The most amazing cooking class

Somehow after scouring the internet for a good cooking school in Bangkok i came across the Thai home cooking class taught by a lady called Angsana (favourite food Italian!). The testaments from former students really spoke volumes so i contacted her and she couldn't of been more helpful suggesting dishes to cook to give an all round understanding of Thai cooking. She has a huge selection of family recipes to chose from and it was really hard to pick three. Another great thing about this class is that there is no more than 6 to a session and when we went it was just Andy, my mum and I making it a private class. We met her at the train station and she took us to her local market to get our ingredients.

 Angsana tests the freshness of the prawns, the heads should be firm apparently

 This pig reminds me of The Lord Of The Flies, i hate that book.

 This lady proudly told us she lost her little finger to that very coconut shredding machine she is using there, if you look closely...

The one that got away

 This is the king of fruits, the Durian. You either love it or hate it. It has such a pungent smell it is banned in many public places and hotels. I am not a fan, it tastes a bit of over ripe caramel vomit to me!

We jumped in a taxi back to Angsana's home, rolled our sleeves up and got to work with all our lovely fresh produce.

  First up was a Gaeng Pet Pet Yang (red curry with duck) so we got chopping then grinding the red curry paste. We also got the duck marinating in lots of mashed up pineapple, which made it super tender even after an hour

The real work is making the paste but once that is done it only takes about 10 minutes to make the curry. I loved the way she cooked the paste in a bit of coconut milk (rather that oil) to activate the flavors.

Angsana taste tests to see if we have the right balance of sweet, salt and sour 

Eating time! Seriously delicious... and if you are coming to my supper club this Saturday I'm going to try and re create it.

Next up was Pat Thai which was so much easier than i thought it would be which is a plus as its one of my all time favourites. Can't wait to try this at home. The trick is to make a really caramelised sauce from the sugar, fish sauce and tamarind concentrate

Angsana kindly let us do 2 different soups, the first a Tom Kha Gai (spicy chicken with coconut milk)

 The second was a Tom Yang Gung (spicy sour shrimp soup). Both tasted really fresh and were really fast to make.

All our ingredients chopped and ready for cooking.

This is one of my favourite things from the whole 5 weeks away. I went to some other cooking classes and they just were not nearly as thorough as this. There was loads of time to ask questions and i left feeling i understood Thai food so much better. Best of all i came home and cooked 2 of the recipes in the first week and they were so easy and delicious, i was left glowing with pride that i had cooked them myself! If i am ever in Bangkok i am 100% going back.

As we were leaving Angsana guiltily picks up the phone and tells us her kids want delivery McDonald's for lunch!