Chiang Mai offers many day time activities, but one particularly popular to do is learn how to cook like a Thai. Thai food is loved all over the world, so what better thing to do, than to learn from the best with local ingredients.
The choice of cooking schools was overwhelming, but we tried this lady's class which was the best decision. Every detail was so well though and it was never boring for once.
Her driver came to pick us from the hotel and left us at a local fresh market where we met with the rest of the class and had a lesson on traditional Thai ingredients.
We were able to see, touch and smell all kinds of food, but the most interesting were the herbs - in Thailand they use a lot of lemon grass, Thai basil and lime leaves - they all have an incredible citrus smell.
Then the driver took us to her farm, which is in a village one hour away from Chiang Mai. The lady had a rice field in the back of her house and a heavenly garden with Jackfruit trees and a bamboo hammock.
We put our farmer's hats on, got a wooden basket and went to pick ingredients for the meals from her private garden.
Her husband, who was an American and a very kind guy helped us to pick the right things and was explaining about all the ingredients while documenting everything with his camera.
Once we were back in the kitchen, we started chopping.
So that we can create our curry powder later on. The curry powder is a very complex thing, consisting of A LOT of ingredients and making it is quite the workout. We were given a mortar and a buddy to help with the stirring and we got on it.
Once we were finished with our dish, we were seated on a table all together and got to enjoy the masterpiece that we just made. Then it was off to the next one.
The most popular Thai dish - Pad Thai and all the ingredients for it.
It was a challenge to prepare, because everything is cooked in one pan and the timing is really important.
But at the end it was rewarding.
We also tried making vegetable rolls and I was surprised to find that my folding skills are way better than Filip's. Maybe I should consider a change of career?
We were surprised with a personal copy of recipe book of all the things that we cooked that day and our photo on top. A thing to remember!
Check out more posts about Chiang Mai HERE!
Or see our video from Thailand & Singapore.
