Pad Thai

Flat rice noodles stir-fried in a wok with egg, dried shrimp, firm tofu, garlic chives and bean sprouts, seasoned with tamarind, fish sauce and palm sugar, and served with crushed peanuts, chilli flakes and a wedge of lime: pad thai is the dish most of the world orders first in a Thai restaurant, and it is younger than it looks. It was promoted by the government of Plaek Phibunsongkhram in the late 1930s and 1940s as a national dish, partly to reduce rice consumption and partly to give the new nation of Thailand a food of its own, drawing on the Chinese noodle-frying tradition already in Bangkok. Its name means Thai-style stir-fry. In Thailand it is street food cooked to order in a single wok over a charcoal or gas burner, often wrapped in an egg net, and it is sweeter and more sour than the versions most restaurants abroad serve, which lean on ketchup or extra sugar.