Pad See Ew

Pad see ew and pad thai are two of the most popular dishes among Thai cuisine, two that also happen to be my favorite. Rather than spending $12 on the dish outside, why not save money and try making it at home? It's much easier than you think!

Pad See Ew

Recipe from http://www.thaitable.com/thai/recipe/pad-see-ew 
Cooking time: 20 minutes
Yield: 2 servings


Ingredients
1 lb Chinese broccoli
1 tablespoon Dark Soy Sauce
1 egg
1 lb Fresh Flat Rice Noodles
2 cloves chopped garlic
2 tablespoons Light Soy Sauce
1/2 cup thinly sliced pork
1 tablespoon sugar


Directions

1. If your fresh flat rice noodles are not pre-cut, cut them into strips of 3/4 inch wide. If your fresh noodles came out from the refrigerator, heat them up in the microwave first. Cut Chinese broccoli into 2 inch long pieces. Halve the stems lengthwise because thick stems take longer to cook. You are going to want to cook them at the same time.
2. Heat a wok to high heat and then add 2 tablespoons of oil. Drop in the chopped garlic and stir. Add the sliced pork. Stir to cook the pork. When the pork is somewhat cooked or turned from pink to light brown, add rice noodles. Stir to break up the noodles. Add light and dark soy sauce and sugar.
3. Stir to mix the seasonings into the noodles and pork. Open a spot in the middle of the pan, and drop the egg in. Scramble the egg until it is almost all cooked (not watery any more). Fold in the noodles and mix them all. Add the Chinese broccoli, stems first. I usually add half of the Chinese broccoli and stir until it wilts and then add the rest. But if you have room in your wok, you can cook all the Chinese broccoli at once. As soon as the Chinese broccoli is cooked, turn off the heat.
4. Put on a serving plate and sprinkle white pepper on top. Serve with the usual noodles condiments; sugar, fish sauce, vinegar and dried ground chili pepper. I usually like mine with ground chili peppers and vinegar.

Nutritional Analysis:

per serving: 554 calories, 14.65g fat (3.1g saturated, 1.6g polyunsaturated, 3.6g monounsaturated), 88.35g carbohydrates, 5.9g fiber, 21.4g protein.

**Helpful tips and common mistakes

The fresh noodles I purchased are always pre-cut so it saves me the trouble of cutting them myself; however, they're all stuck together so I like to seperate the noodles before the actual cooking takes place. 

Unfortunately, my market ran out of Chinese broccoli so I used bok choy instead which works just as well. You can also substitute the vegetable for broccoli or kale. Since bok choy has a large bulb on the bottom, I cut them in half and washed all the dirt that was inside. Usually pad see ew comes with chicken, pork or beef, but the people at my work love seafood so I went with shrimp. Also, my kitchen is not equipped with woks so I used a large saute pan instead. 


The high temperatures that woks can withstand are ideal for a stir fry dish such as pad see ew, but the same does not apply to my stove and pan. Therefore, I changed the process of the stir-fry. First, heat up some oil and saute the bok choy and garlic since the vegetable takes much longer to cook than shrimp. After you see the leaves on the top wilting and the stem softening, add the shrimp and cook until both sides are pink. Make a well in the center, add the whisked egg and cook until no longer runny. Last comes the noodles and the sauce. Now, personally I like Thai sweet soy sauce and Thai thin soy sauce so I used those instead along with sugar and fish sauce. The ratio was 1 tbsp of sweet soy sauce to 1 tbsp of brown sugar to 1 tbsp of fish sauce and 2 tbsp of thin soy sauce. The sweet soy sauce is very thick and is the main contributor of the color of the noodles while the thin soy sauce flavors the dish. The sugar and fish sauce balances the two soy sauce.

And there you have it! Feel free to modify the sauce according to your taste preference. If you prefer a sweeter pad see ew, add more sugar, saltier, add more fish sauce or you can omit the fish sauce altogether. Either way, delicious!