My day started out with a trip down to fish street to report to Pum's Kitchen. A cooking school and restaurant here on Phi Phi where renowned chef Pum shows you some of her secrets of traditional Thai cooking.
First you take a seat and they give you a tray full of different sauces , powders etc. and you have to taste all of them and guess what they are. Then the chef sits with you and explain in detail what every thing is and what it is used for.
Next follows the herb tray (You will love this one Mom) where again you taste and smell some of the things, learn how to cut them properly to make sure that you get the maximum flavour from everything and we even learned how to cut chillies in different ways which make them hot or mild even though it's the same chillies.
Then you start with your first dish. You get an orientation of the kitchen and your ingredients are ready prepared, cut etc. for you just waiting to be added together.
My first dish was Chicken and Coconut cream soup. Know in Thailand as Coconut Galanga Lemon Soup. I couldn't believe how easy it actually is to prepare. I also learned how t eat it properly the Thai style.
My second dish was Chicken Penang curry, I had to make my own curry paste and everything. I can now make it from scratch. This was also my favourite dish, nice and creamy with loads of peanuts.
After a short break we made our third dish of the day, Sweet and Sour Beef. I am not crazy about the Thai way of making sweet and sour dishes here as their sweet and sour sauces are much more sweet that sour here and very different from sweet and sour back in S.A.
However, this one was good as we had equal amounts of the "secret" ingredients and it didn't knock your breathe away when you tasted it.
We again had a short break and then it was market time. Down at the market the chef pointed everything out that we just used in our dishes. Showed us how to select herbs and spices and what is good for you and what not. I learned more about Thai food in one day than what it probably would have taken to read up about in months and I still wouldn't have been able to go to the market and know exactly what to buy. Now I can shop and cook with ease.
Back at the kitchen after we bought some dessert ingredients, it was time to cook my last dish. Mango and coconut sticky rise. What a brilliant dessert. I never thought I would eat rice as a dessert, but it was really good.
I can't wait to move somewhere where I will have a kitchen again. There are loads of new things I can do now.
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