Pad See Ew

Variations

• Pad kee mao (drunken noodles): Add chili and basil for a spicy version.
• Seafood pad see ew: Use shrimp and squid.
• Vegetarian: Tofu and mushrooms, with vegetarian oyster sauce.
• Beef pad see ew: Thinly sliced beef for a richer plate.

Tips

• This is a stir-fry whose defining instruction is to stop stirring. Char is contact: a noodle that is moving is not against the metal long enough to colour. Pav bhaji states the principle on a griddle — "stirring only mixes; pressing crushes and puts the crushed thing against the metal at the same time" — and sisig counts the seconds it buys: pressed flat with a spatula and "left alone for 2-3 minutes the underside fries crisp while the top stays soft." Pressing the noodles down is the same move, and it is why the tip says do not stir too often rather than do not stir.
• Mie goreng makes the opposite call on the same material, and says why. There the instruction is "fold, do not stir — lift from underneath with tongs and turn them over", and the finish line is "every strand evenly coloured and no liquid left in the base of the wok." Even colour everywhere and char in places are two different objectives; one wants the noodles moving through the sauce and the other wants them still against the pan. Both refuse the same scraping motion, for opposite reasons.
• Small batches are the same variable, not a separate tip. Browning gives crowding as one of its three practical rules: a full pan drops in temperature and the water that comes out has nowhere to go, so the surface sits at 100°C and nothing browns. A wide noodle has a lot of surface and carries soaking water with it, so it crowds a pan sooner than anything else in the dish.
• The sauce is settled in a bowl before the pan is lit. Dark soy is there for colour and the regular soy and oyster sauce do the seasoning, which is a decision taken with a spoon in a bowl — balancing flavour files this dish among the ones where there is no moment in the cooking at which you could taste and correct, so whatever is settled in the bowl is what the plate gets.
• Fresh wide rice noodles are best; soak dried ones just until pliable, slightly underdone.
• Get the pan screaming hot for that signature smoky wok flavor (wok hei).
• Don't stir too often — press the noodles down to lightly char them.
• Dark soy gives color; regular soy and oyster sauce handle the seasoning.
• Cook in small batches so the noodles don't steam and go soggy.