On our girls’ trip to Thailand, my friend Samantha and I took a cooking class from Maliwan Thai Cooking School that Mike found for us via Viator for just $39 USD per person. We met our instructor, Mae, at the school, then traveled by tuk tuk to the local Klong Toey Fresh Market to purchase fresh ingredients. Read more about our market visit and see the gorgeous offerings in Part 1 of this post.
The school location was at the end of an alley and tricky to find. Thank goodness for our driver, Mr. Dan, who called and got better directions for us!
After we toured the market and bought our ingredients, we returned to the school to learn how to prepare green curry chicken, Tom Yum Goong soup, Pad Thai, and mango sticky rice.
Ingredients for green curry chicken laid out for us at our work stations
The class size was small (just us and a traveler from Romania), so it was easy to see Mae’s demonstrations and ask questions before we began cooking each dish.
Our instructor, Mae, demonstrating the technique for making sticky rice
The first dish we prepared was the green curry chicken. We diced peppers, shallots, fresh garlic, and lemongrass, then ground them into a paste using a mortar and pestle.
Grinding fresh ingredients into a green curry paste using a mortar and pestle
After we’d made our curry paste, we sautéed dried herbs in a wok with oil until they were fragrant, then added our paste and mixed it with coconut cream, coconut milk, coconut sugar, and fish sauce before adding diced chicken, eggplant, and kaffir lime leaves.
Green curry chicken cooking in a wok
The finished serving of green curry chicken
We were excited to try our dishes, but we had three more to prepare before we were allowed to eat. Torture!
Sticky rice steaming in a bamboo basket
Sticky rice was next. The grains steamed in a bamboo basket that resembled a hat, and when they were cooked, we added coconut milk and coconut cream along with a lot of sugar. The mixture was covered and allowed to sit so the rice would absorb the liquid. Later, this would be served with juicy slices of mango. The boys are going to be pretty excited when I recreate this dish at home!
Next on the menu was Tom Yum Goong, which is a Thai sweet-and-sour soup.
The finished serving of Tom Yum Goong, a Thai sweet-and-sour soup
We prepared the soup base with chicken broth, fish sauce, coconut sugar, red curry paste, and lime juice before adding prawns, lemongrass, peppers, and mushrooms. After it simmered, it was topped with kaffir lime leaves. Spicy and delicious!
The final dish we made was Pad Thai, which is one of the most popular Thai dishes around the world.
Ingredients for Pad Thai
We sautéed a prawn in oil, then removed it from the wok so it wouldn’t be overcooked. To the remaining oil, we added fish sauce, ground paprika, and coconut sugar. Next, we added an egg, tofu, and dried shrimp, followed by diced shallots and peanuts. After those ingredients cooked lightly, we added water and our rice noodles. Lime juice, sprouts, and lemongrass were next. We plated this mixture and topped it with our cooked prawn, more diced peanuts, and a lemongrass garnish.
The finished dish of prawn Pad Thai
Finally time to eat! The dishes were better than any I’ve had in the States, particularly since we made them ourselves. It was way too much food for one sitting, and Mae generously offered to bag up the leftovers for us to take with us. At $39 USD for the market visit, cooking class, and a very plentiful meal with leftovers, it was a terrific deal.
[…] The market was such a beautiful, lively place, and obviously I couldn’t stop taking pictures of all of the amazing offerings. I thought it was going to be the highlight of the experience … until we started cooking. I’ll tell you all about it in my next post! […]
[…] and blogged by night. She shopped at floating markets and the Chatuchak weekend market, took a Thai cooking class complete with a trip to the market to purchase Thai produce, and stood in silent awe of ancient […]