Market Trip & Thai Cooking School

Kelly and I signed up for cooking school and walked over to the other sister hotel to ours that offered it through their restaurant.  We started with a trip to the market in the big beach town called Patong.  It was about 20 minutes from where we stayed.  Our two guides took us through and showed us the vegetables and herbs we would be using.  It turns out the two key ones are Thai basil and Kaffir Lime Leaf-I have been looking for both since we have returned to Africa...

The market was incredible, you could buy any fresh fruits, vegetables, herbs, seafood, meat you could imagine.  Our guide said it best, she said, "We are Thai, we eat everything!".  A New Zealander that was on the tour asked her in the seafood section if there were regulations on what could be caught or sold.  She didn't seem to know the answer to his question, but he said to me, "they would arrest you for selling some of this where I come from!".

Here is what was on offer...

 I kick myself for not loading up on the green curry in the background-what was I thinking??  We did load up at the sweet stand that was near the exit, no photos because we were too busy tasting and buying.  We tried these sticky coconut nests-amazing.  They also had sticky rice wrapped in banana leaves and corn floating in what looked like strawberry milk, they sold that by the plastic bag...

 The setup when we arrived back at the hotel.  This is the way to cook, everything was prepped and ready and we didn't wash a single dish...we cooked with experts to help & we got to sit and eat each course!

 First course, the soup...Tom Yum Goong, spicy prawn soup

 Geang Kiew Waan Moo- Pork in Green curry, with coconut milk, amazing on rice, we could vary the amount of spice, so Kelly's was almost white-not green.  The final course was Gai Phad Med Mamuang, Fried Chicken with Cashew Nuts.  We ate as much as we could and brought the rest home to share with our beach bums, Greg and Katie & Charlie went to the beach.

We left with our aprons and recipe books, now I'm on the hunt for all of the special ingredients that I need to recreate the dishes here.  One bright spot is Woolworths (High End Grocery Store here in SA), carries a whole line of Thai seasonings and I actually found a premade green curry pack that was very close to what we made!

One final photo I had to share, this is what the electric poles look like on all the streets.  When you walk under them they are humming & popping away....something tells me they aren't quite up to our codes?

Next stop Bangkok...then sadly back to work & school...