Chiang Mai Thai Cookery School - Day 2

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Nellie and Monk were off cooking again today on their 2nd and last course at the Chiang Mai Thai Cookery School.

The course is actually held at Sompon Nabnian's house which is about 20 minutes drive outside Chiang Mai on a private gated estate - more California than Chiang Mai. Participants are picked up from their hotels, shuttled to the office in the walled city to pay their dues and are then driven off to Sompon's bijou residence. It's not actually held in his house as such, rather, in an an extension he's built to house the cookery school. It's very well equipped nad has a large, airy cooking area with individual workplaces with cookers, and a separate classroom where the techniques for each dish are demonstrated before we novices go off to try our best. The school offers the option of staying at the house if you prefer a more rural retreat than an in-town hotel.

Today, from the office in town, we all went off to the local market where one of Sompon's lady chefs, Beer, showed us around, picking up all sorts of vegetables and other ingredients and explaining their use in Thai cookery. Most visitors to Thailand have probably looked around these markets before, but it's very interesting to have a local chef explain the background and culinary use of some of the common and the more exotic ingredients. Beer bought the ingredients for today's dishes and off we went to Sompon's house. Befoe we started cooking, Monk introduced Nellie to Beer - Nellie seemed to steal Beer's heart!

The pace today was hectic - a bit like the finals of Masterchef (a TV cooking contest programme in the UK). We did produce some really good dishes though - Monk thought the red curry was the best he'd ever tasted!

Apologies from Monk - this blog is beginning to look more like a tacky restaurant menu with pictures of the dishes on offer.

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