Thai Farm Cooking School, Chiang Mai
If you know us, you know that Jordan loves to cook. You may also know that Skyler’s specialties run more to popcorn and Trader Joe’s frozen Indian meals. Still, we love Thai food and wanted to sign up for one of the many cooking classes offered in Chiang Mai. Could we find a small cooking class that we could both enjoy? I think Thai Farm Cooking School, held at a small organic farm 17 km outside the city, fit the bill. Here are some pictures of our day out at the farm.
Our day began with a trip to a local market. We found this Jordan-sized bag of pork chitlins. They are popular all over northern Thailand as an accompaniment to chili dips and local sausages. We tried to explain to our instructor that these little piggie intestines were well-known to us.
This is our instructor, Rika, giving us a tour of the organic garden at the farm where we had our class.
They grew all varieties of fruits, vegetables, roots and herbs.
Back in the kitchen, the first thing we made was our own chili paste. Step one: Gather and dice the ingredients finely. We used shallot, garlic, galangal (a first cousin to ginger), cumin, coriander seed, lemongrass, kaffir lime zest and — of course — chilies. The amount you see below is “white person spicy.”
Then, grind to a paste in the mortar and pestle. According to Rika, you should “SHOW NO MERCY!”
The final product:
We each had our own cooking station with chopping block and stove. Notice the large platters at each station. They make it nearly foolproof by giving you just the ingredients you need, and telling you what to do with them.
Next, we made soups. Skyler chose Tom Yum Goong (shrimp) and Jordan made Coconut Soup with Chicken.
To accompany our soups, we used the curry paste we made to make red and green chicken curries.
To complete lunch, we each made a stir fry. Jordan had to dice up onions, garlic, peppers, long beans and chicken to go into his Basil Chicken dish, while Skyler made Sweet and Sour Chicken.
After all that hard work, we deserved a rest. Or maybe it was the humongous lunch we had.
Rika got us up and moving to make our next course. Spring rolls for Jordan and Pad Thai for Skyler. Thankfully, they wrapped these up for us to take home.
We weren’t done yet! We each made a dessert before we left. Jordan made a simple bowl of bananas steeped in coconut milk, flavored with pandan leaves that imparted a vanilla flavor. It tasted like melted ice cream — yum. Skyler made the equally delicious Thai staple – Mango Sticky Rice (unpictured due to lack of artistic lighting and little left in the bowl by the time Jordan got to her).
The class cost 1,000 baht per person (about $33 US). That’s a bit much for us on our RTW budget, so we used the Christmas money generously given to us by Gigi (Skyler’s grandpa), to fund our day at the farm. Gigi grows the best pineapples, so it seemed appropriate. Thank you, Gigi!
