Iron Chef Chiang Mai… BAM

Today we went to the Chiang Mai Thai Cookery School for some lessons in the art of making Thai cuisine (www.thaicookeryschool.com). It was an all day schooling run by Chef Sompon Nabnian that entailed the cooking of six traditional Thai meals that we would learn, cook and eat. The first lesson was about the ingredients we would be using throughout the day, the different herbs and vegetables and sauces. The reason for the fishy taste in everything, we learned, is due to the use of fish sauce, which apparently is used in nearly everything the Thai cook. Oh, and the use chilies in pretty much everything they cook too, which we loved and loaded up on… or at least I did.

The first dish we made was Thai Hot & Sour Prawn Soup (Tom Yam Goong), which we substituted tofu for prawns, because of our love for tofu (more like abhorrence for fish - definitely came to the wrong part of the world to not like fish), and the second dish was Thai Style Fish Cakes (Tord Man Plaa), which we substituted chicken for (see previous reasoning). Both were excellent, with lots of flavor and spices - as your friend and mine, Emerald Lagasse would say, BAM, which I did on more then one occasion.

The cooks teaching us were local Thais and spoke English very well - well enough to crack jokes too. One joke that we found funny enough to share - after tasting the sauce for the Tord Man Plaa, she exclaimed Oh my Buddha that is delicious. I guess that would be OMB in text language instead of OMG... Haha, lol, Rofl, etc, etc.

For lunch we whipped up some Green Curry with Chicken (Gaeng Kheo Wan Gai) and Thai Fried Noodles (Phad Thai), both of which are very common and can be found in nearly every Thai restaurant around the world. Again, they were excellent and we were both becoming stuffed full of Thai deliciousness. Everything we made the dishes with was with the freshest possible ingredients, all from the local markets and farms. You can’t beat cooking with fresh herbs and spices.

After each meal cooked we sat at some covered tables with the other students from around the world - Washington, DC, Switzerland, Britain, Germany, New Zealand and New York. The guy from Britain we talked to has been traveling around Southeast Asia for ten months, bouncing around from Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Indonesia and Thailand, staying ahead of the rainy seasons. He was a government regulator for the financial sector in London and after completing another degree, he decided he was sick of it, so he quit his job and headed out on the road, starting in Italy. He soon realized that he would be soon out of money if he stayed there and chose to come to Asia to extend his savings. Though he did inform us that he is starting to run short after so much time on the road and will be applying for a job with the IMF in the coming days, hoping to prolong his stay abroad.

The young couple from Switzerland was on holiday traveling around Thailand for six weeks. They get six weeks of vacation in Switzerland. Six. They shed a tear when I told them I had two weeks from the job. They didn’t have much of a plan in Thailand and have been bouncing around the country, really exploring the land and culture.

For our final meals we made Water Chestnuts with Sugar Syrup and Coconut Milk (Tab Tim Grob) and Minced Chicken Northern Style (Nam Prik Ong). Again, complements to the chef for the tastiness. The meals were all pretty easy to make and we’ll be giving them a try at home in Hoboken… but maybe not for some time, because I don’t know how much Thai food I’m going to want when we get back. I’m thinking of going on an all pizza and Italian deli sandwich diet. Though, we were provided with a cooking book that details all the ingredients with possible substitutes and a bunch of recipes, so maybe you’ll be lucky to have us heat a dish up for ya.

We wrapped up just after 4PM, said our goodbyes and went back to the hotel. We wanted to go on a night safari at the national park that is about an hour away, but it would have been too much to take in. Instead we walked around the ground of our hotel that doubles as a botanical garden. We came upon a paddleboat rental and took one out to tour a bit of the grounds that way and torture any ducks that we came across. I had a lot of fun doing that. The gardens were beautiful with local vegetation and flowers that had vibrant colors that you’d be hard pressed to find growing in the States.

Not much else to report besides a great dinner we had again at the hotel. Gotta say the Northern Thai sausages are scrumptious.

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