Like most mothers, mine loves to embarrass me with her highly dramatised versions of stories from my growing years. But then there is also one that is told in its purest, unexaggerated form. That’s the one where she leaves a 10-year-old me in a Bangkok streetfood market (with a couple of hundred Thai baht tucked into the pocket of my shorts) to eat my way through the better part of an hour or so. Alone.
All this, while she shopped at the next-door kitchen supplies market for her food and confectionery business back home in Mumbai. And mum recounts this incident without an iota of shame or fear that she might very well be judged as a grossly negligent parent in retrospect by those who lend their ears to her “amusing tale of desertion”.
But for one perpetually-hungry, overweight boy, those bi-annual supply runs to Bangkok meant just one thing: a feeding frenzy like no other. Temporary abandonment be damned! One where the humble stir-fried noodle dish of phad thai took top billing, above the cuttlefish skewers, spicy fish cakes, crunchy papaya salads and other yummies that make up the smorgasbord of Bangkok’s famed streetfood.
Essentially a quick-fix roadside snack made with opaque rice noodles, tofu, bean sprouts, peanuts, and egg, among other things, a good phad thai, I learnt early on, will always have a taste that bears hints of that typically smoky, slightly caramelised flavour that is dubbed the “breath of the wok” or wok hei . All this is doused in the indispensable phad thai sauce, where the tart tamarind pulp trumps its supporting acts of fish sauce (soy sauce for vegetarians) and palm sugar.
Sweet basil
Everywhere we’d go in Thailand, I made sure to sample their version of phad thai. Discovering that the fresh herb-centric north of the country threw in a handful of fragrant kaphrao or sweet basil. Or that banana blossoms were a particularly favourite ingredient in the phad thai of Phuket along Thailand’s Andaman Sea coast.
Some of my best friends in Bangkok’s Sukhumvit neighbourhood where we’d stay were the phad thai vendors who’d make sure to lovingly toss a couple of extra prawns on my plate. I’d remember the area’s side streets — or soi as they are called in Thai — not by their numbers, but by the phad thai carts that inhabited them. Such was my obsession with the dish.
But despite its prima facie simplicity, phad thai has a complex back story with a bifurcated culinary history to match. To begin with, there is nothing traditionally Thai about the dish. One school of thought believes that somewhere in the mid-19th century, phad thai evolved organically out of the Chinese immigrant stir-fried noodle dish of kway teow. Only here, Thai ingredients like tamarind, palm sugar, and bird’s eye chili substituted oyster sauce and Sichuan pepper.
Another, more widely believed theory is that after World War II, the then prime minister of Thailand, Plaek Phibunsongkhram, laid out an elaborate, well-crafted plan to create a dish that epitomised the new Thai identity. He also wanted to wean the population away from an exclusive diet of the expensive-to-grow rice, making them consume rice noodles instead, which needed just 50% rice to be produced. And thus, phad thai came to the fore, successfully becoming the de facto dish that defines Thai cuisine today.
Over the years that have seen me travel to Bangkok for both work and pleasure, it has been this one dish that has consistently won me over with its wholesome appeal and not to mention, startling ubiquity. There’s possibly not one street corner in downtown Bangkok that doesn’t have at least one food cart vendor hawking an iteration of phad thai. From ones with seafood to others that revel in their porcine umami-ness, there’s a phad thai to suit every taste.
On a recent trip back, I found myself chowing down a bowl of phad thai made with the latest international ‘noodle’ sensation that isn’t a noodle. Yes, the ‘paleo phad thai’ is all the rage these days in Bangkok, with the traditional rice noodle replaced by the ‘zoodle’ which is the hipster-chic name for the spirals made from zucchinis. Back home in Mumbai, a rather brutal phad thai-related salvo was fired at me the other day when I sat down to review a health food café that had on its menu a version made with tender coconut strips.
I wonder what my 10-year-old self would have made of that?
SUNDAY RECIPE
Veg phad thai
INGREDIENTS
100 gm medium-sized rice noodles
3 tbsp vegetable oil
1 tsp chopped shallots
1 tsp chilli flakes
10 gm firm tofu cubes
1 egg
50 gm spring
onion (cut in 1” batons)
1/4 cup bean sprouts
2 tbsp crushed roasted peanuts
1 lime wedge
(For phad thai sauce, mix together)
1 tbsp dark soy sauce
1 tbsp palm sugar or yellow jaggery
1 tbsp tamarind pulp
METHOD
1. Soak the rice noodles in cold water for 3-5 minutes until soft, then drain and set aside.
2. Heat the oil in a wok over medium heat and stir fry the shallots and a pinch of the chilli flakes until fragrant and a little brown.
3. Add the tofu, mix well and set to one side of the wok (add a few prawns for a seafood version).
4. Add the rice noodles and phad thai sauce and toss well with the tofu-shallot mixture.
5. Break in the egg, stir well until done and mix with the noodles. Then throw in the spring onion batons and bean sprouts.
6. Cook for a minute and then transfer to a serving dish.
7. Garnish the phad thai with the roasted, crushed peanuts, the remaining chilli flakes and a wedge of lime on the side.
The Mumbai-based writer and restaurant reviewer is passionate about food, travel and luxury, not necessarily in that order.
