Toby's Easy Pad Thai

10 large raw king prawns

3 tbsp oil

175g dried flat noodles

2-3 cloves garlic, chopped

½ tsp chilli flakes

2 eggs beaten

2 tbs Nam Pla (fish sauce)

2 tbsp tamarind water

2 tbsp sweet chilli sauce

1 tbsp palm sugar

4 radishes, sliced

50g roasted peanuts, coarsely chopped (or bashed with a rolling pin)

4 spring onions chopped on the diagonal

50g bean sprouts

2 tbsp roughly chopped coriander

Lime wedges to serve

I promised my friend Toby to work out a version of Pad Thai that he could make with ingredients he could find without going to a specialist store. A word on these first:

The perfect noodles are rice noodles called Banh Pho, but any flattened noodles will do. Tamarind water is made from soaking a lump of concentrated tamarind paste in warm water and straining it. At a push lemon juice could stand in. Sweet chilli sauce should be easy enough. If you can’t get palm sugar use demarara or brown sugar instead. The fewer substitutions the better but it should still be good. You can get Nam Pla (fish sauce) everywhere these days.

Toby is new to Maria Callas but the drama would be great for cooking something epic like this. He just needs to concentrate on cooking and not sashaying up and down to Casta Diva because he recognises it from the Gaultier commercial.

Take the heads and tails off the prawns and peel them. Heat up some oil and gently fry the heads, tails and shells for a couple of minutes to infuse the oil with prawn flavour. Strain and save the oil.

Get a pan of water on. When it boils drop in the noodles and take off the heat so the noodles sit in the boiling water for 4 minutes or so. Check they are done, and then rinse with water to remove starch and toss through gently with a good few drops of oil so it doesn’t all stick. Sesame oil would be ideal but I’m bearing in mind we’re going with easy to source ingredients this time.

Now it all gets a bit quick, so concentrate Toby. Crank up the volume on the Callas CD. Heat the prawn infused oil in a wok or large frying pan and add the garlic, chilli flakes and prawns. Stir fry for 2 minutes – no longer unless you like rubbery prawns. Pour in the beaten eggs and stir fry until you get something resembling scrambled eggs. Again don’t over do it.

Lower the heat and add the radish, sweet chilli sauce, nam pla, tamarind water (or lime juice), sugar and the noodles. Toss for a minute to combine. A pair of chop sticks or a fork to lift the noodles high into the air will help get it all covered in the sauce.

Add the peanuts, spring onion, beansprouts and coriander and give one final toss.  Serve in bowls with the lime wedges to squeeze over.

This isn't quite authentic. It really should contain dried shrimp and Thai preserved radish, but it will be good. It’s easy quick and fresh. I’d listen to the rest of the CD but Toby will want to watch something dreadful on Sky TV. The food, if not the viewing, will be uplifting.