Professional Thai Chefs

As promised like a year ago, I wanted to talk about the cooking class that my husband and I took while in Chiang Mai, Thailand on Dec 31, 2016.

You all know how much I love to cook and I take any opportunity to sign up for a cooking class. There were many to pick from in Thailand (obviously the tourists love this) but we settled on Thai Secret Cooking School for a half day class which was an excellent choice. The school is run by May, who is Thai, and her husband, who is American. It was at their beautiful house complete with their own garden for many of the ingredients.

They picked us up in Chiang Mai center as were heading just outside of the main city. First stop was a local Thai market where May explained some of the ingredients to us. Below she is talking to us about the different types of noodles in Thai cooking.

It was such a cool experience and we got to explore the market on our own for a bit.

We just HAD to get a Thai iced coffee. Complete with it’s own half bag to carry it around. You can see that Tim is delighted to have his picture taken.

Then, we were brought to the location of the Thai Secret Cooking School where our aprons and cooking stations awaited us.

Our first order of business was to learn more about the ingredients and pick them in their garden. We were ready to go with our sun hats and baskets.

Once we got our ingredients, we were brought back to the kitchen and got to work. Tim and I each did 2-3 different dishes so we got to try each other’s. The class would cook a few different dishes then sit down and eat together and then we went back to the stations to cook more and then ate together again. Thai cooking is really, really fast paced. You have to have all of your ingredients ready to go as many dishes take 10-15 minutes maximum. The wok is steaming hot so you have to move quickly so things don’t burn. It was really surprising to me how quickly things were made! Obviously May had done some of the prep for us to help cut down on time but there were still some things we did on our own.

We made Som Tam, papaya salad (our FAVORITE). To this day we crave it like crazy.

Tom Kha Gai (chicken coconut soup) and Chicken Pad Thai

We even made our own red curry paste which was A LOT of work using a mortar and pestle.

Guys, here’s proof Tim was actually cooking (ok so maybe May is showing him something and he is just looking but I promise he actually cooked).

And then, we graduated from cooking school!

If you ever find yourself in Chiang Mai in need of a Thai cooking school, I highly recommend Thai Secret. I personally feel that food is an amazing way to learn about cultures and this gave me a better understand of the Thai culture and how food is an important part of it.

Now we can go to Thai restaurants and know what we are ordering.