Southeast Asia Sabbatical: Cooked on a Feeling

Chiang Mai, 7/4/11

I'm not sure how I got so lucky, but I'm the only male on the bus surrounded by eight beautiful British and German women. Hanukkah came early.

Our guide for the day's cooking course is Jo, but it could easily be "Joe" as he is not the most convincing ladyboy. Together, Jo, the gaggle of Europeans, and I head to the market early in the morning for a rousing game of "guess that herb and vegetable." Selections include fresh turmeric, three kinds of Thai basil, galangal, kaffir lime, freshly made coconut milk, coriander, fish sauce, Thai eggplant (which looks like small green tomatoes), green papaya, and multiple grains of rice. My peers may have looks but they are quite terrible at the guessing game and I get almost all of them right with little competition. Well you know what they say, women love intellectuals.

We each fill up baskets with fresh ingredients and head to the bluntly named "Thai Cooking School." In the classroom, each student has his own wok and makes seven courses with three options for each. Once we arrive at the school, there's about 30 of us in total, and I'm quite disappointed to see other males in the class as it's really putting a damper on my Octopussy daydream. There's also a huge amount of teachers who run the school in an efficient, military fashion. Each teaches one specific dish, bringing new ingredients to the table, and warning us of the chilis' potency.

The first dish is Pad Thai with Shrimp. We begin by chopping scallions, garlic and tofu. Garlic goes in the wok first, skin and all, with a bit of soybean oil, followed by the tofu, egg, and shrimp. We crack an egg and give it a quick scramble before moving the whole concoction to one side of the wok and hold it there with our metal spatulas. In the other hand, we add water and egg noodles and quickly cook them to al dente. Final touches are scallions, bean sprouts, soy sauce, salt, and sugar. The whole dish takes more than ten minutes, tastes phenomenally authentic like the street vendor preparations I've been eating for weeks, and seems easy enough to prepare at home.

Next up is Massaman Curry paste, the foundation for the Indian-influenced sweet curry dish. Into a massive stone mortal and pestle we add cinnamon, cloves, anise, turmeric, ginger, garlic, and multiple chilis. We mash the contents for around twenty minutes until our biceps are larger and the result is a smooth thick, bright red paste. It's tough work but certainly more rewarding than the gym. Once the paste is done, it goes in a wok with a bit of oil followed by garlic, onions, potatoes, chicken breast, sour tamarind juice, fish sauce, sugar, lime juice, peanuts, and coconut milk. The fragrant thin soup is then brought to a boil before being turned down to a simmer for at least thirty minutes. Once it thickens, we take the curry to the dining room and eat it alongside our peers' Green and Panang Curries. My Massaman Curry is sweet, with pronounced coconut, peanut, and cinnamon flavors. It's quite a strong first attempt but definitely fails in comparison to the heavenly version at Bangkok's May Kaidee restaurant. Kristen's green curry is even better -- considerably spicier, with a strong herbal flavor from the Thai basil and coriander, plus large pieces of Thai eggplant, carrots, and chilis. We all sit around the low table, legs crossed sitting on pillows, tasting all the different curries, trying to detect the long list of ingredients that went into each.

Massaman curry ingredients

Green curry ingredients

Wok & roll

Getting the massaman curry started

Finished Massaman Curry

Finished Green Curry

Next up is Chicken and Cashew Nut stir fry, one of my and my mom's all-time favorite Thai and Chinese takeout dishes in the states. It is a quick dish -- toss a bit of oil into the wok, and add onions, chopped rehydrated chilis, scallions, toasted cashews, unpeeled garlic, chicken breast, oyster sauce, sugar, and soy sauce. Neighbors make Sweet and Sour Chicken or Chicken with Thai Basil.

Chicken & Cashews ingredients

Sweet & Sour Chicken ingredients

The salad course follows the stir fry, and I make Tom Som, or green papaya salad, one of Thailand's most famous, and most mouth-blistering, dishes. It's our first uncooked course of the day. We gather around new mortal and pestles, these ones at least one-and-a-half feet tall and wooden so they don't damage the fruit. In go chilis, lime juice, salt, sugar and fish sauce. Although the chilis are barely the size of candy corn, they are incredibly potent and two constitutes "medium spicy" (my tolerance is still growing). Plus I like how these tiny chilis demonstrate how powerful things come in small packages. Next into the mortal and pestle are the shaved green papaya, long beans, and tomatoes, which are slightly folded into the spicy sour vinaigrette. The dish is plated with dried shrimp and roasted peanuts. It's at once bright, sour, spicy, and crunchy. I try it next to my peers' spring rolls and fried catfish salad, which is like a Thai panzanella with the addition of delicious fish flavor.

Som Tom ingredients

Shredded

Catfish Salad

Our final savory course is soup, which is oddly falling right before dessert. The main options are Tom Yom, a sweet coconut milk-based chicken soup, or Tom Kha Gai, a spicy sour soup similar to Hot & Sour at Chinese restaurants. After the extremely coconutty curry, I opt for Tom Kha. As I watch my peers making Tom Yom next to me, I'm surprised to learn that both soups are essentially the same, one just has the addition of coconut milk and less chilis. To make Tom Kha Gai, we first steam kaffir lime leaves, shallots, and lemongrass in water, then add oyster mushrooms and shrimp. The soup is brought together with lime juice, tamarind juice, sugar, and fish sauce. It's brought to a boil and topped with fresh coriander. The dish is spicy, sour, and bright. I almost eat the whole bowl, minus the lemongrass and kaffir lime leaves which take hours to ingest.

Final stop is dessert, with three options -- fried bananas with ice cream, mango sticky rice, or black rice with coconut cream. I choose the classic sticky rice with mango, and Jo explains how to make the famous Thai starch before covering it in sweetened and salted coconut milk and serving the rice alongside supersweet yellow mango. The black rice dessert is more exotic, having a rich deep taste almost like tea, with the consistency of a thick rice pudding and a color of dark chocolate.