A Thai Cooking Class in Chiang Mai

Tom and I both really love Thai food, but since we eat it so rarely at home, we usually stick to our favorites like green curry and pad thai. We were really excited to get to Thailand and eat our way through dozens of menus (and we definitely did!), but we also wanted to spend a bit of time learning about the food and how to prepare it so that we could make some edible souvenirs when we get home. 

We decided to take a Thai cooking class while we were in Chiang Mai, in the north of Thailand. It seems like everyone and their mother runs a cooking class in Chiang Mai, so we read some reviews and decided to go with Vanee and Meo from "Classic Home Cooking," based on a review which said that it was like cooking with your grandmother. I am so so glad we did a class with them. The food we made was incredibly delicious, and they were wonderful hosts to us. Since it was the off season, we were the only two students in the class and so we got tons of attention.

They picked us up at our guesthouse and we headed off to the local morning market (which apparently starts at around 3am. Thankfully, we showed up closer to 9am.) We picked out the dishes we wanted to cook -- 6 dishes each, so 12 total!), and then we began our shopping for the day.

Local market

So many varieties of everything!

Designated bag carrier

Chili peppers! The littlest ones are the spiciest. (Although really, they all pack quite a punch.)

The meat section

Fish section

Angry-bird shaped... somethings (we think rice balls, but we're not quite sure)

Innards of some kind

Hello, Mr. Pig!

This is the machine that turns a coconut into coconut flakes and coconut milk.

Demonstrating where it all comes from

And a taste test, just to be sure

We made our curry paste from scratch, but many Thais just buy it pre-made

Durian, the smelliest fruit of all.

Carrying all of our ingredients

After our market tour, we headed back to Vanee and Meo's home to begin our work. We started off by making curry paste from scratch. It was actually very easy to make: just a few ingredients and some technique with a mortal and pestle.

Chopping

Ingredients for Tom's Massaman curry paste

Learning the proper mortar and pestle technique. (On the ground, so that we didn't break anything!)

Making curry!

Our finished curry pastes

Delicious Massaman curry

Stir fry. She jumped in when I did it wrong. Whoops.

Some of the ingredients for pad thai. 

Some of the best food we ate in all of Thailand. No lie. (I'd say it's our awesome cooking skills, but it's probably the recipes themselves.)

Our second feast of the day!

We went home in the mid-afternoon with stuffed stomachs, a gigantic recipe book, and bags full of leftovers. It was one of our favorite experiences on the trip so far, and we can't wait to show off some of our skills when we get back home!If you're headed to Thailand, I highly recommend you take a class with them. Check back tomorrow for one of our favorite recipes from the class!

-R