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(I'm a bit behind on the blog so going to do a few tonight)
This afternoon we decided to book into a Thai cookery course with a lovely young lady called Boom who runs her own small cookery classes at her home in Chiang Mai (Basil Cookery).
We started off with a tour of one of Chiang Mai's three large street markets. Boom took us through the mind boggling array of vegetables and other ingredients on offer. I've never seen so many strange fruits and vegetables that I didn't know existed!
We each selected half a dozen recipes to make plus making our own curry paste completely from scratch and Boom bought all the ingredients fresh off the market.
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I choose to make:
Pad Thai
Thailand's most well known noodle dish. Perfectly stir fried rice noodles with tofu, egg, shrimp, fish sauce, tamarind juice, sugar and topped with fresh bean sprout and chives.
Pha-nang Curry (my favorite Thai dish)
A dry and thick curry fried with coconut cream. Tastes similar to red curry but a little sweeter and more aromatic due to a wonderful combination of exotic spices.
Chicken in Coconut Milk Soup (second favorite)
A chicken soup with coconut milk, lemongrass, galangal and kaffir lime leaves. Milky, spicy, sour and super delicious.
Fried Cashew Nut With Chicken
An oriental taste which will blow you away! Consists of roasted cashew nuts, onion, jelly mushrooms, dried chili and sauces.
Fried Spring Rolls
Great appetizer with minced chicken, bean sprouts, chives, carrot, baby corn and Basil’s own marinade. Serve with sweet chili sauce.
Deep Fried Banana
A beautifully delicious Thai dessert, crispy on the outside & soft on the inside. Sliced banana coated with Basil’s special batter of flour, shredded coconut, sesame and sugar. Serve with coconut ice cream.
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After each course you sit down to eat your creations which were shockingly quick and easy to make, if you have all the right ingredients and prepare well.
We were soon full after the 3rd course so Boom sends you off for half an hour to walk it off, making more room and so he can prepare the next session.
Anyway we managed to complete all the courses and were shockingly impressed with the results vowing to show off by cooking for all friends and family when we get back (let's hope we keep to our word). The tastes were amazing, making everything from scratch with fresh ingredients and using Booms family recipes produced amazing results, better than either of us had had in any restaurant!!
The fried bananas were so good that despite being completely full we both managed to scoff the lot with some lovely coconut ice cream!
When Boom eventually dropped us off home, with what we couldn't eat in bags for later, we were so thoroughly stuffed and pleased with ourselves that we just vegetated for the remainder of the evening.
We both agreed my Pah-nang was probably the best, followed by Alex's green curry although I think the bananas were probably the winner given how quickly we scoffed them down!
An awesome experience and with the recipe books we took home you should all be demanding some Thai cooking when we get home. Although suspect Sainburys will not stock half the ingredients so well have to substitute!!
- comments
Luca You can find all the ingredients in Holland Adam so perhaps when you visit next you can invite us to show off your new acquired Thai recipes. :-D
Erik awesome! send me the recipes please ;-) dying for some real Thai food now...