thai chef me

I used to love Thai food. I say “used to” because I’m currently going through an I’ve-had-too-much-Thai-food-give-me anything-but phase. I know I’ll be missing good Thai food when I return to New York so I prepared myself for this by taking some cooking lessons.

It was a half-day affair with teacher Nusi and three other girls. Nusi picked J and I up at the BTS station and off we went to the local market. We stopped at a few different stalls to buy vegetables, seafood, chicken, grated coconut and water chestnuts. Some things I learned at the market:

You use dried red chillies for red curry but fresh green chillies for green curry. Thai cooking entails the use of three different types of ginger --- Siamese ginger a.k.a. galangal, fresh turmeric and ‘regular’ ginger. There are also three different types of basil --- sweet basil, holy basil and lime basil. And again at least three types of eggplant --- long eggplant, apple aubergine and pea aubergine.


Back at Nusi’s quaintly decorated place (he very much likes cat-themed pieces), we cleaned and prepared the ingredients, chopped everything up on our own little chopping stations and proceeded to cook. We learned how to make coconut milk (grated coconut and water through a sieve) and tamarind paste (fresh tamarind and water). And of course the main events --- tom yum goong, pad thai, green curry, laab gai (salad) and tub tim grob (dessert).


We cooked one dish at a time. The program was cook, eat, cook, eat, cook eat…By the time we got to dessert, I was completely stuffed. One thing I learned about Thai cooking is that it is actually very, very simple. No need to baste, to marinate, to poach etc. etc. You basically just throw everything together in a wok. Buying fresh ingredients is really what’s key. Also, Thai cooking hardly uses salt…it’s all about the nam pla (fish sauce).

Nusi (former documentary filmmaker turned Thai cooking teacher) sent us off with a recipe compilation of the dishes we had made, a guide to buying vegetables in the market (with pictures and all) and money for transportation (apparently part of the fee we had paid). If you’re in Bangkok for a few days, it’s a great alternative to sightseeing --- half a day, good food, hilarious teacher and a sense of accomplishment...