Cooking Thai Andy Style

The first few days of being in Thailand had left me feeling a bit despondent. The people didn't seem that friendly, the food had been disappointing and I started to think we should have stayed in Laos.

We were picked up at 9:15 by a minibus to take us on our thai cooking course (I was hoping this would save the day). Instantly things were much better, our host/teacher MB was happy, funny and full of life. About 15 minutes into the journey we stopped at a local market and we started going through some ingredients we would be using etc, which was all standard stuff as we had done this before + I knew most of it anyway but good to see where locals get their supplies from and I also got a bag of palm sugar for £0.32 which is unnecessarily expensive back home, even for small amounts. My bag is starting to look like a market stall though!

On getting to the school/farm we took a walk around to see things growing. Amongst other things I tried some small Aubergines (the mini bitter ones used for curries and some other round ones the size of tomatoes), some fresh tamarind (I have only tasted it in concentrated paste before) including the leaves.

I thought it was good that we got to choose options from a list for the 7 dishes we would make. First up - the curry paste. I chose red (obviously), the one main difference in making it was using galangal which I knew about but had never had fresh (I've been tasting it for weeks actually but didn't know what it was). A big difference from the paste I had used at home before that tasted completely different. It's been a few weeks since I've used the pestle & mortar.

I then made some Tom Yum soup, that I've always enjoyed but never really tried to make - it tasted great, but I think most of this is down to the shrimp paste combo they use (It's out a jar and I'm told they never make it fresh). Tash made some Coconut & tofu soup that was great (this is different from the stuff Dan's mum makes by the way Danka!).

Then we constructed the curry, pretty simple as we only really had some chicken to throw in and a few bits of aubergine (not like my 10 veg combo), both with the paste and this though we were given the option for extra chillies, so each stage had over and above the normal amount. Its easily the hottest one I've tasted for some years (I remember first making it for Tom & Josh 6 years ago and Josh was finding it very hard to breath afterwards!). Tash made yellow curry by the way and that had too much chilli in for her (the guy next to her told her to add more fish sauce, which then made it too salty and then MB added more coconut). Alongside this Tash made chicken & basil stir fry, and me chicken & cashew nuts that was ok, again quite simple but using mushroom sauce rather than oyster was a new thing for me.

The rice was one of the interesting parts, I had said to Tash a few days ago that I've not seen any rice in supermarkets back home that I could use to make 'sticky rice'. I'm sure I could find it if I looked again, but I didn't know it was steamed - So I now have another reason to get a bamboo steamer when I get back!

After a food break, we made Pad Thai (egg free version for me, and less sauce - because I split most of it!) and 'mango sticky rice' that I had seen on the side of streets and menus but hadn't tried. Its quite simple, you boil up pandan and coconut milk, mix it with some rice and palm sugar then cut a mango up and then serve it.

In the evening we went for a massage (the rate on the street is £4, but we went into somewhere that looked nicer and paid £10). Easily the best massage I've had on the trip, I always like it when the person can figure out the bits they need to work on the most and its not just the same routine they go through with each person.

Had panang curry for dinner, after the previous days disappointment it was ok.

Bowls of rice; 46
Massage count; 4