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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

We were excited to try our dishes, but we had three more to prepare before we were allowed to eat. Torture!

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.

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.

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.

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.