Day 3 Oriental Cuisine Thai Cooking School Day 3

First, I have to make a cyber confession of being a technological dummy.  If you have been reading previous posts you know I was bemoaning the fact that I left home without the cable to connect the camera to my netbook and was at a loss what to do

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I happened to mention my plight to a young French couple who were at the cooking school today.  No problem they said and pointed to my netbook which was on the table.  They explained that there was a port I could insert the chip from the camera and voila, I would have the pictures downloaded on the netbook.   

Of course I couldn't figure how to take the chip out of the camera and once out I was trying to insert it upside down into the netbook.  But thanks to the tech savvy couple I was soon viewing the camera’s photos.

In honor of my third day the chef directed me in the preparation of three dishes that were not listed in the school brochure.  One was sliced banana dipped in a coconut milk batter with sesame seeds and deep fried. 

Then there was ‘beef salad’.  That dish consisted of beef dry sautéed to form a crust but still rare in the middle.  It was then sliced thinly and mixed with spicy chilies, finely sliced lemon grass, other spices and lime juice.  Wow, was an appetizer.

The third dish was called pearls in coconut milk.  We made a thick dough and divided it into thirds.  One third was left plain, another third colored with red food coloring, and the final third colored with green food coloring.  We then proceeded make very small marbles, dropped them in boiling water and waited for them to float to the top signaling that they were done.  Next we dropped them into a boiling mixture of coconut milk, palm sugar and water.  The final touch was to ladle the coconut mixture with the three different colors of colored ‘marbles’ and top it off with a poached egg.

My thanks go out to the chef for the special dishes. Those three we made last, by the way.

I used a mortar to make Massaman curry paste and then used the paste to make the traditional Massaman curry dish which includes a potato and herbs.

Tom Yum soup (spicy and sour soup with prawns) was the third soup I have have made at this school.   Each one of them is a star.  They are truly unique in flavors ranging from the mild chicken soup with bean curd I made the first day to the fragrant chicken in coconut milk the second, and finally the very very spicy Tom Yum.  Among those three I think there is a soup for everyone’s spoon.

I am bouncing all over the place as far as the order of preparations for the day.  My first dish was Oriental Fried Rice.  This is like no other fried rice I have eaten.  There is no soy sauce in the preparation.  There is sugar which will guarantee that Bryna with like it.  I thought it was some of the best fried rice I have eaten.  By the way it was fixed with shrimp and they were served on the side and not cut up in the rice.  Can’t wait to make this one when I get back home.

Prawns with curry powder rounded out the dishes for the day.  The shrimp were succulent and the fried egg, combined with curry powder, baby corn and a few other herbs and veggies made this a very satisfying dish.  

I would highly recommend this school and will soon post a glowing review on Trip Advisor.

So, having cooked all of the dishes on the school’s menu which ranged from very good to wow, in my opinion it is time to move on to another school.  I am waiting for confirmation for three days of classes at ‘The First cookery School in Chiang Mai’ which is supposed to start tomorrow.

The chef’s name is Lompon Nabnian.  Not only is this the first cooking school established in Chiang Mai (1993), but the chef did a cooking program for UKTV – ‘The Thai Way’.  You can check out his website at www.thaicookeryschool.com