So, onto the actually cooking at the school! After the visit to the market, we had another 30 minute ride before we got to the Thai farm, where the cooking school is held. After a short demonstration on how to cook sticky rice, we put on aprons and straw hats (absolutely necessary in the sun!) before taking a short tour of the farm itself and saw how Thai aubergines, basil, Thai parsley, lemongrass, and other various fruits and herbs grew. As our teacher has a little paring knife with her, we also got to taste all the raw ingredients with which we would be cooking. I really found this to be one of the highlights of the class and it was the main reason I chose this course over the others held in Chiang Mai city.
Oh, and they’ve recently changed the format of their courses and on any day, you can choose the dishes you’d like to cook from this menu.
I chose to make the green curry paste and hence the green curry with chicken,
the tom yam with shrimp (the shrimp heads were added at the beginning to make a broth – nothing goes to waste),
and the green papaya salad (som tam – so refreshing with a dressing of garlic, chili, fish sauce, lime juice and sugar) and we had these first dishes with white rice and sticky rice for lunch.
There’s a bit of a story with the curry paste. At the market, we were shown some fermented prawn paste, a soft, dark pungent paste that’s similar to the Malaysian belacan but not exactly that. We were told that it’s normally added to all curry pastes but that we weren’t going to use it as many foreigners did not like it. What?! I made it a point to purchase a little bag of paste at the market (it was only 5 baht) and added it to my green curry paste with the guidance of the teacher. It gave it a wonderful flavour and a slightly darker colour as well.
After lunch I made pad thai (so fast to cook that there was no time to take step by step photos – no ketchup in this recipe!)
and mango with sticky rice (so much easier than I thought it would be! It’s sticky rice mixed with coconut cream and sugar). As we were stuffed from lunch, we packed these up into plastic bags to take back with us.
By this time, it was almost time to go home and we were all given some lemongrass tea and a little recipe book with all the recipes from the menu. I’m already being pestered to cook pad thai at home and that is what I plan to tackle this weekend.
I highly recommend this school – it’s nice to get out of Chiang Mai a little when you’ve been there almost a week. You will, of course, be expected to know basic cooking skills such as using a knife though instructions on stir-frying with a wok are given. A one day course costs 900 baht and starts at 8:30 to 9:00 with a pickup at your hotel and a dropoff time of about 17:00.
Thai Farm Cooking School
Office located at:
2/2 Ratchadamnoen Rd., Soi 5
Chiang Mai, Thailand
Sat, 19 Apr, 2008 at 00:02
I’ll have to check into cooking classes for our next vacation 🙂
Sat, 19 Apr, 2008 at 20:43
🙂 Where are you heading, kat?
Sun, 20 Apr, 2008 at 03:25
this is fantastic!the ones I have been to, not in chiang Mai took us to the markets before the class. to be at a real Thai farm will be priceless :-)Will definitely check them out the next time we’re in Chiang Mai. I think you made the right call with the belachan like paste ;-)I woudl ahve screamed. Is the paste somethign liek petis/otak udang?
Sun, 20 Apr, 2008 at 23:33
I would love to go this school! I’ve been dying to go take cooking classes in Thailand! Please tell me, do you just cook pre-soaked noodles with your pad thai? Or do you pre-cook the noodles first? I’ve seen so many different methods, it’s confusing. If I don’t get back to you right away, can you e-mail me personally?
Mon, 21 Apr, 2008 at 02:38
not sure yet, su-lin 🙂
Wed, 23 Apr, 2008 at 10:32
Lisa: It’s not like petis…more like belacan, but softer… I’m trying to think of a similar texture and the only thing I can think of is playdoh!
White on Rice: I’ll put the general gist of the email I sent you here – the noodles are soaked but end up opaque and still a little hard. They finish cooking in the wok/pan with the liquid that you add (tamarind water, fish sauce).
kat: The classes are very affordable in Thailand – not sure about elsewhere.
Thu, 24 Apr, 2008 at 00:07
How cool! I love that they’re letting you choose which dishes you want to make.
And we missed a chunk of the market tour and didn’t learn about the fish paste. Boo.
Fri, 25 Apr, 2008 at 19:25
Hi Rachel! The girl who taught us was very organised and was very able to switch between all the recipes in her head. Very impressive! Sorry about the prawn paste – it was delicious! But now you’ll know to add it – it was about a tablespoonful to the amount of paste we each made.
Sun, 3 Aug, 2008 at 18:28
[…] occasionally about that dish, the pork and basil on rice. It had also been one of the dishes at the cooking school but I had chosen to make something else; luckily for me, the recipe was included in the recipe […]
Mon, 4 Aug, 2008 at 19:01
I am SO making this. Thanks for posting the recipe.
Tue, 5 Aug, 2008 at 21:05
syd: Hope it works out for you!
Mon, 18 Aug, 2008 at 03:29
well this is very useful… (at least for me)
very thanks
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Travel at Thailand
Tue, 3 Feb, 2009 at 18:00
I took a 1 day class at the farm 10/2008..
It was the highlight of my 3 weeks in Thailand..
The teacher was great and they really make an effort to teach you the recipes you want to learn…It was a beautiful misty morning we went for our 1 day class.. Walked around the farm seeing all the great fresh things they grew there.. It is the best money you can spend while in Thailand.. It was about $27 dollars for the day…Here is the link to the farm..
http://www.thaifarmcooking.net/home/
Sonny W.
Wed, 27 May, 2009 at 08:03
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