Thailand: Cooking with Ryan & Jalyssa

I LOVE TO COOK!

Cooking back home for Ryan was always something I enjoyed doing, but trying to get a Dutch man to eat outside the standard “meat and potatoes” box wasn’t always easy. Tofu was forbidden after I tried sneaking it into supper one night, fruit as a dessert was laughable, and any seafood that wasn’t slathered in onions generated an instant gag reflex from my lovely husband….So as you can see I was so excited to broaden my cooking skills, and since Ryan is my other half…he had to come…and wear a pretty apron 😀

Our cooking class started at a local market where we met our cooking instructor for the day. She walked us around the huge and delicious smelling market. She told us about different Thai ingredients used in various foods. We learned that Asian eggplants are not the same as purple eggplants back home, but come from the same family. They are green and roughly the size of a clementine.  

Long Green Beans and Eggplants

We also learned about Galangal which is a root (similar to ginger) and is used a lot in Thai cooking.

We got to see lots of fresh herbs like basil, cilantro, and lemon grass. Since they are so cheap in Thailand, they are used a lot to make Thai food more colourful and tasty!

It wouldn’t be a proper market visit if we didn’t talk about the chilli peppers and the amount of HEAT Thai people love in their food. Our cooking instructor said that when we go to restaurants, ask for “Foreigner spicy,” or else most people will add 2-3 chilis in our meal…because that is basically no spice to a Thai person. She told us that it is common for a Thai person to cook with 8-10 chilis per meal. ONE MEAL! Yowza!!!!

After we picked up all of our necessary ingredients for the day we headed to the cooking school!

Here is a list of what we cooked!

• Spring Rolls: easy to make and incredibly delicious!

 

• Papaya Salad: It was so delicious! Papaya salad became a regular part of our diet after trying it in our class! 

 

• Chilli Paste: Ryan made Red Curry paste and I made Panang Curry paste! We used a mortar and pestle! It was so fun!

Ingredients for curry paste

Working hard!

Hardly working 🙂

Mortar and Pestle!

Finished product!!

 

• Panang Chicken: This was probably my favourite meal we made. 

 

• Red Curry Chicken: Ryan made this and thought it tasted good.  ( I asked him to describe it, and he was entirely unhelpful).

 

• Pumpkin and Coconut Soup: Common dessert. It was one of the most delicious things we have had yet! We were told we could also use bananas instead of pumpkin!

 

• Akha Soup and Akha Salad: Akha soup uses a winter melon. It looked a lot like honeydew melon except it had a mild flavour and comes from the cucumber family! The salad was basically cucumbers and tomatoes with lime juice on them! It was actually quite refreshing!

 

• Sweet and Sour Prawn Soup: Not my favourite. I think I made it too sweet (palm sugar) and used too much lime.

 

• Coconut Chicken Soup: Ryan made this and rocked it! Now he can make this at home for me!

 

• Pad Thai: So easy, took literally 2 minutes and was so good!!!

 

• Hot Basil: Ryan chose to make this and he liked it a lot! He can definitely handle more spice than me!

 

• Akha Dip: Served with vegetables! Easy and different to try!

 

• Mango Sticky Rice: It was so amazingly delicious, I can’t even begin to explain. THIS will be something I make back home!!!

 

After the class we all got to sit at a table and eat our dishes together. It was so nice! We all talked about what we liked, what was too hot etc. We left feeling so full! We also received a cookbook that I have added in my extensive notes for when we come back home to cook!

Who likes Thai Food? Who would like to come over (when we get home) to try some new dishes?