Cooking with a Smile

This morning we had an early start and got ready for 8am. It was a lot cooler than yesterday, something we were very grateful for. We were picked up in a minibus and it turned out it was just the two of us doing the morning cooking course today, which as pretty awesome. We were soon joined by Ken and a friend. Ken was our teacher for the day. On the drive to the farm where the cooking class was taught we ran through a recently changed red light and Ken told us that if you're very unlucky and get caught you have to pay a 200 baht fine. That's the equivalent of less than a fiver, and that's only of you're unlucky.

On the way to the farm we stopped at a market where Ken explained the key ingredients in Thai cooking to us. These include multiple varieties of Soy sauce, fish sauce, oyster sauce and various different coconut products including milk, cream, and sugar. He also showed us glass noodles,  which are made from green beans apparently. He also told us that in Thailand it's cheaper to buy ready made meals from street food vendors or market stalls, as so many different ingredients are required for one dish, it would be too expensive to cook.  

We then went to the butchers section and Ken bought some meat. This selection of  meat included the digestive system of a bull. Lauren and I were just sort of looking at each other praying it wasn't for us. It wasn't thankfully. I've includes a picture of it so you can see how vile it looks.

As we left the market Ken have us some sticky rice and pork to try. Apparently Thai people eat sticky rice as the equivalent to how we eat bread. They were also eating what I think Ken was saying was pork brain, but I could be, and hope I was, wrong. We then got back in the car and drove to the farm. When we arrived we chose the dishes we wanted to cook from a limited selection, got on our aprons and starting cooking.

The first thing we made was a vegetable spring roll each. We cooked the veg and added the sauce and rolled them up, then left them to one side for later.

Next I made Pad Thai and Lauren made fried rice. We had to chop all the veg and then Ken told us what sauces and what other ingredients to add when. Pad Thai has dried shrimps in it which give it its colour. They were very orange. Ken and so got me to try the Tamarin sauce that goes in the dish. It was very sour. We each had our own wok and hob to cook the dishes.

Once the Pad Thai was cooked and plated up, we deep fried the spring rolls and ate our dishes. Lauren didn't really eat much of hers, she said it was too early. I ate about half the Pad Thai, which was delicious even if I do say so myself. The spring roll was also good. The rest we put in bags to take back to the hostel.

The Smile cooking course is an organic course and they grow loads of the vegetables themselves. It was chucking it down so we had umbrellas and spare flip flops to wear as we went round the garden picking vegetables. We had a little basket and got the ingredients for the next dish we were making. One of the things we picked was a butterfly pea flower which Ken made into tea for us. I tried it and it was just like hot water.

The next dish was Panang Curry for me, and Green Curry for Lauren. But before we could make the actual curry we had to make curry paste. This involved using a large mortar and pestle to smush chillies, spices,  and other ingredients into a paste. Then once we had the paste we whacked it into a wok, added water, chicken, coconut cream and other ingredients to make the curry.

Once we made the curry we set it aside to eat later and made soups. I made spicy chicken soup with sweet basil and Lauren made chicken with coconut milk soup. We chopped the veg and added the necessary ingredients to the water/coconut milk and let the soup cook. This dish required a lot less stirring and mixing than the others.

Once the soup was done we sat down to eat these two dishes. I ate all the curry, which was very spicy but very nice, and tried a few mouthfuls of the soup. It was all I could manage as I was so full. Lauren tried about a mouthful of her dishes. She isn't really a Thai food kind of person. We bagged up the remains to bring back to the hostel which is probably only the second hostel we've stayed in in Asia that actually as cooking facilities, which was handy.  We were also given some curry paste that Ken had made and a recipe book to keep. Then we were dropped off back at the hostel.

We chilled at the hostel for most of the afternoon then around 7pm we went out to Chiang Mai's night bazaar. It was huge. There were so many stalls we didn't see them all. We wandered around for over 2 hours before returning to the hostel and preparing for a very exciting day tomorrow.