Thai Farm Cooking School, February 3

We spent today learning how to cook Thai food. We took a day long cooking class. We were picked up at our hotel in the morning and headed out to cooking school.

Our first stop was a market where we saw examples of the types of food and spices that are used in Thai cooking.

Oyster sauce, soya sauce, and fish sauce.

Palm Sugar

Chili Paste

The above five items are the base for all Thai cooking.

Our teacher, explaining the different herbs and fruits that are grown at the farm. This is an organic farm and this is where the cooking school is located.

Each student had their own cooking space with all the equipment needed for the cooking experience.

The first thing we learned to make was Thai chili paste. We had to grind the peppers and spices into a paste.

More pounding needed to make this into a paste.

Next dish was making a chicken curry dish. After this dish was made we added the curry paste to the chicken dish, took a break and ate the food.

Back to the kitchen.

Jane made a Thai vegetable soup and Charlie made a Tom Yam with shrimp. 

We then made the main dish.  I made chicken with cashew nuts and Charlie made chicken with basil.

Chef Charles touring the garden during our lunch break. We ate the stir fried chicken dishes that we made along with the soup.

Pumpkin and coconut milk dessert was made after lunch, and was eaten after we finished cooking it.

We were pretty full after all this eating but we still had one more dish to make. Charlie made Pad Thai and I made spring rolls. These we put into plastic bags to bring home to eat later that evening.

All the foods needed for the students was prepared by a staff of workers. They washed all the dishes and set up each work station with the foods needed for the next dish being cooked. 

This was an all day experience and around 4:00 we were taken back to our hotels with full stomachs, a fun experience and Pad Thai and spring rolls for supper.