Back to school

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After returning from our trekking, we decided to do a thai cookery course. The day began with a trip to the market where we learned how to tell good produce etc. This was interesting- didnt know that you should always buy small eggs as they are from young hens and are therefore better quality yet they are cheaper!!!

Thenh we went to the cookery school and prepared about 10 dishes or so including red and green curry, pad thai, drunker noodles, chicken and cashew, tom yam soup, spring rolls, papaya salad, sticky rice and mango.

Was really interested to know that when making thai curry in the uk, its not possible to fry the paste in the coconut cream in the traditional way as our coconut cream is already cooked and therefore the oil cannot be extracted through heating. So it is therefore nessecary to first fry the curry paste in oil before adding the coconut milk and cream!!!

A hightlight of the day was setting out woks on fire to cook chicken and cashew nuts- managed to keep my eyebrows. The sticky rice with amngo was also a revelation. Its a really starchy type of rice which needs to be soaked overnight and then steamed. It can then be eaten savoury and dipped in sauce or mixed with a sweet coconut milk sauce and served with mango which is really yummy.

Also the secret to a good stirfry is to have a thin wok so that the heat can penentrate quickly as you add cold ingredients to prevent the veg from going soggy-tip!

This was a really useful day and we will definately be attempting to make these dishes when we get to australia as they were alot easier than we thought to make.

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Comments

[Liz Baxandall]

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Look forward to being treated to homecooked Thai meal when we visit Australia!