Beef Pad Thai

When Joe and I first met I was 23 and ate like a 4 year old. I was picky, picky, picky. Joe, being a prep chef at the time was horrified that I would order chicken tenders and French fries - ok, ok stop laughing.

Over the years I've branched out and pad thai is one of my favorite dishes. However, Asian cooking scares the you know what out of me and I suppose I had never had pad thai that was so good I wanted to go through the trouble of making at home.

And then came pad thai from Thanh Truc in Woodbury. It's a teeny little place but has the best food. We went there for the first time back in March and I had their chicken pad thai which was good but about a month ago we went back and I had their beef pad thai and it was too die for.

I had found a couple recipes on Pinterest and finally decided I was going to attempt this. I mashed these recipes together to make my own and it is almost as good as take out. The recipes I had my inspiration from are here (I actually own her cookbook - fabulous!) and here.

The way I've adapted it, I can actually find all of the ingredients in the normal grocery store, although you may have to spend some time looking. The key to this is make everything ahead of time - the sauce, the meat, chop veggies, etc. That way, when it comes time to actually cook, you are just throwing stuff in the wok. Also, make 1 serving at a time - this will not work if you try to make a huge batch in the wok. Finally, the sauce will be salty when you taste it alone. Trust me, it's ok. When you add all of the other ingredients you won't notice it.

Servings 4ish
Ingredients
Sauce - I actually double this when I make it...the sauce will stay good for about a month in the fridge
1/3 cup brown sugar
1/3 fish oil
1/2 cup Tamarind juice
1 tsp chili powder

Pad Thai
1 section rice noodles
green onions
carrots
cilantro
garlic
red onion
bean sprouts
Thin beef steak or chicken breasts - about 1 lb of each

The bag comes with 3 bunches - use 1 bunch at a time

Directions
Boil pot of water for noodles. When it comes to a boil, put in 1 bunch of noodles - seriously, just drop it in. Cook it for 4 minutes (yes, only 4!), drain and rinse with cold water. Take kitchen shears and randomly cut the noodles so they're easier to work with.

Combine brown sugar, fish oil, tamarind juice and chili powder is a small pan. Heat over medium heat, stirring constantly until it thickens a bit. Remove from the stove and put in another container off to the side

Cook the beef (or chicken) until cooked thoroughly. Set off to the side, let cool and then chop.

Chop carrots in a match-stick style, chop green onion, red onion and cilantro. Combine together in a bowl.

Heat wok with oil and spray with some cooking spray. Add some red onion and 1/2 tsp minced garlic and cook until the onion is a little tender.

Add some noodles and 3-4 tbsp. of the sauce.

Toss around a bit in the pan and then add your meat and toss some more.

Add some bean sprouts and then the carrots, green onion, cilantro mixture. Toss again and add some sauce if needed. Cook 2-3 more minutes.

Put on a plate and squeeze some lime juice over it and enjoy!!!!