Cooking up "A lot of Thai"!

Daniel likes Thai food, I like Thai food (well, I like pad thai, I mean who doesn't?!) so I decided we should spend one of our days in Chiang Mai taking a cooking class.  While in Vietnam this turned out to be one of my favorite activities and really gives you a feel for the culture, especially if the course includes a market tour and specializes in local dishes.  When I called Daniel to ask him if he'd be up for taking an all day course, meaning that we would be cooking from approximately 9:30am to 5pm, the first thing he asked was whether we would eat enough to cover lunch and dinner so he could save his food money for the day (typical guy, right?)  According to the menu, we would be cooking six different dishes, so I was pretty confident we would be well fed.  Sold!  Daniel was in.  In case you're curious, our cooking school was called A Lot of Thai and is run by chef Yui and her husband.  If you ever get a chance to go to Chiang Mai, I would highly recommend taking a class from her!

Our awesome cooking school!

Our sweet ride to class and outdoor kitchen

Chef Daniel:) ready for a day of cooking

The class confirmation suggested we eat a light breakfast, so we grabbed our usual croissant, fruit, and yogurt at the hotel...I wish we had gone with empty stomachs!  We were picked up from our hotel on Tuesday morning in a vintage VW van by Yui's husband and arrived at the outdoor kitchen ready to get down to business.  The atmosphere was relaxed and we saw that the class would be small as there were just 10 individual cooking stations.  Cool!  Our classmates were Jess and Christie who were about my age from Australia; Paul, Maria, and their nine year old daughter Lea from Wales; and Brett (female--just in case you're scratching your head) and Steven (male), a young couple from Seattle.  Overall, a pretty fun bunch to spend a day with!  Chef Yui immediately won us over with her love of food and cooking and her desire to see Thai cooking "take over the world"!  Our first dish was pad thai.  Yui demonstrated and talked us through the key instructions, then cooked a sample, allowing us to taste what the finished dish ought to come out like before sending us to our stations to prepare our own pad thai.  Nearly all of our cooking was done in a wok--note: gotta get me one of those babies!  Overall, the pad thai was FABULOUS!  So fresh and so delicious!  I'm already on the hunt for ingredients here in Korea so I can make my own and I picked up lots of great tips, for example, when you make a batch of sauce you can make extra and freeze it in ice cube trays to be used later (smart!).  Yui was also great about talking to us about what to use as substitutes if we couldn't find the exact same ingredients in our home countries.  Daniel was quite proud of his pad thai and gladly finished mine.  Dish one down.

Chef Yui teaching us how to chop tofu

Sampling the first demoed dish...pad thai!

Fast paced cooking at the wok!

Pad thai in the making! 

Finished...and doesn't it look awesome?!

Our next dish was green curry.  Now, most of you know I have a bad stomach so spicy doesn't work well with me but I was determined to try everything we made and I knew that I could adapt the flavors and make things more mild.  Thai curry is so different from, say, Indian curry.  Thai curry is made with coconut cream and coconut milk so it calms down the spice a bit.  I have to say, I was pleasantly surprised how delicious it was!  Mind you, I used about 1/5th of the curry paste that the rest of my classmates used and some even ventured into the world of spicy red curry.  Anyway, it was nice.:)

Having too much fun making curry!

Master chef Daniel has everything under control

The absolutely adorable family from Wales and my dinner mates

Daniel enjoying the fruit of his labor!

All of the curry creations from my table!

My beautiful, and pretty tasty, curry.

On to dish three.  This one stretched me a bit as I don't cook soups much or seafood, especially seafood in which heads are involved.  The third dish was called Dom Yum soup which is a sweet/sour/spicy broth soup with herbs, veggies, and prawns.  I learned how to properly flavor a broth (those shrimp heads came in handy!), how not to overcook fresh shrimp, and ended up actually trying the soup but I have to say that this was my least favorite dish of the day.  Lea's face sums it up nicely:).

Soup ingredients 

Boil baby, boil...notice the little shrimp head feelers poking out of the pot

Ready to eat

How 'bout that shrimp head?

