icon Pad Woon Sen
(Pad Thai Made With With Glass Noodles)
from Three Love Restaurant, Bangkok

Regular Pad Thai is made with flat rice noodles. Pad Woon Sen is made with glass noodles.

Choose glass noodles carefully, as good quality noodles survive stir-frying but cheap ones break up into an unpleasant mess.

Glass noodles, or Celophane noodles, are made from the starch of the mung bean. They are transparent, hence their name, and water. Do not confuse them with rice vermicelli that have the same circular cross-section, but are generally white in color.

Here is a recipe from Bangkok restaurant:

Ingredients:

  • 1 small pack of glass noodles
  • 2-3 eggs
  • 50 g dry shrimp
  • 50 g tofu
  • 2 small red onion
  • 50 g soya-bean shoots (beansprouts)
  • 1/2 tbsp sugar
  • 2 light soya sauce
  • 1 tbsp oyster sauce
  • 2 tbsp chilli sauce
  • 1 tbsp crushed peanuts
  • 1 tsp dry flaked chile
  • 3 tbsp vegetable oil
  • lemon or lime wedges for garnish

Preparation:

  1. Soak the noodles in water for 5 minutes to soften them.
  2. Chop the tofu into small squares. Slice the red onion into smaller pieces. Clean the fresh soya shoots and chop off the roots.
  3. Put the oil in a hot frying pan with the dry shrimp, and fry for 30 seconds. Remove and set aside.
  4. Break the eggs in hot oil and stir quickly for a few seconds and cook a thin omelette. Remove, divide into equal portions and set on plates.
  5. Add the glass noodles, the shrimp and all the other ingredients and stir-fry for 1 minute.
  6. Arrange portions onto egg omelettes and fold over. Garnish with sugar, crushed peanuts, dried chile flakes, lemon or lime wedges. Serve with fresh soya-bean shoots and green lettuce.

back to Radim and Lisa's Well-Travelled Cookbook | email us

Last updated: October 12, 2010
Photograph from Wikimedia Commons used under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License.