Pad Thai Traditional With Chicken and Vegetarian

This is one of my favorite Thai dishes, it is simple, hearty, and very delicious. I remember the first time I ate this dish and it just made me crave more.

Ingredients with Chicken:
2 lbs thawed chicken breast sliced thin
2 Tbsp good quality fish sauce, I use
2 Tbsp light soy sauce
2 Tbsp lime juice
2 Tbsp canola oil
1 Tbsp natural peanut butter, with no sugar added, just finely ground peanuts
1/2 cup freshly crushed peanuts
6-8 leafs of Thai basil
2.5 Tbsp coconut palm sugar
3 smashed garlic cloves
Hand full of snow peas
1 package medium sized rice noodles

Ingredients Vegetarian:
same as above but no chicken
Plus these:
Red bell pepper sliced
Thinly sliced carrots
Hand full of snow peas

Step 1
Cooked rice noodles until almost done, should have a bit of hardness left, when you stir fry later the noodles will cook the rest of the way. Drain and let sit in cold water until ready to use or they will get very sticky.

Step 2
Stir Fry chicken w/veggies in canola oil, natural peanut butter, and smashed garlic until chicken is done, add two hand fulls of rice noodles wet, but do not dump the water they are sitting into the pan. Mix fish sauce, soy sauce, sugar, and lime juice together, add to chicken and veggies. Make sure you put this sauce mixture in at the same time as the noodles and veggies. Stir fry until veggies are still a bit crunchy, add at the last minute the basil. Do not overcook the veggies.

For vegetarian do not add veggies first, add noodles with all ingredients, stir fry, then add veggies, stir fry until veggies are slightly crunchy. Pull off heat and set to the side to cool a bit.

Step 3
Wrap fresh peanuts in plastic wrap and whack away, smash them the best you can, make sure that you do not leave the plastic wrap loose or peanuts will be flying all over.
Plate the Pad Thai and sprinkle the smashed peanuts all over. Enjoy and eat it up.