A taxi picked us up for our day at the Thai Akha cooking school and it was the best day ever.
Upon arriving we were taken around the market for a tour that explained the different ingredients used in Thai cooking. It was so cool learning about the vegetables, fruit, and herbs we don’t tend to find in our local Tesco back home. After the fresh market tour we went to our stations and began our first dish. This was the papaya salad- it was all going well until I got over excited and dropped mine on the floor (there’s always one). Luckily, I was allowed to make another.
Here is the full list of dishes we made:
1. Papaya salad (som tum)
2. Spring rolls
3. Curry paste
4. Massaman curry
5. Akha salad
6. Akha clear soup
7. Coconut milk stewed pumpkin
8. Chicken coconut milk soup
9. Sapi thong
10. Pad Thai
11. Mango sticky rice
Thai food is so super tasty and we enjoyed every minute. To see all the pictures of each dish visit my instagram @ketchupandtravel
The coloured sticky rice can be made from a flower, a natural food coloring:
Another interesting find was the pink egg, which our leader informed us was a ‘century egg’, or a ‘100 year old egg’. It’s pink due to the preservatives (rumours of horse wee) and this keeps it for however long. Beth was brave enough to try it and reported that it ‘tastes like egg’.
Back to cooking – nearly every dish started with putting garlic, lemon grass, chilli, lime, and coriander into a pestle and mortar and smashing everything together. From here anything can be made! The core ingredients to any dish include: shrimp paste, fish sauce, soy sauce, sugar, and nuts. Interestingly, the man from The Netherlands opted to make the sweet and sour dish, and the key ingredient for his dish was not soy sauce or fish sauce.. but KETCHUP. Yes my friends, ketchup.
We had an awesome group at the school consisting of us two, a couple on their honeymoon from California, a couple from The Netherlands, and a girl from Poland. It was one of those ‘great food with great company’ days.
The Thai Akha cooking school is AMAZING and anyone in Chiang Mai must go. I definitely cooked from my heart ❤.
A nap was inevitable after all the food, but we made it to Hidden house yoga early evening. It was good, but I think we were in an advanced class and couldn’t do half the moves without falling over.
Late evening we went over to the night bazaar near our hostel. Street food, music, cheap goods to bring back home etc. Here is the ice cream we had which was ROLLED. And yes we could still eat after 11 courses.
