I wanted to take a photo of the packaging so if you go to the Asian supermarket, you know what to look for. These rice noodles are already cooked, so that cuts your cooking time down. This is a whole 2 lbs of rice noodles! And each serving is only 45 calories (serves about 6).

The only time-consuming part of dealing with these cooked noodles is that you have to peel them until they are completely separated. It's best if you buy the noodles and keep it room temperature so the noodles are soft. If you happen to refrigerate it and it's too hard to peel, just put it in the microwave for about a minute to warm it up.

We chose to use beef (skirt steak) in our Pad See Ew, but you can add chicken or pork instead. We happened to have the beef marinating overnight with some soy sauce, plum sake, sesame oil, and garlic. This is optional and not necessary, but if you have the chance, it's always better to marinate the meat for added flavor.

We sauteed 2 cups of broccoli and 3 small carrots (shredded) until they got soft (about 7 minutes). To speed up the cooking time, add some chicken stock or water and cover the pan so it steams the veggies. Make sure it evaporates before adding the 2 eggs in the center of the pan (like shown). Scramble these eggs until just cooked, and mix it all together with the veggies.

Meanwhile, we cooked the beef in a separate pan until they're just about cooked through. Then we added the beef to the pan with the vegetables so all the flavors incorporate.

Before adding the noodles into the pan, I like to microwave it for a minute to get it warm so that it doesn't need to stay in the pan too long. The 2 lbs. of rice noodles gets added to the veggies and beef. In a separate bowl, mix together 1/2 cup of light soy sauce with 2 tbsp brown sugar. Pour this into the pan and mix it together, trying not to break up the noodles too much. Taste the noodles at this point and add more soy sauce if you like it saltier (we added an extra 2 tbsp of soy sauce), because some people prefer it sweeter. Season with pepper.

The marinated beef really rocked this dish, so we highly recommend that. But overall, the flavors are great because you get a nice complete meal of carbs, meat, and veggies. (Add some hot chili sauce or pickled green chilies for a spicy kick). This may look harder than you think, but it's really simple once you get the hang of the steps and process. If at first you don't succeed, keep trying! You'll be glad you finally perfected it so you can make it again and again with different ingredients. Good luck!

This is the galangal root that is a "must" in this recipe. You can buy this root at your local Asian supermarket for like a dollar. This is a very hard root that looks like it resembles ginger, but there is no similarity in taste. For this recipe, we used a 2-inch root and sliced it into small pieces.

To prep the other ingredients, we used about 5 cloves of garlic finely chopped, 3 shallots chopped, 3 small to medium Roma tomatoes (or any kind of tomatoes you have), and 5 Kaffir lime leaves. Luckily we have a lime tree in the backyard so we just used that! The leaves should be cut in half and de-stemmed.

To start the broth, we used 10 cups of chicken broth and added 1/4 cup of fish sauce to flavor it. To this, add 2 or 3 juiced limes (depending on how sour you like the soup). Add the sliced galangal, chopped lime leaves, minced garlic, chopped shallots, and 1 fresh lemon grass stem cut into short lengths. We used our lemongrass in the garden, too. Yay! Anyway, bring this to a boil, then simmer for about 20 minutes.

After the simmering process, we added 1 lb. of bite-sized chicken pieces (you can use breasts or thighs). This goes in raw and it will cook in the soup. Next, we crushed about 7-10 Thai chilis and threw it in the pot to get it nice and spicy. If you don't think crushing it will get it spicy, you can cut it in half and let some of the seeds seep out. Finally, we added the tomatoes, 1 can of straw mushrooms, and 1 can of baby corn. Let this return to a boil, then lower the heat and simmer until the chicken is cooked through, about 2 minutes.

And there you go! A nice hot bowl of Tom Yum Gai that is sour and spicy! Keep in mind that you are NOT supposed to eat the lime leaves, lemongrass, or the galangal. They are only used to flavor the soup - so don't try to eat them. This is much easier than we thought it would be, and we can now open a Thai restaurant. Just kidding.

In a bowl, we combined 1/2 sliced red onion, 1 minced garlic clove, 1 grated carrot, and 1 sliced cucumber.

We used 5 oz. of flap meat which we cooked and browned in the pan. This gets sliced into bite-sized pieces.

Add the sliced flap meat and about 1/2 cup of cilantro. Mix all the ingredients together in the bowl and add 1 tbsp of fish sauce, 1 tbsp chili garlic sauce, and the juice of 2 limes. If you want it less spicy, use less chili sauce. You can also chop up fresh Thai chili if you can handle the heat! Marinate this salad overnight to obtain the best flavors.

These are not hard-to-find ingredients, so preparing Thai Beef Salad is much easier than you think. It is refreshing, fulfilling, and will leave you wanting more.