Bangkok - Day 3

We started the day a little later on Sunday but still could have slept longer. We had a leisurely breakfast at the hotel and then caught a water taxi to the other side of the river. They picked us up promptly at 9 am to take us to Bai Pai cooking school. We were in for a 4 hour cooking lesson on how to make different Thai dishes.

The cooking school is in the middle of a residential district. It is an open air building which provides for a nice and breezy lesson. Each person has their own individual cooking station. They start by showing you how to cook the dish and then allowing you to taste it. You are then sent to your cooking station to cook it yourself.

We actually started our lesson by heading off to a local market. Our instructor then walked us through to show us many of the items that are used in local Thai cuisine. This market was much cleaner and wider than the wet market I am used to visiting in Singapore. It was, however, very funny to hear the others in the class describe this market - clearly never having been to a wet market before.

I had no idea of the variety of rices available in the world. This is just a sampling of the rice used in Thailand. I am sure if you factored in the other Asian countries this number would increase significantly.

These guys were making fresh spring roll wrappers. The griddle is super hot and they actually take a big blob of the dough and just brush it lightly onto the griddle in a circle. They then take a spatula (he's in this stage in the photo) and brush out any air bubbles. If the griddle is full they will have 5-6 spring roll wrappers on it. This was pretty cool to see since I never knew how they were made. As an aside, the woman running this stand sells a Thai dessert. It is just a spring roll wrapper with what they call fairy floss (we call it cotton candy) rolled up inside. Sounds a bit odd but it is a really tasty and light dessert.

There is some amazing fruit here in Asia that I have never seen before. I have been trying all of them and liking most of them. In the picture below the furry looking fruit is rambutan. You break it open and there is an opaque fruit inside that is quite tasty. The fruit on the bottom left is mangosteen. Again, you break it open and there is an opaque fruit inside that you eat.
In the picture below the small brownish fruit is longan. Again (there is a them starting here) you break open the shell and the inside is an opaque fruit. It tastes kind of like a grape. The pink fruit at the top is dragon fruit. This you cut open and the inside is white with little black seeds. I am not a fan of this but most people think it is great.


At most markets in Thailand you can buy freshly made curry paste. This stand was so fragrant.
I will throw this last photo in here just for those of you who may have never been to a market outside of the US. This is how they sell chickens:
This is actually a bit cleaner than most as they have already cut the neck and heads off. Most markets don't do that unless you ask them to.

After a nice tour through the market we headed back to the cooking school. We started by prepping the dessert. Khao Neaw Moon is Thai for coconut sticky rice. Khao Neaw means sticky rice and Moon means marinate. There is a special kind of rice that you have to use to get the proper consistency for the sticky rice. You then mix the cooked rice with a coconut marinade and let it sit for about 30 minutes.

As an appetizer we made Gai Satay. Gai is Thai for chicken and Satay is Thai for satay...we had a nice laugh about the last bit. If you are not familiar with satay it is essentially meat on a stick. You can make it with chicken, pork, beef, lamb, or even shrimp. Below is a picture of the spices and me getting ready to make my gai satay:
And here is my gai satay on the grill:
And finally the finished product, including the peanut sauce and sweet & sour relish, before I gobbled it up:
The next dish we made was Plah Goong or savory prawn salad. Plah is Thai for herbal and Goong is Thai for prawn (shrimp to us Americans). This is a spicy salad that was super easy to make. You can make it as spicy as you want depending on how many Thai hot chilis you put into it. Below are pictures of Thai hot chilis from the market and my finished salad (notice how I decorated the plate...I was totally getting into this cooking thing).


The last dish that we made was Gai Pad Med Ma-Muang or stir-fried chicken with cashew nuts. Gai again means chicken, Pad means stirfry, and Med Ma-Muang means cashew nut. This again was super easy to make.

These are all of the ingredients at my cooking station:
This is me cooking the dish:

And here again is the finished product just before I enjoyed every last bite of it:
And finally, here is a shot of my mango sticky rice which is a very traditional Thai dessert:
I have to say that I have not been a fan of sticky rice when I have had it before. I think this is the type of dessert that has to be eaten shortly after it is made or it looses some of the taste. It was not a favorite but I certainly enjoyed it much better in the fresh version.

Not being a cook I wasn't sure what my reaction to cooking class would be. I have to admit that I had a great time. It was fun to not only learn how to cook the dishes but to learn about where the fruits, veggies, and spices originate. The teachers here did a nice job of showing us substitutions for their 'staple' ingredients since they realize it is likely difficult to get them outside of Asia. If you are ever in Bangkok I would strongly recommend taking a class from this place.

Right after we finished with the cooking class we headed to the airport and then were on our way back to Singapore. I had a great weekend and will definitely go back to Bangkok. It is a city with such different cultures with so many ornate temples just sitting in the midst of the city. It is also a modern city which has a transportation system that is very easy to navigate.

Hope you have enjoyed the blog tour of Bangkok!