Yeah, Lea's face says it all:)

As if we hadn't eaten enough already, it was time to start preparing our fourth dish.  This one I was really excited about...cashew chicken--YUM!  As Yui talked us through the preparation we learned how to properly cook garlic and onion in a wok without burning it (tip: put the garlic and oil in the wok BEFORE turning on the heat then cook for just a minute or so once the heat is on!!).  We also learned how to sear the uncooked chicken first, then add water at a later step and use the boiling water to cook the chicken through without overcooking the chicken!  I will most definitely be reproducing this recipe as it was super easy and we all enjoyed it immensely even though we were completely stuffed!

Oyster sauce, one of the key ingredients...gotta get the kind with the lady on the bottle!

Cooking is so fun!

It's important when each group of ingredients is added!

Sauce ingredients!

Delicious cashew chicken!

At this point it was time to take a break from cooking and eating and head to the local market where Chef Yui had purchased all of the ingredients for our class.  We all piled into the VW Van and off we went!  I should note that during our stay in Chiang Mai we didn't actually see a grocery store.  I know they exist there, but they aren't conveniently located and tend to be European chains like we have in Korea.  Local markets rule and everything is super CHEAP!  Now, food safety can be a bit iffy in a tropical climate so you've got to be careful but we didn't have any tummy troubles during our visit from bad food.  At the market I saw lots of familiar items and some new things which our chef/guide was happy to point out and explain.  I wish more of these things were readily available in Korea...and America for that matter.  It was a very warm afternoon and most of my classmates stopped for fresh fruit smoothies.  I was saving room for our final two dishes!  I think the market was a bit eye opening for Daniel.  Even though he works in a grocery store, he hasn't really seen all of the bits and pieces of animals that get consumed in other countries.  Luckily, I've now had several experiences in Asian markets so not much surprises me, except the smell...sometimes you just can't shake that!

A friendly market dog!

Any ideas what this pile of goodness might be?

Look closely!  Yep, that's ANT LARVAE!  Yum...

Fresh herbs

Those pink eggs just might be lethal...they are pickled, preserved, and months old.  Oh what a fun surprise might be waiting for you inside!

The good stuff...coconut cream!

So much rice!  How do you decide?

Okay, back to class and more food!  We started preparing/steaming the sticky rice for our mango sticky rice with coconut milk.  I had never seen rice steamed in a bamboo basket, but I'm thinking I need one of those too!  I had also never seen purple rice--cool!  While the rice was steaming, a group of ladies walked by the house and told us there was going to be a parade to the temple passing by shortly.  Nice!  A cooking class and a little local culture!  While we waited, Yui showed us how to stir fry the veggies and glass noodles that would become the filling for our spring rolls.

Rice steamer!

Parade to the temple! 

The cutest lady ever!

Bye bye...now back to cooking!

Learning to wrap a spring roll came pretty easily for me since I had practice with rice paper wrappers in Vietnam and these fresh wrappers were way easier to use.  Before we deep fried our spring rolls the parade of temple worshippers passed by on their way to deliver offerings and we stopped to watch the scene.  The most amusing thing is that the truck following all of these folks was blasting music as they moved along and the song of choice was none other than...Gangnam Style!  hehehe!  Okay, back to the spring rolls.  I learned how to deep fry and not burn the kitchen down--it was awesome and the spring rolls were so tasty with plum sauce.

Spring roll wrappers...where to find these in Korea?

Ready to fill and wrap like a pro

Perfectly fried and absolutely fantastic!  Oh, and non greasy!

By now our sticky rice was all ready to go and we added sugar, salt, and coconut cream to the rice.  We then topped it off with fresh cut mango and enjoyed our dessert!  What an accomplishment...nearly 8 hours of cooking and six Thai dishes mastered!  The cookbook we received has several other enticing recipes like pineapple fried rice that I'd like to try soon.  Can you tell I'm totally hooked on Thai food?  Oh, and the best part of the day?  I watched my domestically challenged brother stand next to me and handle his wok and chef's knife like a professional! 

A successful day with a great chef and teacher!

When we got back to the hotel we were so full...but we decided we could still eat a little dessert at the hotel a few hours later.  I mean who can pass up mango sorbet with passion fruit sauce, fresh mango chunks, and whipped cream?  Ah, I love vacation...when the calories don't count!