Half a Day at a Cooking School

Last Sunday, I attended a half-day session at the Baipai Thai Cooking School to learn how to cook a sampling of some of the most popular Thai dishes. Suffice it to say, it was fun!

As a format, the teacher first demonstrates how to prepare a particular dish after which each of us get to create the same dish from scratch! It all seems very complicated at the start but part of the fun really comes from the amazement of being able to replicate what our teacher had taught us. Following are photos of what I cooked myself:

Tab Tim Grobb (Water chestnut in coconut milk)

Tom Kah Gai (Chicken and galangal in coconut milk soup)...surprisingly delectable, a worthy rival to the more famous Tom Yum Goong!

Pad Thai (Stir fried rice noodle, Thai style)...star of this course menu.

Tod Man Pla (Fish cake) and Baipai Cooking School's recipe:

Ingredients: Makes 5 pieces
80 grams Fish fillet, boned
2 teaspoons Red curry paste
30 grams Winged beans, shredded (aka sigarillas)
2 Kaffir lime leaves, finely shredded (the closest I would suggest is dayap leaves)
1 tablespoon salted water
2 cups Oil for deep frying

How to cook:
1. Mix and mash fish fillet whilst adding a little salted water for about 5 minutes.
2. Add in the curry paste and mix to combine well.
3. Add winged beans, kaffir lime leaves and mix to combine well.
4. Scoop some fish cake mixture into your hand and roll to form a ball about 1 inch in diameter.
5. Then flattern the ball to form a fish cake patty.
6. Bring the cakes to deep fry over medium heat, turning regularly until the ckaes are cooked and golden brown.

There were only 7 of us students so we really received a lot of instruction from our 2 teachers. All my classmates though were either tourists or on business capping off their visit with learning how to cook Thai cuisine. For those of you planning to come here and are interested to go beyond shopping or sight-seeing, you can visit http://www.baipai.com/ for a different taste of Thailand. For more recipes, let me know...