Even before stepping foot in Thailand all I heard about was the food and recall that in my blog about Bangkok, the quantity and variety of street food caught my eye immediately. Well, after being here for more than two weeks, that impression has only been strengthened. I spent the day in a Thai cooking class, therefore food is a natural topic for a blog (or maybe two!).
No matter where I have been in the country either strolling randomly around Bangkok or walking down the street in the small village ten minutes from the elephant center where I was volunteering, I have seen street food in the form of roadside dining establishments and food vendors everywhere. There is no excuse for being hungry in this country! Any day or night market, and there are tons of them scattered all over the place, have countless food stalls selling almost anything you can think of and several things that would never cross your mind. While staying in southern Thailand at the WFF, a group of us visited a near-by night market one evening, It was a wonderful opportunity to find new things to try. I mentioned this visit, briefly, in an earlier post but only the highlights. The variety of items available was amazing. Included among the weird odds and ends for sale was an assortment of fried bugs, offered by not one, but two (!) vendors. A few adventurous people bought a “variety pack” to sample, but I was not interested. I had tried fried grasshopper at a Mexican restaurant several years back and so my “taste a bug” checklist was complete. Fried grasshoppers, considered a delicacy in Mexico, did not impress me. They were crunchy, had bits that poked me in the mouth as I chewed them, and generally tasted like dirt, so I think my bug tasting days are behind me. (Hopefully.) But the Thai fried bugs got fairly favorable reviews from the group so maybe there was something special about the Thai seasoning!
I had to put this large scale in the blog so everyone could see the wonderful variety of bugs available. Yum!
As I have walked around the various markets and streets making note of the foods being offered one of the things I can say in summary is “if it can be put on a stick, the Thais do so”. Clearly food to go is an important concept. This is especially true for meats of all sorts, encompassing sausages made from who knows what in various shapes, sizes and configurations to the ubiquitous recognizable chicken kebabs and everything in between. If you are a carnivore with a busy schedule, Thailand is the place to be. Numerous fruit is also delivered as a kebab, although small plastic cups are also available, both easily transportable. For veggie lovers, stir fry is the dish of choice, available with rice or rice noodles. Luckily for the stir fry and other cooked dishes there are usually pictures which show clearly what is in each selection. The pictures work well, though, only if it is possible to identify the various vegetables advertised! Besides the mango sticky rice, I have yet to buy sweets from a street vendor. Exploring the colorful, but mysterious, sweet offerings is on my list. Ditto for some of the weird looking fruits, although I have now tried jackfruit so I can check it off my list.
Squid on a stick. Not sure how you eat that gracefully.
A very small example of the variety of meat on a stick. (very small sample!)
I have always liked Thai food and so one of my goals while visiting the country was to seek out a cooking class or two. Consequently this morning at 8:30 am I was picked up at my hotel by the Thai Organic Farm Cooking School. They offer a pick-up service because after a stop at a local market for an explanation of some basic ingredients used in Thai cooking (awesome!) the class gets transported about 40 minutes out of the city to their organic farm where the classes are held. As the class, consisting of six different dishes, consumes the whole day, they deliver us back to our lodgings late afternoon (but well before the football matches start!). Overall it was a great day, I learned a lot, but I returned to the hotel completely stuffed!!!
This is something I have no interest in trying. it’s just wrong…..
The trip to the market was very educational. Fah, our instructor, first explained the various kinds of rice used in Thai cooking, breaking them into two categories, “sticky” and “non-sticky”. She also gave us tips on cooking each. I had worked with some of the varieties before, but not the sticky rice, so I learned something useful only 20 minutes into the class. She next showed us the curries, and for me, more interesting, the sweeteners used in Thai cooking. Rather then white sugar, they use palm sugar, preferably in its fresh, moist, solid state although a dried form is also available. If palm sugar is not available then coconut sugar is used. I am definitely going to hunt both of these items down when I am home. Finally she finished our tour with a discussion of all the different sauces typically used in Thai food preparation. I had already heard of and worked with many of them—soy sauce, fish sauce, oyster sauce, sunflower oil and so forth. But what I had not heard of and was very interested to learn about was the tamarind sauce. This sauce is used in Pad Thai and I had never heard of it before. All the recipes I had ever found for Pad Thai, I dish I really like and make every so often, call for the use of ketchup in the sauce. I had always suspected that ketchup was substituting for an ingredient not easily found in the US. Today that mystery was solved, Fah confirmed ketchup is used sometimes (not in Thailand, clearly) when tamarind sauce is not available. I am looking forward to making authentic Pad Thai when I get home! It was an extremely productive morning even before we started the actual cooking instruction.
