I cooked Thai food!

I just saw a huge centipede wiggling across the path. And there are frogs and crickets and funny squeaky noises coming from everywhere. It feels kind of like I'm in the jungle because you can't see the main road or and buildings other than that of the hostel.

Today I started my cooking course. It turns out it's at one of the best cooking places in Chiang Mai, it's even in my lonely planet guide! There is about 30 of us doing it and its a huge mixture of people. There are loads of couples, including two guys who are actors and are bickering all the time, a couple of girls on their own and two families. It will change tomorrow though. You can do between 1 and 5 days and they just have 5 different menus to do, so it's kind of hit and miss which one you get if you book in advance. The school is actually a short bus ride away so they bundle us all into mini buses and take us just out of the city. It seems to be on a developing estate where there are lots of individual walled Thai houses, some of which are completely stunning. I've noticed that although Chiang Mai is an old city the buildings seem fairly modern and they are much cleaner than in Bangkok. Although I think I'm basing my opinion on only seeing a little bit of Bangkok.

So when we got there we got an apron and assigned our own cooking station, then we went into a 'classroom' for the first lesson, which this morning was making a Panang curry paste. The head chef Sompon, is supposed to be a kind Thai celebrity chef and he taught us the first dish. So we learnt how to make this curry paste from scratch using all the fresh ingredients and spicies and chillies (well the chillies are dried and then soaked because it gives it a better colour to the paste but doesn't lose any spiciness in the time, apparently) in a huge pestle and mortor. It's actually pretty hard work. After that was ready we were back into the kitchen for lesson number two, making the Panang curry. All of the dishes were very simple to make and definitely something I will try to do at home. Well the dishes that don't have tens of spices in the reciepe anyway. Although at home I wouldn't have anyone to clean up all my mess and make my rice for me! The Panang curry was a mixture of very spicy and also creamy due to the addition of coconut. The flavour was lovely but it was a little too spicy for me. I ate it anyway, we got to eat each dish as soon as we'd made it so I was basically eating all day! The second dish was fried fish with chilli and basil. It sounded very simple, it was a piece of fish (that they fried in a huge wok of oil whilst you made the sauce) with an almost salsa-ish sauce made of onions, garlic and various chillies (but wasn't too spicy this time) with a light sauce of water, soy sauce and fish sauce. In reality it was lovely and so easy to make. I think it would go really well with noodles and some kind of meat. After that we made our actual lunch dish. This was a Chiang Mai curry with sweet and sour vegetables. Again, really nice, not as spicy and was more similar to an Indian curry I thought. After lunch there was more cooking! Although even I was feeling pretty full after this. I wasn't really a fan of the last two dishes, although thats just because of me rather than the actual food. The first was a 'salad' made with glass noodles, which are kind of thin, almost see through, gelly like noodles, corriader, raw onions and tomatoes with pork mince cooked in coconut milk and a bit of fish sauce. Oh, and more chillies! As I don't like onions, tomatoes and corriader I didn't really have a hope here. I was so full I didn't mind though! The last dish was a sticky black rice pudding, which the chef made in a huge vat rather than each of us making our own. I did try it, but rice pudding is not one of my favourites, and although it looks a bit strange as it is black it does taste exactly like rice pudding. But other than eating those dishes the cooking was great! I'm looking forward to making and eating lots more food tomorrow.

All the food made me very very sleepy, when I got back to the hostel I couldn't help but fall asleep. Also, I think the huge amount of chilli I have eaten today has done something weird to my stomach. Therefore, I have decided to chill out here for the evening and get an early night. There is a huge market in the town tomorrow night. I think as I haven't spent very much money yet it might be time for me to!
xx