Stir-Fried Rice Noodles with Vegetables, Seafood and Meat

The Thai have a long-held passion for hot foods. It is, indeed, difficult to imagine Thai food before the chilli was imported in the seventeenth century, but it was fiery even then, seasoned very liberally with lots of crushed black peppercorns.

Pad Thai exemplifies the flavours of Thai cuisine: spiked with searing chillies, doused with the distinctive aroma of fish sauce, fresh with herbs, and crunchy with chopped nuts or dried shrimp. The sweet, sour and hot sauce is intensely fla