Day 200 (Tues 23 Jan) - Chiang Mai
Today we had signed up to a Thai Cookery Course. Funny really, neither of us have cooked since we have been away so we were both looking forwad to getting back into the kitchen.
A friendly lady from Somphet Thai Cookery School(www.sompetthaicooking.com) picked us up from our hotel and took us out of the city to their school which was overlooking the river.
There was only four of us in the class. In no time we were all ready in our cooking gear and learning about the key ingredients used in Thai cooking. Here Sarb is trying to outsmart a piece of ginger.
The first thing we had to make was Phad Thai (thai-style noodles). Luckily this was quite easy to make. It simply involved scrambling an egg and then adding the fresh noodles and other ingredients into a hot wok and madly mixing them all up. Of course then we had to eat it!
After that the hard work began. We were each given a large pestle and mortar and started added ingredients to make a curry paste. Jo was going to make a green thai curry whilst Sarb had decided to make the slightly more spicey Panang (red) curry. For the next 15 minutes we were hard at work grinding our ingredients into a curry paste. It was pretty physically demanding!
Once our paste had passed our teacher's critical examination we moved over to the chopping boards and began to prepare the chicken and vegetables for our curries. It was great fun seeing it all coming together especially as we'd slaved over pestles and mortars. Unfortunately we had to wait until we had made a few more dishes before we could eat it.
We put our curries to one side and then continued to chop up more vegetables, fish and chicken for our Hot and Sour prawn soup and Chicken in Coconut soup which we quickly made. As Jo was busy taking photos, and not cooking, Sarb decided to have a bit of a Gordon Ramsey moment.
Finally we made a quick chicken and cashnew nut dish and a tofu dip. We were then allowed to enjoy the results of our efforts. Very nice. What a feast, we were stuffed!
Afterwards our teacher showed us how to create sculptures out of vegetables. Sarb obviously has been hiding this particular talent, as he was quite a little expert. When we get home don't be surprised to see a carrot butterfly on your dinner plate if you come round to visit us.
To end, we watched the teacher make a simple Papaya salad (which of course we tested) and a Black Sticky Rice with coconut milk pudding (which was nice but a bit sweet).
We were then driven back to our hotel where we needed to have a serious lie down to let all the food digest. It had been a great day.
Later we wandered down to the local markets. It was great to see the local produce but as we were still stuffed we weren't tempted to try the various fried insects on sale. Sarb popped into a tailors and arranged for them to sew on his many flags onto his Boddie.
Bought some sweet fizzy wine and crisps for supper and headed back to our hotel. Still too stuffed to eat anything else!
A friendly lady from Somphet Thai Cookery School(www.sompetthaicooking.com) picked us up from our hotel and took us out of the city to their school which was overlooking the river.
There was only four of us in the class. In no time we were all ready in our cooking gear and learning about the key ingredients used in Thai cooking. Here Sarb is trying to outsmart a piece of ginger.
The first thing we had to make was Phad Thai (thai-style noodles). Luckily this was quite easy to make. It simply involved scrambling an egg and then adding the fresh noodles and other ingredients into a hot wok and madly mixing them all up. Of course then we had to eat it!
After that the hard work began. We were each given a large pestle and mortar and started added ingredients to make a curry paste. Jo was going to make a green thai curry whilst Sarb had decided to make the slightly more spicey Panang (red) curry. For the next 15 minutes we were hard at work grinding our ingredients into a curry paste. It was pretty physically demanding!
Once our paste had passed our teacher's critical examination we moved over to the chopping boards and began to prepare the chicken and vegetables for our curries. It was great fun seeing it all coming together especially as we'd slaved over pestles and mortars. Unfortunately we had to wait until we had made a few more dishes before we could eat it.
We put our curries to one side and then continued to chop up more vegetables, fish and chicken for our Hot and Sour prawn soup and Chicken in Coconut soup which we quickly made. As Jo was busy taking photos, and not cooking, Sarb decided to have a bit of a Gordon Ramsey moment.
Finally we made a quick chicken and cashnew nut dish and a tofu dip. We were then allowed to enjoy the results of our efforts. Very nice. What a feast, we were stuffed!
Afterwards our teacher showed us how to create sculptures out of vegetables. Sarb obviously has been hiding this particular talent, as he was quite a little expert. When we get home don't be surprised to see a carrot butterfly on your dinner plate if you come round to visit us.
To end, we watched the teacher make a simple Papaya salad (which of course we tested) and a Black Sticky Rice with coconut milk pudding (which was nice but a bit sweet).
We were then driven back to our hotel where we needed to have a serious lie down to let all the food digest. It had been a great day.
Later we wandered down to the local markets. It was great to see the local produce but as we were still stuffed we weren't tempted to try the various fried insects on sale. Sarb popped into a tailors and arranged for them to sew on his many flags onto his Boddie.
Bought some sweet fizzy wine and crisps for supper and headed back to our hotel. Still too stuffed to eat anything else!
posted by Jo and Sarb at
1/23/2007 07:57:00 am
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