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Published: March 4th 2010
Vegetable market
An array of vegetables at the market.I like to cook. It’s mostly because I love to eat. But I also enjoy cooking so I can make things exactly as I want them. Today I went to
Silom Thai Cooking School to do just that with Thai food.
It wouldn’t be my first cooking school, having gone to one in New York City with my Mom a year ago almost to the day. That one was incredible and I expected more of the same.
I caught my taxi from the hostel just after 8:00 am and made it to the hotel where we would meet for the school with plenty of time to spare. Slowly, a few of the other participants began to show up. I chatted with one girl named Sabrina (from Denmark).
Around 9:00, Sanusi, the proprietor and our ring leader for the day, showed up with the remaining participants.
Our first stop was a marketplace to buy our fresh ingredients. We started out at a vegetable stand, then picked up shrimp and chicken. Next we went to a place that produces its own curry pastes, something that we would later do on our own (and after experiencing the grueling process now I know why
Curry pastes
Some of the prepared curry pastes of varying spiciness. they are sold ready made). From there we bought grated coconut flesh. In the background a man drained the milk from old coconuts, where the milk is apparently quite sour; these have the better flesh. The young coconuts have good milk but mushy flesh. We also picked up some palm sugar (coconut sap). On our way out to buy some more vegetables we picked up some fish.
At the vegetable stand outside, Sanushi took us through all the different vegetables and seasonings we would be using. We started out with chillis, learning that the smaller they are the hotter they are and that color does not affect the heat but it does the taste.
Next we smelled different types of ginger, limes and basil. Some of the basils were sweet while one was surprisingly spicy.
We also picked up baby corn, different types of mushrooms, roots, onions and some other things I’m surely missing.
We proceeded to the school nearby and, on entering, all removed our shoes before we were issued our aprons. We were then split up into different teams to work on preparing some of the vegetables to be used throughout the day. Our
Peeling ginger
Like peeling a potato with a knife. team was responsible for cutting chicken, cleaning raw shrimp and peeling the ginger. A British woman and I took on the peeling ginger role, using a knife blade like a potato peeler while sitting on the floor to do our handiwork. I also got to clean one shrimp.
We then reassembled as a whole group and made coconut milk. Using the grated coconut flesh, with water that Sanusi poured into it, we had to mash the substances together then squeeze resulting product through a strainer to make coconut cream. Doing this another time turned the cream into coconut milk.
Next we all got together to prepare our individual plates of vegetables and seasoning for our first dish, tom yam soup. Sanusi explained that
Thai cooking is easy; just three steps: 1. Meat and veggies (not important, use what you like), 2. Seasoning (use different ones you like) 3. Key ingredient depends on dish. That’s it. For the tom yam soup, we prepared mushrooms, tomatoes, lime leaves, small red chilli peppers and some herbs. On the chilli peppers, Sanusi recommended
one pepper for tourists. But I don’t consider myself a tourist (plus I like punishing my taste buds).
Vegetable prep work
On the floor. "Thai cooking fuuuun!" Three it is.
We took our ingredients outside to the wok cooking stations that were setup and began to cook.
Fry, fry, fry! After a few seconds, everyone started coughing and sneezing from the pepper laced smoke that filled the air.
How hot was this going to be? Our soup was ready in a few minutes. We all went inside and began to eat our first dish. This was delicious. I was very glad I went with extra peppers because this came out just right, starting with a small twinge of heat and building to a nice level of heat by the end.
My table was a melting pot of cultures, each united by the English language - Michael from Switzerland, Shannon from Northern India and Sabrina from Denmark, who I had met earlier. Each of us is traveling on our own.
Our next three dishes were chicken and roasted cashews (better than the tom yam), chicken, shrimp and beans with red curry sauce (my favorite of the four main dishes) and beef and shrimp with green curry sauce (also fabulous). We went through a similar process for each of these, adding ingredients to our liking
Wok with Ryan
Cooking my tom yam. and cooking and eating each dish one at a time.
The last dish, dessert, was largely made for us, except that we helped with the coconut milk earlier. This dessert was a magnificent mango and sticky rice, with the sticky rice containing coconut milk, sugar and salt. It really cut through the heavy curries of the last two dishes.
We all parted ways half comatose. I needed a nap, which I took after spending a good bit of the late afternoon working on some more trip planning and finding info on Angkor Wat (where I head next) and a history of southeast Asia on the internet.
The class was the only real thing I did today but it was more than enough to make it a really enjoyable day. It ended up being quite a bit different than the one in New York, not just because we cooked in bare feet and did a lot of our work on the floor, but also because we mostly made our own dishes to our liking and ate them as we made them (not in a big feast at the end). After two great classes I have yet another hobby
Tom yam soup
The finished product. and look forward to trying recreational cooking schools around the world.
Tomorrow I spend the day traveling to Siem Reap in Cambodia.
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