Day 11 - Thai Farm Cookery School

Top of my list of things to do pre-trip was cookery classes. I told Matt I'd do them alone if he wasn't keen but that I was doing them regardless. Luckily the taste for cooking he's developed recently (ha!) meant he was keen (hmm) to come along.

After literally hours of research for Chiang Mai cookery schools I chose the Thai Farm Cookery School. Our guide/teacher Garnet met us at our guest house and this started the most hilarious day I've had in ages. Garnet was beyond funny from start to finish, from shouting 'hashtag cook like a boss' in the market to showing us 'sexxxxxxy' ways to chop vegetables and doing terrible English accent impressions I hardly stopped laughing. First stop for our group of 9 (hailing from Germany, India, USA and Iceland) was a local market where Garnet showed us/explained to us different curry pastes, rice types, sauces and coconut products. We could then wander around looking at the beautiful arrays of fruit and veg and the beautiful in their own way pigs heads.

We jumped back in the mini bus and headed to the cookery school. It's on a 2.5 acre organic farm and lots of the ingredients are grown on site. Our classroom had just 2 walls so it wasn't too stuffy whilst we were cooking in front of the farm views. Wearing hats clearly given for comedy value we did a mini farm tour tasting and smelling herbs like garlic chives and Thai basil whilst learning how they're grown - I'm definitely chucking some garlic cloves into my garden to get garlic chives but reckon I wouldn't have the same luck with growing a kaffir lime tree. We then headed back in to make our chosen colour of curry paste. Matt chose (well I chose for him) green and I chose yellow. Lots of pestle-ing later we had 'Whoooooooo PERFECT! Sexy!' curry pastes.

Next stop was making soups. Before each dish (we made 5 today) we sat around an outside table and went through the ingredients, being shown how to prep them and then trying to memory game it back at our stations (with some help). I learnt that I'm a 1 chilli girl when it comes to Thai food but even then the Tom Yum soup I made was good, if I do say so myself. (Open invitation for any loyal readers to request I attempt it at home for you when I'm back)

After Tom Yum came Pad Thai. I've made several Pad Thais over the years at home but it seems I'm not exactly making it in the 'genuine way'. This was proper Thai fast food and with hardly any prep and a couple of minutes cooking we were done. The hardest part in the UK will probably be finding tamarind, Thai basil and fresh galangal in Tesco! I felt full after the soup so switching to playing the long game and only ate half of mine, plus a small helping of the papaya salad Garnet made for us.

Next up was our Thai curries using the paste we made. Again super easy and apparently we let Thai curry cook for way too long in the UK. This accompanied Thai chicken and basil, another stir fry dish which involved trying to get flames in your pan. Matt was a pro at this but I'd miss my eyebrows so focused on garnishing instead.

Last up was dessert. We made bananas in coconut milk, though a bit more pimped up with pandan, palm sugar, sesame seeds, dried mung beans and an orchid flower garnish. Somehow I found room to eat it and get back on the bus.

I also found room to eat about an eighth of a hundred year old egg. Not really 100 years old but eggs preserved in saline for a month until they turn black and jelly like inside. They look horrific and don't taste that great either hence the eighth. It's no delicious pickled egg.

We spent the evening with the family who run the hostel plus some of the other guests. The family put on a BBQ but I wasn't exactly in the mood for eating. Hello bloat. It was a really nice evening to end another superb day. I don't want to leave Chiang Mai but sadly we will tomorrow for Chiang Rai and closer to the Laos border.Read more