Signed up for the homecooking class with A lot of Thai, a husband and wife team who runs the class from their home. Yui, our instructor was a nice lady who speaks very clear English and has a good sense of humour. Her husband Kwan doubles up as a driver, graphic designer, webmaster and everything else all rolled in one. There were 7 of us in the class, including a couple from France, another couple from Minnesota and a guy from Canada. We warmed up to Yui immediately as she made us feel at home and shared her many cooking tips with us.
our cooking stations
The first dish we cooked was pad thai, one of my favourite Thai dishes. I thought our pad thai turned out pretty tasty, much better than some of the restaurants here in Singapore.
Next we prepared the ingredients for spring roll. Co's spring rolls was one of the best while both my spring rolls were of uneven length. Yui explained that the best oil for frying spring rolls is peanut or corn oil and taught us how to fry the rolls properly. It was one of the best spring rolls I have had, non oily and was delicious with the chilli and plum dipping sauce.
Co's spring rolls
Ji's spring rolls
The next dish was green curry chicken and again Yui patiently demonstrated the steps to making a good curry. The curry was thick and creamy, unlike the ones we have tasted in many places, where the gravy is watery and diluted. Yui served us brown rice to go with our curry and it was so delicious that I finished every bit of the curry and the rice. Meanwhile, Yui also showed us how to steam sticky rice, which we will later eat with the mangoes.
steaming the sticky rice in the bamboo steamer
We then took a break from all the cooking and eating to tour the local market, where Yui gets her daily supply of fresh meat and vegetables.
fried chicken heads
Back in her house, we ventured to cook our next dish, tom yam goong. I goofed a bit on this dish by adding too much water initially but it still tasted ok. The last dish was stir fried chicken with cashew nuts, an easy peasy dish for me as it was just simple stir fry.
This cooking class is highly recommended as Yui is an excellent instructor and we had a lot of fun learning how to cook these popular Thai dishes. Plus their cookbook, designed by Kwan, is very pretty and informative and serves as a good reference for anyone who wants to learn the basics of Thai cooking. We bought two extra cookbooks (180 baht each) to give as gifts.
Back at our hotel, we went for our 11/2 hours hot stone massage (2,500 baht) and it was good, especially the warmth from the hot stone on our aching joints (from all the walking and cooking!).
light refreshments after the massage
We headed off to the night bazaar and thankfully, it had stopped raining. The bazaar was quite crowded and we bought more t-shirts, shorts and bags, including a LeSportsSac bag which we spotted and liked immediately. Co did all the bargaining and was getting pretty good at it! We had khao soi, the famous Chiangmai curry noodles at Kalare night bazaar. The noodles cost only 30 baht.
talented artists at work
Overall, this has been a most enjoyable trip of S & S (spa and shopping) and we plan to visit Chiangmai again soon for more food, cooking, shopping and massage.
Labels: chiang mai, thailand, travel
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