Khao Pad (Kao Pad) – Thai fried rice

ข้าวผัด

Khao Pad or fried rice Thai style is one of the most famous Thai dishes. It’s easy and fast to cook even at home. You only need to prepare all ingredients, because you will need to put them to the frying pan at quite high speed. You will need:

• 250 g boiled non-sticky rice, f.e. Jasmine rice or Basmati (for this amount you will have to boil 90 g of dry rice)
• 30-40 g shrimps (5-7 big shrimps) or 50-80 g chicken, duck, pork or beef
• 1 big egg or 2 small
• 1/2 of small onion (30 g)
• 1 medium tomato (60 g)
• 1 clove of garlic
• 2 tbsp of soy sauce
• 1 tsp of fish sauce
• 1/4 tsp of oyster sauce powder (or 1/2 tsp if you have a liquid one)
• 1/4 tsp of sugar
• A pinch of grounded black pepper
• Any oil that you like to use for frying

Optional ingredients:

• A piece of carrot (20-30 g)
• 1-2 leaves of Chinese kale (gai lan). I never add it though it tastes great, because it’s impossible to find it in Russia.

Garnish:

• 20 g cucumber
• 2-4 leaves of green or spring onion (or whatever you have that has long green leaves and tastes like onion)
• 1/4 of lime (can be replaced by a piece of lemon of the same size)

Instructions

Prepare all ingredients for cooking: thinly slice the meat, cut the carrot in small cubes, mince the garlic, put all sauces to a glass (also you may squeeze 1 tbsp of lime/lemon juice instead of putting it as a garnish), one more glass will be needed for the egg. I will better put a picture below to show how I have cut and chopped everything.

Pour the oil on the frying pan to cover the bottom. Put meat or shrimps (if you use frozen shrimps there’s no need to defrost them) and carrot if you use it. Turn the heat on. I don’t cook Khao Pad at high temperature, because the garlic always starts to burn. Out of 1800 W of my induction cooker power I use only 1000 W.

Don’t forget to stir all the time while frying. When the meat starts to become white (the shrimps became defrosted or red if you use fresh) – push them aside and add garlic to the oil. As the garlic only starts to turn light-brown (don’t let it get burned!) – add the egg.

Then put chopped onion and Chinese kale right into the egg. Top it with boiled rice, pour sauces and add mixture of spices. Start to stir the dish. Add tomatoes and stir until everything spreads equally. This won’t take more than 2-3 minutes.

Turn it off. Put Khao Pad onto a plate. Serve with cucumber cut in circles, leaves of green onion and a wedge of lime/lemon (if you didn’t add juice while cooking).

PS – Avoid overcooking the dish. Vegetables should stay slightly crispy. That’s why you should not cut tomatoes and onion too thin. Pieces should be 3-6 mm thick. All the process of frying takes not more than 7 min.