Asia Flavours: Thailand

Ok, this is a little historical but it was so good that I thought it was worth including in my blog. The cookery course at the Four Seasons in Chiang Mai is simply brilliant. The chef who took the course was knowledgeable, the facilities were outstanding and the whole thing was really fun.

It started with a trip to the local market in Chiang Mai with one of the chefs from the hotel. She walked us through the various stalls from fresh herbs to meat to sugary candy, talking us through all the unusual ingredients. At one point she broke a Thousand Year Egg in two to show us what leaving an egg in a mixture of clay, ash, salt, lime and rice straw for several months does to it. To be honest, it didn't exactly inspire me to want to eat it but it was certainly interesting to see.

The actual cookery course took place in a specially built outdoor kitchen in the grounds of the resort. Although outdoor, it did have a roof on it and the place was kept quite cool which, given the temperature, was rather essential. Each person got a cooking area and it was really well staffed so the ingredients appeared ready to use and all the pots and pans were cleared away immediately.

We cooked four dishes and watched the chef cook a few others. The first was Thom Yum King (a spicy prawn soup) which I managed to make so spicy that i couldn't actually eat it but the huge prawns which I managed to fish out were excellent! I improved on my soup-making skills with the Thom Yum Gai Muang (salty and spicy chicken soup) which was really tasty. The Phad C Iew Moo (stir-fried rice noodles with black soy sauce and pork) were gorgeous and the Phad Thai Kung (Phad Thai with prawns) was also excellent. These were all fun to make but the highlight was making the egg net to wrap the Phad Thai in. Basically, you take about a zillion eggs, beat them with a brush made of about 50 thin sticks then flick the egg over an extremely hot wok until a net forms. Fantastic (particularly because I didn't have to clean it up!).