"Not all Who Wander are Lost": Cooking Thai-Style

After the great time we had cooking in Vietnam, we decided we’d take another course in Thailand. The Thai Farm Cooking School came highly recommended from others who took our course in Hoi An so we decided we would make that our big splurge for our time in Chiang Mai and it was well worth it.

The full day course included a visit to the market and quick lessons on Thai ingredients, the most important being Jasmine Rice, Sticky Rice, fish and oyster sauces (they gave we vegetarians soy and mushroom sauces as replacements), and chili paste (so good!). We were let loose in the market for 20 minutes and this resulted in our group purchasing fried insects to try later...

We took a ride out of the city to the farm where we headed out into the organic garden to see many of the local herbs and vegetables, including these super miniature eggplants that we used in our curry dishes and are absolutely delightful! Thai cooking uses a lot of basil, and they have many different types; we used the Holy Basil, which is a bit lighter than the typical Italian Basil we are used to and so good (we may like it more than the Italian…).

The class was limited to 6 people and our classmates were a fun group (see the note on the insects…) and we quickly built a good rapport and had a good time learning together. Another great aspect to the class is that we were able to choose from 3 options in each of the 6 dishes. We each selected a different item so we would be able to taste each other’s and come back having cooked 6 different things to be able to make again. Between us we made green and red curry paste and then a green and red curry dish, tom yam soup and coconut soup, tofu and holy basil and tofu with cashew nuts, pad thai and stir-fry big noodles, mango with coconut sticky rice and pumpkin in coconut milk. We attempted to eat the curry, soup, and tofu dishes for lunch but it was so much food, we had to pack some up. After lunch we made the noodle dishes and desserts and didn’t even bother trying to eat them since we were so full (we just tasted them to be sure they were right). It was perfect since we had plenty for dinner that night and lunch the next day!

After lunch, the insects came out and we both tried the ones we selected earlier. ginnie went for the skinny-crinkly-french-fry-looking one (bamboo worm) that she could trick herself into thinking was a fry. It tasted like a very oily chip, so it was not so bad. Anthony went for a cricket and said it was not bad. Based on the recommendation of others, we both tried the small round one that had pincers we removed and it actually tasted somewhat like a nut. By this time we reached our fried insect limit and observed as the silkworms were tested and they were just too squishy to try – that would have been too much for all of us! Fortunately, the staff was delighted to have them as a treat!