The farm on which the cooking class was held was a gorgeous setting with beautiful facilities including covered outdoor cooking stations, allowing for a lovely breeze to blow through. Gun first gave us a tour of the farm from which many of the day’s ingredients were sourced from. We then selected the dishes we’d be making that day. I selected the following:
1 – pad see uw
2 – papaya salad
3 – spring roll
4 – coconut soup w chicken
5 – green curry paste
6 – green curry w chicken
7 – mango w sweet sticky rice
We cooked 1 first and promptly ate it (& everyone commented on my great knife skills as I had the best sliced carrots in our group of 6… I apparently brought my A game). We then cooked 2 & 3 and ate those together as course 2 and after, took a 1 hour break on the lovely grounds. Amy & I played cards and chatted while the cooking school staff prepped for the afternoon’s meals.
Amy & I made the green curry paste – she diced the veggie/flavor additions & I crushed peppers and then her ingredients in a massive mortar & pestle. I hadn’t realized I’d get a good arm workout in cooking class as this was hard work to crush everything into a fine paste… Prob took 20+ minutes, all the while Gun continually demanding “stronger, faster, not ready yet” w a devious smile. We each made our own soups and then I volunteered (yes! In a cooking class!) to cook the coconut sticky rice for everyone and knocked it out like a pro. Haha
Everything tasted incredible (compliments to the chef) but there was far too much to eat. Our instructor Gun was amazing… great chef (he learned from his grandma and said that all Thai people are good cooks), great teacher (amazing how he keeps track of all different dishes for each person in group and where everyone is in cooking process, what to add/when, when to increase/reduce heat, etc) and great sense of humor. Returned to Chiang Mai with a full belly by 5:30.
amusemusings 