Living the Life of Julia Child

As you know, I have been whisked away to the other end of the world with The Boss on a work trip. Currently we are hanging out in the buzzing metropolitan of Bangkok, Thailand. Since the work week is back in full swing, the Boss is no where to be found and as per usual that leaves me up to my ears with ideas! This time I am not sneaking in any home renovations, instead I’m sneaking out to a privately taught Thai Cooking Class!

Now I did my research on the different available classes in Bangkok, and this one was a little hidden, but when I found their webpage I knew I had hit the Jack-Pot! http://www.bangkokthaicooking.com/index.html The young man who runs this operation has the process really ironed out, with a array of menus (varies on day of the week), two classes offered a day (morning 9am-1pm or afternoon 2pm-6pm), the transportation covered, and most importantly costs were 1/3 of others in the area! And believe me, there was no quality lost with the price reduction, this was a seamless operation, very very clean, and our instructor was an absolute character. He made the experience! 

On with the show!:

We started off with a market tour and shopping for proteins, veggies, and fresh coconuts that we would need for our day.

(above is our cooking instructor)

Soon we were off and cooking. Myself and 4 other guys in the class were put in charge of breaking down the proteins, while the other were chopping up the veggies!Soon enough we were all back together getting a lesson on how coconut milk for cooking is extracted! Coconut milk for cooking is in fact different than the coconut milk you might treat yourself to on a beach somewhere where they chop open the top of a young coconut, stick a straw in it with a fancy umbrella and call it good. “Cooking” coconut milk is extracted from older coconuts, one’s whose milk has gone sour and the meat is really dry. Here you put the aged coconut meat into a food processor and mince. The rest of the story goes like this…

After adding water to the minced coconut you massage the two until the water has been absorbed. Then squeeze the water back out of the coconut and through a strainer for a very generous amount of coconut milk. Then you do the coconut dance one more time to double your earnings. 

After we had finished the milking process, a fellow student asked if people in Thailand really do this all the time for in home cooking (I think he was concerned that the store bought coconut milk back home wouldn’t render the same flavors). Our instructor said “No, they too lazy, buy in can!”. We all laughed.

Then we moved on to our first course of the day:

Tom Yum Koong, or as we North Americans might call it, Hot and Sour Prawn Soup. I have to say, I wasn’t stoked about seeing this recipe on the menu for my selected day’s menu, and that was simply because this is not a soup that I usually order. Well that has changed… I think this was my favorite course of the day! DELISH!

 First we got a talk about all of the ingredients

Then we got to work preparing our ingredients

Finally to our individual cooking stations

Did I already mention this was delicious?

Second Course:

Pad Thai Sai Kai – yes, this is the same as regular Pad Thai!

First we got “the talk” on rice noodles.

Basically over the years I think this guy has heard every crazy story there is to how Westerners have screwed up cooking these noodles. Really there’s no magic, just simplicity. Buy in package; soak in cold water for 5 minutes (no longer!) ; then drain and cook in oil! Type of oil is your choice, however olive oil is a bad choice and sunflower oil is the best choice.

Then we were back to discussing the key ingredients- Palm sugar, fish sauce, garlic, and tamarind paste.

Then we cooked, and we ate!

Course 3:

Laab Gai- Otherwise known as Northern Chicken Salad.

This was my least favorite dish. I found it to be a bit salty and the fish sauce taste took over, but I am sure with a little tweaking of ratios it would actually make a pretty good app for a dinner party.

A nice light dish with boiled chicken that was first minced, and then mixed with an assortment of chilies, lime juice, fish sauce, and coriander leaves.

Can you believe we are not done yet? Nope 2 courses left!

Course 4: (Main Course)

Kang Khiao Wan Gai- Green Curry with Chicken

This was fabulous as well! We even spent the time making our own curry paste!

The Green blob on the cutting board (below) is the curry paste!

Then we cooked, and we ate… again!

Course 5- Last course, and one recipe I will definitely frequent back at home:

Kow Neuw Ma Muang- Mango on Sticky Rice

First we got another “Talk”, this time about how to cook sticky rice, and before that, how to even differentiate in the grocery store “normal rice” from “sticky rice”. To keep it simple, sticky rice (when dry) looks very milky in color vs normal rice has a translucent look to it.

