Thai Cooking Class

I am not a cook. Never have been. Except for tsokolate, I have nothing to show off. And that doesn't count as food. Truth be told, I just like to eat out and through the years developed an instinct, shall I call it, as to what people would appreciate or not. But now that I don't go out unless it's for "work" (i.e. to review a restaurant), I've found myself tinkering with this and that in the kitchen and heading to the grocery store more often. I've found that I like it. Aside from giving me a deeper perspective as to flavors and processes, I've found an element of satisfaction in mixing things up in the kitchen: it's very encouraging when you taste something created by you.  So when I learned that the Mandarin Oriental Dhara Dhevi in Chiang Mai offers a basic Thai cooking class, I jumped at it.   

The teacher: Chef Noppakorn Goonthamrongrat aka Chef A. (I would pick a letter, too, if my name had that many syllables!) - a charming, friendly, kind, generous and patient chef. I say this because, as the following video will show, my cooking skills are - as yet! - terribly poor. This video will forever be a testament as to how I kept criticizing my own work as ugly, ugly ugly - I had to laugh at myself! I share this because there is no shame in learning - but boohoo, I miserably failed my own standards!

And this is how I realized that unbeknownst to the customer, there may be an interesting story behind what you eat. What comes out as art on the plate served to you may well have been a seemingly hopeless case in the kitchen.

Of course in Thailand the stories take a backseat to flavor. How can it not, with all these elements swimming in one dish?

They like coriander roots and leaves, lemongrass, lime juice, kaffir lime leaves, garlic (different from ours) and chili. We used pretty much the same ingredients for the menu we cooked. (By the way, I wanted to hit the market and bring some of these authentic Thai ingredients home but raw veggies are not allowed to be brought in. Same with meats, unless cooked.)

The lesson started with a salad.

YAM NUE YANG A-NGUN

(Yield: 1 Portion)

Ingredients

200g tenderloin beef (we used Australian), 50g green/red grape, 10g mint leaves, 15g lemongrass, 2 pcs kaffir lime leaves

Spicy Sauce

5-10 pcs green bird's eye chili, 10g stem of mint leaves, 10 g coriander root, 10g garlic, 1 1/2 tsp fish sauce, 1 tbsp lime, 1/2 tbsp sugar

Blend all spicy sauce ingredients together or pound by mortar. Grill the beef with low heat until cooked (rare or medium rare). Slice beef. Add all ingredients and beef into the sauce. Mix well and serve. 

Then a soup called Tom Kha Kai (tom=soup; kha=a kind of herb that resembles ginger; khai=chicken). It essentially has you mix into a pot chicken stock, sliced chicken, coconut (or skim) milk, then the flavorings: lemongrass, galangal, kaffir lime leaves, mushroom, bird's eye chili, fish sauce, lime, sugar and coriander. 

Then some fish: Pla Nueng Ma-Now (pla=fish; nueng=steamed; ma-now=lamb ?!) For the cooking lesson we used sea bass but Chef A says this will also work with garoupa, red snapper or even squid. It LOOKS easy: just steam the fish and put the flavor factors on top but I think the key here is making sure the fish comes out just perfect in its texture so it just falls like snow yet tastes hot from the spices. 

PLA NUENG MA-NOW

Steamed Sea Bass with Spicy Lime Sauce


Ingredients
1 fillet sea bass
1 straw lemongrass
15g Chinese celery
10g galangal


Sauce
3-5pcs bird's eye chili
1 tbsp lime
1 1/2 tbsp fish sauce
2 pcs garlic
1/2 tbsp sugar
1 tbsp coriander root


Add the chili, garlic, coriander root into a mortar and pound until it becomes paste. Add the fish sauce, lime juice and sugar. Stir until the sugar melts; combine well. Meanwhile, put the sea bass - with lemongrass, galangal, celery on top - in a steamer for 8 mins. When the fish is cooked, pour the sauce on top of the fish. Steam for another 1-2 mins. Serve hot. 

Finally, there was the banana fritters for dessert. Even if I kept saying it looked ugly while I was cooking it, it turned out ok. I mean, it's banana fritters, right? Even an 11 year old can make this. 

The verdict? I am going to go out on a limb for myself and will say that I think I have potential in the cooking department. At least the pictures of what I cooked are encouraging, right? Riiiiiggggghhhhttt???? Hey, if Julia Child started in her 40s, I still have time to catch up!

Chef Noppakorn Goonthamrongrat

Email: noppakog@mohg.com

Mandarin Oriental Dhara Dhevi, Chiang Mai

www.mandarinoriental.com

There is no sincerer love than the love of food. - George Bernard Shaw