on literally every single night market in Thailand. Phad Thai is a real street food classic. It is pretty much a national dish, though not with a very long history. It became popular in Thailand during, and after world war II.
The recipe shown here is with the original preparation of the Tamarind Sauce, like taught in our Thai cooking lessons with Joy. It is possible to substitute this with the commonly available Tamarind paste.
Recently the Tourism Authority of Thailand published a video about this popular Thai dish:
The phase pictures in the recipe show preparing the sauce for about 4 portions at once, while the phase pictures for the Phad Thai itself show the preparation for only one portion. To have a good result, please don’t do more than one portion at a time or the noodles will stick together.

Servings |
People
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- 2 tsp. salt
- Red onions
- Tamarind
- 1 cup Water
- 6 tblsp. Palm sugar
- 2 tblsp. Cooking oil
- 8 cloves garlic
- 4 Eggs
- 8 tblsp. Cooking oil
- 120 g Rice noodles
- Cabbage or
- Bean Sprouts
- Carrots
- 5 tblsp. Soy sauce
- 200 g Meat / Prawns If you are doing Phad Thai with meat: Heat cooking oil in the wok and fry the meat until almost cooked first. Here we show Phad Thai Goong (Shrimp) which have a shorter cooking time and so are added later.
Ingredients
Phad Thai Sauce
Phad Thai
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- Mix tamarind with some water and use only the liquid, like learned in the cooking course, put aside. On the pic are the ingredients: Tamarind and the finished Tamarind Sauce, Palm Sugar, Red Onions and Salt.
- Heat cooking oil in a pot and fry the red onions in it until golden brown.
- Add tamarind sauce, palm sugar and salt. Mix well.
- Add water, bring to boil and put aside
- Ingredients
- Fry the garlic and add the egg(s) and stir until a little solid.
- Add Phad Thai Sauce with the noodles. Make sure that the Phad Thai sauce covers the noodles. Bring to boil and let it simmer until the noodles are cooked. At this point most of the liquid should have evaporated
- Add Cabbage and Carrots. Mix well.
- Add prawns, bean sprouts and chives. Stir well. Add soy sauce and be careful not to overcook the prawns.
- Ready to serve
I stopped at a Thai market in Portland before we head back. All of the items that would have been a trick were readily available. Were stocked up!
Hi, thank you for the recipe.
I have two questions:
How much tamarind do we need? And, what do you mean by “ Mix tamarind with some water and use only the liquid”?
Many thanks!
Thanks for the question.
Joy’s advice:
About 50g which you mix with a cup of water. Mix and squeeze it with your hands. If it’s too thick put more water in. Then take the Tamarind pieces, especially the seeds out and use only the liquid. Of course the best is doing a cooking class with me on Koh Tao but I’m aware that this is not possible for everyone 😉
The tamarind flesh is stuck to the seed and the other strands (inedible). When you soak them in water, ideally for 10-15 mins, the flesh will loosen up from the other inedible parts. And you can squeeze it so you can have all the tamarind mixing with the water..which here means ‘use only the liquid’
This only applies for unprocessed Tamarind that you get in a local market, which has not been cleaned and deeseeded.
Is there a trick to cooking rice noodles? Mine end up as a glommy brick.
Thanks for the question. Joy says: Soak the rice noodles in water until they separate. When you cook with them try to stir as little as possible and try not to put too much Phad Thai sauce in.
I’m cooking this tonight but I would like to receive information on your cooking class. I assume it is on line and is for Thai cooking.
Thank you,
Hi David,
we’re doing online cooking classes exclusively for “The Chef and The Dish”. Click here for the listing of Chef Joy