Cooking in Chiang Mai

The next day in Chiang Mai I decided I wanted to take a cooking class. Dale surprised me and decided to take it with me! What a great guy he is. We signed up for a full day course from Baan Thai Cookery School.  The course started with a short walk to a local market where we were taught what all of the things for sale were and bought the supplies we needed for our meals. This was helpful for figuring out what we were eating and seeing! I didn't expect there to be such different fruits and vegetables but they are so entirely different you wouldn't even recognize anything. 

Above is the market we bought our eggs from and below a close up of snacks like fried pig ears, wasabi peas, and candied peanuts.

Here I am at our last stop in the market showing off all the produce I was assigned to carry home, only a lot of elephant ear mushrooms! This stall had fresh fish getting descaled, pre-made curry, and a whole lot of fresh fruit! Almost everything looked really good!

Then it was back to the school to learn to cook. The school is fairly primitive by first world standards but very nice by Thailand standards. Propane tanks fueled our wok stations. I think I'm a fairly advanced cook but somehow I've never acquired a wok and this left me desperately wanting a wok!

The cooking was always fully hands on and somehow in a class of 9, Dale always ended up doing the hardest work like soaking the rice in coconut milk or grinding the curry down to a paste. Our teacher who is also the owner of Bann Thai kept telling us that Thai people's secret to being sexy is spicy food. She said many times we needed to eat, "more spicy, more sexy". Dale and I still quote her! It was too funny.

I learned to make: chicken pad thai, chicken in coconut milk (pictured below), spring rolls, green curry with chicken (pictured below the picture below) and mango with sticky rice. Dale learned: pork red curry, hot and sour prawn soup, spring rolls, chicken pad thai, and deep fried banana. 

 Everything turned out fantastic! I have to say learning to make the curry was the most informative and delicious. Also, learning how to make sticky rice in the land of sticky rice was great also!

Overall, I would say the course was well worth the cost considering you eat all day. If you already know how to cook basic thai food, this is probably not the course for you. You can view all the pictures from the day at Bann Thai Cookery School's website.
Love Always,
Matilda