Asia Scenic Thai Cooking School

First of all way, too much food! We -a German couple, a Chinese couple from Toranto, 4 other Americans from Orlando, a lady from Ukraine and me, were picked up a our various hotels around 9:00 AM from various spots around Chiang Mai. With so many nationalities I guess it was luck that the teacher conducted the course all in English.

The class actually started at a local market where “Mook”our instructor took us around to show us what the typical Thai ingredients look like. All I can say is it’s a far cry from your local Safeway.

Fire roasted fish

Several varieties of “non-Uncle Ben’s” quick cooking rice

I like Thai food but at home I’m always in a quandary as to what to order so I usually end up with Pad Thai. My goal in taking this all-day cooking course was to learn a few more menu items and maybe how to cook some of them. Right off the bat I learn that Thai food is a mixture of many flavors & spices. The typical dish is a combination of sweet, which is accomplished with palm sugar, pineapple or mango in varying degrees, salty accomplished with fish or oyster sauce and of course the spicy flavor done with red or green chili peppers. I’m told the green are much hotter unless they’re the tiny peppers which are all hot!

Next our Asia Scenic Thai Cooking Course took us to the farm run by the school to see where & how the most common ingredients are grown. Interestingly all the stuff at this farm are organic.

Mook, our guide & cooking teacher taking us through the garden

We got to choose the various dishes we wanted to prepare from 8 menus and we ate (tried to eat) everything. Pad Thai was my first selection because I already knew I liked it & wanted to get the authentic recipe down. The darker brown sprinkled stuff on the right side is ground red chili. You also garnish it with ground or chopped peanuts.

Here is the Pad Thai I made

News flash, everything we cooked was made in a wok. So guess when I get home I’ll have to get one. You add the various ingredients depending on the consistency you’re after, soft or more on the crunchy side. When something is cooked enough just move it up the side of the wok away from the heat source. Unfortunately you really need a gas cooker to be able to control the temperature desired and I’m stuck with a crappy glass-topped electric stove at home. We can’t have gas appliances in our condo so that’s that.

Okay so the other dishes we made. Spring Roll which like most everything in Thai cooking seems to start with frying minced garlic. Then there was Tom Yum Koong also know as Hot & Sour Soup, Glass Noodle Salad, followed by Khao Soi or Chiang Mai Noodle and then deep Fried Bananas for dessert. Like I said, way too much food.

Tom Yum Koong

Four types of curry paste we concocted with motor & pestle 

Some of the many flavors & spices used in all the above dishes

Now the real test comes when I get home am try to recreate these dishes. Well see!

Aloha, Mikie 

~just a blogger (fightin’ like a girl)