Simple Pad Thai

After reading comments and looking at the recipe it did seem off balance. I checked and Mark's recipe in his book, How to Cook Everything, and the two have major differences. Using the book as a reference, I changed this recipe to the following: 12 ounces rice noodles, 3-4 tblsps pure tamarind (after cooking sauce, it needs to be pressed through a sieve) or 1 tblsp tamarind concentrate, 2 tblsps minced garlic, 1 tsp dried hot chili peppers and the rest stayed the same. Tasted very authentic.

"Meanwhile, make a sauce from tamarind paste, now easily found in supermarkets." I don't know in which dimension Mr. Bittman Shops, but if one leaves driving distance of the five boroughs, tamarind paste is rarer than Unobtainium and about as easily found as Kryptonite. This sentence should not have passed an editor with a pulse.

After reading several of your notes, we've edited the recipe to suggest a 1-4 TB range of tamarind paste. Tamarind products vary WIDELY in their potency, so this is really a dish you need to taste and season as you go. Start with 1 TB and add more if you desire. I hope that helps!

There are several good Thai restaurants in my area and my husband and I enjoy their pad thai. This evening we tried this recipe, following it exactly except we added some chicken along with the garlic. Frankly, it was barely edible and tasted nothing like good pad thai that we've had in our local restaurants. The sauce was too tart and overpowered the noodles and vegetables. We will not be trying this recipe again.

I must have gotten a stronger fish sauce than any of the reviewers by a factor of 1000. Ruined my whole house and almost my marriage. Had to burn the place down and abandon everything inside. Still catching whiffs of rotten death fish.

Tamarind paste is easily found way out here in Sioux Falls, South Dakota in the major grocery stores, Asian specialty markets, and our local natural foods co-op. The editors were correct to leave Mr. Bittman’s sentence in the article.

Lots of complaining here, but not enough solutions. The challenge of Thai food is that all ingredients are variable so you need to learn to cook by taste. After some digging, I found the best alternative to Mark's recipe above:

http://chezpim.com/cook/pad_thai_for_beginners

Don't be turned off by the naysayers in the notes section! This is absolutely delicious (even better the next day) and fairly easy. Just make sure you add the tamarind one tablespoon at a time and taste it, as the recipe now instructs.

As others have mentioned, something is *very* wrong with this recipe. The amount of tamarind is off by a factor of 2-4. The dish was nearly inedible.

Perhaps the author meant 2-4 *teaspoons* of tamarind?

I always check for salt content of all NYT cooking recipes. I am always amazed, I shouldn't be by now, by the VAST amount of NaCl - sodium chloride - in most recipes. This recipe has ~1858 milligrams of Na - sodium! I know how to lower it when I cook, but why aren't there options stated in the recipe? How healthy is it to eat, just shy of, 2GRAMS of SODIUM in ONE meal? Answer: not healthy at all! If you have cardiac or BP issues?

Just want to make this important point.

We made this tonight and it was terrific. We made our own tamarind paste using the solid cake form of tamarind, soaking it in water for a few minutes before separating the pulp from the fibrous part. We reduced the honey to 1/4 c and used 3 tbsp tamarind paste. Other changes from the recipe: we soaked the rice noodles in warm, not boiling water, and we fried the tofu prior to adding it. Otherwise, we followed the recipe! Easy to prepare with readily available ingredients; the 3 of us loved it.

Don't understand all the hate on this one. We've made it multiple times now and my family loves it. I do, however, double the amount of noodles and reduce the amount of cabbage. And yes, there is a lot of liquid remaining in the bottom of the wok. But it's still delicious.

I don't have an answer for your last question, but I think one issue is the variation between different tamarind pastes and concentrates. Starting with block tamarind, softening it in hot water, and screening out the pulp works well for me in the 3-4 tbsp range. A bit more work but predictable results. Some pastes are very strong, as many people have noted. Another variable is the rice noodle. If you soften it too much, it will absorb less of the sauce. I use warm water for better control.

The ratio of tamarind paste to noodles is off. See https://kepkanation.wordpress.com/2010/04/19/mark-bittmans-pad-thai-disa...

Love his recipes. Not this one. Skip and get take out.