Various sticky rice combinations, sweet and savory, wrapped in banana leaves.
The ravioli shaped rice pudding things. Good, but a bit weird at first.
After the informative tour we had about twenty minutes to wander through the market and so I went off to explore. Since today was “all about food”, I satisfied my curiosity about a few items I had seen at earlier markets but had not yet indulged in. One turned out to be sticky rice with banana (they also had tarot and beans in other versions) wrapped in banana leaf and grilled. Another a kind of rice pudding although I did not learn that until I showed it to Fah after buying it. I had become intrigued watching the woman make the small round ravioli looking pieces and had to try them. They were good but a weird combination of sweet, due to the coconut milk, and savory, due to the corn and green onion.
Once we got to the farm, collected our aprons and got settled, Fah took us on a tour of the environs to familiarize us with the different ingredients, all growing on the premises, we would be working with during the day. It was very educational as I had never heard of about half of them. It was satisfying, as she showed them to us one by one, to recognize a few of the mystery items I have been seeing in markets. One plant in particular caught my attention, the pandan plant. The leaves are used to add color (green) to dishes as well as for light, delicate flavoring, similar to how we use vanilla. As Fah explained the various plants to us we tasted them, most I liked, some were stronger than others. The pandan was slightly sweet but not very strong.
Continuing the trend of “Sandy in silly hats” (mainly for my siblings!) this is me just before the farm tour. Hat and apron provided, so why not????
After completing the tour of ingredients we returned to the kitchen for a rice cooking demonstration. For those interested in sticky rice, something new to me: soak the sticky rice in water for four hours, better if overnight and rinse several times before steaming- never boil. Since it is “sticky” use a bamboo steamer if possible and it won’t stick to the container.
Immediately after the demonstration we jumped into our recipe list for the day:
Choice of red, green, or yellow curry (see Featured image)
Choice of soup: either water or coconut milk based
Pad Thai
Choice of stir fry: vegetarian or chicken (see Featured image)
Bananas in coconut milk
In addition, because they were in season we were going to taste papaya salad and mango salad too. All in all a full day of eating. I chose yellow curry because I was least familiar with it. I also chose the coconut milk based soup because I love all things “coconut milk”. It turns out that it is good I like coconut milk as I certainly was saturated in it today! It is in everything in Thai cuisine.
Without going into all of the details of each dish I would like to summarize by saying it is impressive how easy it is to cook really tasty Thai dishes. The ingredients are few, the cutting and prep time quick, and the actual cooking time under ten minutes, sometimes less than that. The key seems to be in first finding the right ingredients and then getting the freshest possible items. Also, the meals we prepared were all very healthy. Ironically the coconut milk, which I love so much, was the highest fat item, even though we used fresh (!) milk. There were no complex carbs or highly processed sugars. So, good for you and tasty too!
The pandan grass. Handy stuff to have around if you’re cooking Thai food.
All of the food was wonderful and I ended the class totally stuffed but fully prepared to use my new knowledge when I am in the position to have a kitchen again. To help me with that resolution, as a parting gift we received a small recipe book, not only documenting the information about the herbs, spices and plants, but also the recipes for all the dishes they teach weekly at the school. So I don’t have to trust my memory, and I finally have a recipe for Pad Thai that does not include “ketchup”.
I like to cook and bake (when I have time!) so I enjoyed the day immensely. Thinking about it I have no idea why I have not thought of taking cooking classes in any of the other countries I have visited over the years. Clearly an oversight and one that I will have to start rectifying. Maybe this will be my new “thing” when I travel! I may even take another one here in Thailand before I leave.
I’ve attached some other random food pictures below.
This guy was making coconut milk at the market. Factoid: You squeeze the coconut meat once and get the “cream of coconut” then you add water and squeeze it again to get “coconut milk”. Only can squeeze twice and used to be done by hand.
Fish, not on a stick here, but it can be and I have seen it on a stick too….
The vendor stall of mostly known vegetables.
Right next door was the stall of mystery vegetables although several were explained to us during the course of the cooking class.
My yellow curry paste. The curry was awesome, mainly due, I suspect, to the quality and freshness of the ingredients rather than any exception mortar and pestle work on my part.
A sweets vendor. Some of these items are still on my “to do” list.
Dink to go? Check out the handy, dandy carrier sleeve.