I love Thai food. I love pad thai, pad see ew, chicken satay, wonderful stir fries with pineapple or cashews or ginger. Its delicious. Its also not that healthy. A lot of it is down right unhealthy. When I do indulge, its all about portion control. Naturally, when I noticed protein-packed mock thai over on the Wannabe Chef I decided I had to make it. I was worried this one going to be a challenge because it seemed more complicated than what I’d done so far. It was more complicated, but it wasn’t difficult to make.
For starters, I had to find tamarind sauce. The recipe said you could substitute brown sugar, but I really wanted to try to make it the right way. It also called for sesame oil and rice vinegar, both more expensive and both I thought I could do with out. I figured I’d use olive oil and it’d be ok. And I just left out the rice vinegar all together. On Sunday I took a trip to an Indian store and found tamarind sauce. I was all set to go.
I started making it and suddenly realized I didn’t have bean sprouts! Hahaha. I love bean sprouts so I took a trip to the store after prepping a lot of the other ingredients.
Oh wait! I forgot to mention something important! This recipe doesn’t use noodles! It uses zucchini and carrots in place of noodles. I really enjoyed this substitution because the carrots gave it a little crunch and the veggies had some great flavors. To make them look like noodles, I used a vegetable peeler. 
I kind of think those look beautiful on their own. I used 3 zucchini and 2 carrots. I wanted enough to have left overs. I also really love that when you peel a carrot all the way down it looks like this:
This would come in extremely handy if you ever needed to create a shank in prison and was put on kitchen duty.
(Sorry that its blurry. I didn’t realize it when I took the picture.) I peeled it as far as could and then I gave up and ate the carrot!
After its all peeled, throw the carrots, zucchini and bean sprouts into a wok.
I ended up making it in two batches because it didn’t all fit into the wok at once. While the veggies were cooking, I whipped up some sauce.
I should say I whisked it up. I literally added some ingredients into the bowl, whisked until it was mixed, and went back to the wok. It was the tamarind sauce, olive oil, soy sauce and peanut butter. It was definitely a thick sauce. Once the sauce was ready, I added the eggs to the wok. I added 3 eggs to the first batch and 2 eggs to the second batch. Next time, I’d just use 2 eggs in each batch.
I made my roommate take this picture. I had her stand at the ready as soon as I cracked the first egg. I wanted to able to mix the eggs in before they cooked and the pan was already hot. I was nervous… this food photography thing is new to me. Also, I miss the great camera I used to have. A point and shoot is tough, the SLR was better.
Anyway, you mix in the eggs and wait until the eggs have cooked. Then you put in a bowl and add the sauce. Stir it in. Then, of course, repeat for the second batch.
To store it, I put it in an old pad thai container I’m reusing. When I took the picture with the flash, the veggies looked like noodles. It looked like real restaurant pad thai!
When I turned the flash off, you could see the vegetables more and it looked a little different.
Easy enough! And definitely delicious. Or as my roommate said “this is divine… wait, who actually says that?” It was made a great lunch. I brought a small container and some salad. Even though this was really healthy, it felt so decadent and was kind of heavy. I’m not used to heavy foods for lunch so it balanced well.
Home Made Noodle-Free Pad Thai
Ingredients
- 3 medium zucchini, peeled
- 2 large carrots, peeled
- 1.25 cups bean sprouts
- 4 eggs
- 4 Tbsp natural peanut butter
- 4 Tbsp tamarind sauce
- 1 Tbsp olive oil
- 4 tsp soy sauce (I used a low sodium soy sauce)
- Using a vegetable peeler, peel the carrots and zucchini
- Combine peanut butter, tamarind sauce, olive oil and soy sauce into a bowl and whisk until combined.
- Separate zucchini, carrots and bean sprouts evenly into two sets. Add the first half to a wok. Cook over medium heat until vegetables start to become soft, stirring occasionally.
- Crack 2 eggs into the walk and stir. Continue to cook, stirring occasionally, until eggs are mixed in and cooked thoroughly.
- Add the vegetables and eggs into bowl.
- Cook the second half of the vegetables and additional eggs, following the same directions.
- When all veggies are combined, add the sauce and stir evenly.
- Add lemon and/or crushed peanuts if desired or for garnish.
Katie tries to Cook 