Keith Rickert's Pad Thai 6 garlic cloves, chopped 1 lb meat (shrimp, chicken, pork, beef...in usefully small bits) Note: vegetarians can omit, or use firm tofu cut in small cubes 6 eggs. 1 cup chopped green onion 1 lb rice noodles 1/4 cup white vinegar 1 cup chopped cilantro 1 cup ground roasted peanuts. (No shells of course) 1/4 cup sugar 2 cups beansprouts 2 tblspoons chile powder, 2 teaspoons chile paste. vegetable oil. 8 oz. sliced salted turnip/radish. 1/4 cup fish sauce. Ok, make sure you have just about all of this ready before you start. First of all, soak the noodles in lukewarm water for 40 mins to an hour. (Good time to get some of the other ingredients ready) When finished soaking, just pour off the water. Soak the radish in water for a few minutes, and pour off the water and squeeze dry. repeat 2-3 times or so. Heat up your wok with a bit of vegetable oil. Mix the eggs as in for scrambled eggs, and toss them in the wok. Cook until they are fairly 'hard', moving them around as need be (but as little as possible). Remove them from the wok and chop into slices, and set them aside. Heat up some more oil (maybe 1/4 cup or a bit less) and add the garlic. When it is getting fragrant, before it starts to turn brown, add the meat. When the meat is about halfway done, add the radish. When the meat is done, add the noodles and the vinegar and cook until the noodles are soft. From here on out you have to toss it a _lot_. Tongs might be useful. Dont step away for more than about 20-30 seconds, cause you dont want it to burn. Once the noodles start to get soft, add the eggs, the peanuts, the fish sauce, the sugar, the chile powder, and the chile paste. Continue stirring and tossing, until the mixture is all evenly coated. This usually takes about 5 mins or so, maybe a bit longer. Remove this mixture from the wok and to another container. Stirfry the beansprouts in the wok for maybe 1 minute, maybe 1.5, then add beansprouts, green onions, and cilantro to the dish, and toss. Keep some unchopped cilantro and green onions for garnishes if you want (you can take bits of green onion, maybe 2 inches long, and cut one end (1-1.25 inches) into very thin strips while leaving the other end intact to get a very nice garnish). Enjoy.... One or 2 random comments: If you use shrimp, you'd want to add them at the same time as the radish, as they cook quickly, and get tough if overcooked. If you are using mushrooms, hmm. I might do roughly the same thing, or maybe a bit more, depending on how large they are and how long they cook.