basil cooking class

one of the recommended activities to do in chiang mai is take a cooking class, and that we did.  i found a place called basil cookery school that held classes capped at 6 people so you could really get the hands on experience.  hands on it was.  boom, our instructor, had us doing everything.  she would make the dishes with us in her own wok but we cracked, peeled, pounded, and cut, every ingredient that went into our dishes and cooked them ourselves.  i would recommend this school to anyone that goes to visit!  plus, you get a cookbook with all of the recipes and chopsticks to take home with you.

officially graduated thai chef

definitely a highlight of the trip…but i love cooking so no surprise here!  if you like thai food, i will warn you that you may leave hungry after reading this.

we got to choose 6 dishes each, so naturally we tried to pick different dishes so we could make and try more food.  we happened to get lucky and be the only two people in the class that day so we had our own personalized experience.

we started out at a local market where boom normally gets her food.  here she explained to us the different vegetables and ingredients that go into most of the thai dishes we were about to make.

green balls are thai eggplant and below are "curry packets"--all the veggies bundled together to make the curry paste. genius!

after the market we went straight to the school to put our aprons on and get to work.  it is with much pride that i now present to you our 6 course thai meal, made straight from the hands of anna and brian:

in the kitchen ready to cook

course #1: pad thai & pad see ieu (fried rice noodles with soy sauce)

course #2: tom yum kung (hot and sour prawn soup)

course #2: tom kaa kai (chicken coconut milk soup)

course #3: larb kai (savory minced chicken salad)

course #3: paw phia tawd (fried spring rolls)

pounding out some curry pastes

finished green curry paste!

course #4: gaeng kiew waan (green curry)

course #4: gaeng pa nang (pa-nang curry)

course #5: pad kra prao moo (stir fried beef with holy basil)

dessert time! kneading the fresh coconut milk out of the fresh shaved coconut flakes

course #6: kao niew ma muang (mango sticky rice, a favorite!)

course #6: kae niew piek dum (black sticky rice pudding)

leaving full of food and knowledge