Cooking up a storm

Before we left for our jungle fun we booked up a Thai cooking course, although we have already done one in Koh Phagnan we wanted to do another where you go to the market and get all your ingredients and even go as far as to make the curry paste. So we sorted everything out for the day after we returned to Chang Mai, We all woke up good and sore still from the trekking and to be honest I was less enthusiastic than I probably should have been, but like the trooper I am I soldiered on… Luckily its not far from where we were staying so by 9:30 we were at the Baan Thai cookery school. We all had a choice of dishes we wanted to knock up and then complete with a little shopping bag each headed out to the local market. It was a really nice, clean market and after the chaotic markets of Vietnam and the questionable ones in Cambodia it was a breath of fresh air and quite fun to learn what all the fruits and vegetables are from the expert direction of our super camp guide. None of us were in particularly good shape and the heat of the day started to kick in which didn’t help matters, but baskets laden with all sorts of goodies we strolled back to our school like a line of school children out on a field trip. We got a chance to try a fruit plate of things that we probably wouldn’t normally try before donning our pinnies and getting stuck in to our first dish, I think Kat, Georgie and I all made the same dish first and that was stir fried shrimp in curry paste, a really quick and tasty little number. After each dish we all went back to our tables and got to enjoy the fruits of our labour before starting the next. Dish two was soup I think and Georgie and I went for spicy Tom Yum soup while Kat opted for a coconut milk and chicken, both lipsmackingly tasty and even if I say so myself… A piece of piss. Next was spring rolls for Kat and I and shrimp cakes for Georgie, I opted for this one because I had made them when we had a cooking class before and frankly, I wanted to be top of the class… Not sure if I achieved it but they were still good anyway. We had a short break from cooking for an hour and sat chatting to the others in our group, unfortunately I was still feeling the trekking and all I could think about was the massage place opposite. Back to the grind stone and we started preparations for dessert, mango and sticky rice. Preparations and timing is definitely where my cooking abilities fall short but with the expert help of our teachers it was a breeze. Lastly was to make the curry pastes and curries, Kat and I hit up the super spicy green curry while Georgie went for the red curry and ended up putting half of their years supply of chillies in it… It was a pretty big job knocking up the curry paste and it took everyone in the group so unless when we get home there are 10 people to help us we won’t be making that! But both curries turned out well, Georgie’s was so spicy it could probably have been used for rocket fuel but despite the gripping and fiery heat it was damn tasty! By this time we were all gut busted and when the dessert came out it became a struggle, full of fine cuisine and armed with culinary knowledge we said goodbye to our group and headed back to our guest-house… Well to the massage place opposite at least.