‘It’s tamarind, not heroin’: Uncle Roger roasts Rachael Ray’s pad Thai

Uncle Roger is not impressed with Rachel Ray’s pad thai recipe.

In his latest YouTube video, Malaysian comedian Nigel Ng, better known for his online persona Uncle Roger, reacted to television and food personality Rachel Ray’s pad thai recipe from a 2020 YouTube clip of the “Rachael Ray Show.”

He first chides Ray’s abundance of chicken in the recipe, joking she could feed a whole Thai village with the amount used. He does give her points for using fish sauce, but laments her use of soy sauce.

“Pad Thai no soy sauce, only seasoning you need in Pad Thai is fish sauce, tamarind, sugar, maybe vinegar, just because something is Asian don’t mean you need soy sauce.”

This is made worse when Ray explains you can substitute the soy sauce for low-sodium soy sauce, liquid amino or temari, which Uncle Roger considers subbing an already wrong thing with more wrong things.

While Ray does use sugar, Uncle Roger thinks it’s too much as Ray eyeballs three tablespoons of brown sugar. “It’s like she’s baking cake. Who counts tablespoons in seconds?” Roger exclaims.

Ray then busts out what she calls her secret ingredient: tamarind. Roger is confused, as to him the ingredient is no secret. “It’s not like you need to get it from the dark web. It’s tamarind, not heroin,” he chastises.

Furthermore, Ray does not use a wok and adds carrots, chili, ginger, basil, mint and a large amount of bean sprouts to her pad Thai, which in Uncle Roger’s view are more egregious additions that turn her pad Thai into “pad bean sprout.” He would opt for garlic chives and dried chili on the side of the dish.

He then notes Ray boils the noodles for too long when she could just briefly soak them in warm water instead and that she should use her sauce to coat the noodles rather than just dumping it in the pan with her chicken. Her eggs are also cut into strips instead of scrambled into the dish.

Peanuts are a saving grace garnish for Uncle Roger, but the worst offense comes when she decorates the pad Thai with an assortment of edible flowers, something Redditors have also called out in the past.

Pad Thai is a street food dish in Thailand that is typically made with rice noodles, scrambled eggs, tamarind, sugar and fish sauce. Other possible flavorings include dried shrimp, shallot and dried chili. Vegetables can vary from bean sprouts to garlic chives, while the protein is usually shrimp, but can be made with chicken, crab, squid or other meats.

Rachel Ray is a prominent figure in the food world, having risen to fame on the Food Network with her show “30 Minute-Meals,” which ran for 11 seasons from 2001 to 2012.

Ng’s reaction video has amassed over 1 million views since it was uploaded on Sept. 25.

Feature Image via mrnigelng

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