Hello Friends,

On Saturday we woke up bright and early and took a uber to our cooking class at Maliwan. It was truly a hidden gem in an alleyway, and to this day I have no idea how Annie found it a few years back all by herself. We had a great menu planned: pork phad see ew, yellow chicken curry, cucumber relish, emerald chicken with a sauce, and mango with sticky rice. We started by taking tuk-tuks a few miles down the street to yet a different market. We picked up a variety of different things as our Chef Mae explained about various Thai foods.

Mae described a green plant called morning glory, which is often pan friend in oil and eaten as a common Thai side dish.

We saw a banana flower, which as 10-15 mini banana seedling hiding behind each leaf. They are often eaten as a palate cleanser after greasy food, although Annie tried them and didn’t care for them. We also saw baby watermelon, which has a thick skin of multiple inches and is often cooked and used in curry’s similar to potatoes.

After picking up our groceries we headed back to the cooking school. Chef Mae had prepared a majority of the spices for us, but we were able to watch her explain a few steps of the recipe and then make our own exactly how we liked it.

We started with chopping up some onions and garlic and mixing it with some spices to add to our chopped chicken. We mixed it, wrapped them all up in leaves and left them in a bowl to marinate while we worked on other things. We came back later and cooked our chicken in oil for just a few minutes until browned.

Next we worked on our yellow curry. We diced onions and garlic, cut up a chili (you can add more if you want more spice). We sauteed our spices first, then added oil, chicken, coconut cream and coconut milk. I added sugar to make mine a little sweeter and salt for flavor. Yum.

Next we worked on the various sides: emerald chicken sauce, cucumber relish and the sticky rice. The emerald chicken sauce was pretty easy, as was the cucumber relish (mix up vinegar, sugar and salt with diced cucumbers, peppers and onions. We started the rice cooking in a double boiler as we worked on the creamy sweet sauce in a different pan. Chef Mae had already pre-rinsed and soaked the rice for us, so cooking of all the sides went quickly.

Our last dish we made was the phad see ew with pork.

We started with chopping up everything, and from there it all went into the pan with a little bit of oil. We had to keep stirring it in order to prevent it from sticking to the sides of the wok.

From there we put it all together and sat down to eat! There wasn’t much talking as we were all quietly eating! I really liked being able to personalize my curry to be milder, sweeter and creamier. It was interesting seeing the different colors of curry everyone had as they had added 1,2, or 4 chilies to their curry’s.  Yum.

Have you ever made any of these dishes before? Or tasted any of them? So good!

Love,

-S