You are going to want to soak that rice for a minimum of an hour, and then steam it for 20minutes. A bamboo basket is best to use for the steaming process, but you can substitute a cheese cloth in your normal steamer if that is all that you have!

To top it off we used our fresh squeezed coconut milk mixed with some palm sugar, poured it on top of the warm sticky rice, and added mango on the side! 

Yummo!

This class was a really fun experience and more importantly I felt that I came away with new found knowledge on spices and cooking techniques. Granted this was a lot of information to take in on one day, but not to fear, the cooking instructor actually had hand made recipe books for each student to take home. It included everything we covered that day including cooking tips, key ingredients, substitutes for the more rare ingredients, and of course the day’s recipes!

Hope you’ve enjoyed the read, if your ever in Bangkok with a morning or afternoon to spare, I would definitely recommend this class!

Thanks for stopping by!

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Vietnam

When I last left off, I was just getting settled in after my long journey overseas. After having crossed many time zones, my time orientation is more than a little off! And thus waking up bright and early the next morning was no shock to the system.

We started off 8:00 at the bus stop. Here we boarded the bus and traveled onwards for about 1.5 hours to observe the Saturday service at the temple. 

Although I am not a religious person, I was pretty impressed with the entire service. Me and the 800+ other on lookers that you can see hanging out in the last picture (look 3/4 of the way up the wall, that balcony is packed the entire circumference of the second level of the building). I guess this is a fairly popular tourist activity.

After the temple, we were off to my favorite Vietnam activity… PHO!

I am not sure what I am going to do when I get back to Virginia, Pho is my favorite winter meal, and the broth at home is not even on the same playing field as the broth in the pho here!

And because The Boss enjoys taking embarrassing pictures of me…

After lunch we were back on the bus for another hour and a half. I have to say getting around via tourist bus was Slooooow. We were off to see the Cu Chi Tunnels. This was a set of underground tunnels used during war times to fend off the enemies.

The tunnels were kinda crazy. We got an up close look at how the Vietnamese fighters got around quickly and unseen. Most eye opening was the display of all of the “traps” used against invaders. The guide tried to play the traps off as having also been used for “hunting”, but by the unmistaken feeling of haste toward Americans, I think they were hunting the U.S. of A.

After leaving the display of doom, I wanted to take matters into my own hands… Look out!

Then I thought I should see what all of the fuss was about and gave the tunnels a whirl.

Fairly impressive, yet not what I would want for a daily commute!

After a long day we headed back to the hotel, or at least that is what the Boss says. I really have no recollection of anything after getting back on the bus. I was a sleep deprived, walking zombie by this time!

The next day (our last day) was short. We spent some time poking around the market, and getting some pictures of the local area.

and of course… I had to sample the local sweet shop to check out their bakery perspective!

Thanks for stopping by, and keep an eye out for the next post as I head to Cooking Classes in Bangkok, Thailand!!

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Did I mention I was going to Vietnam?

As you might know by now from some of my posts, the Boss travels extensively for work. It has been some time now since he’s been home for more than a mere 9-12 hours. Back in August we knew that the fall would be a busy travel time for him, so we decided to make the best of some of his travels and I would tag along too!

My Lufthansa flight left Dulles Wednesday at 5:50pm and I arrived 9:30pm on FRIDAY! Yikes, that was a long trip! A long trip that was made even longer by my Flight delay in New Delhi… … I boarded the plane at 3:25am, the fog moved in (picture above) and we sat there for 6.5 hours until the fog “burned off”. Good job Team India.. way to build you bran-new airport on a “Fog Plateau”.

Anyways, I eventually got to my final destination “Ho Chi Minh City” or as the locals prefer, “Saigon” .

The Driver picked up after I cleared customs, and I was off to see the Wizard! Ahem.. well, off to see the 1000’s of motor scooters, Pho restaurants, and The Boss!

Finally!

Keep watching as I assure you the adventures will continue for days to come!

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