Thai cooking lesson

This morning I woke up feeling better and having energy to go on a Thai cooking lesson with Becca and Tiffany.

We were picked up by a tuk tuk and dropped off at the local market where we met a girl from the cooking school who took us through the market and explained the different noodles, sauces, herbs, etc.

Our first stop was as a shop where they sold tofu as well as noodles. The girl explained the use of soft tofu (mostly in soups) versus firm tofu. She also showed us the different types of noodles (glass, thin rice, think rice) and what dishes use what kind of noodles.

Our second stop was at the vegetable and herbs shop.

She first passed around basil!! 3 TYPES! I never knew there was such a variety of basil! Here in Asian (and probably back home to) they have sweet basil (classic basil), holly basil (used in India for blessing so they don't actually eat it), and lemon basil which is very fragrant and has a lemony taste (duh!)

She also showed us different types of ginger (who knew there was more than one!) and we ended up cooking with a very spicy one! In addition, she passed around morning glory and banana flower.

Our third and last shop was the one with sauces and pastes: fish sauce, oyster sauce, mushroom sauce, shrimp paste (super stinky) among many other.

At this market they even had a rice shop... With so many types of rice!!!

And very fresh fish

Then... Time for cooking!

We started with a hot and sour prawn soup

Then Pad Thai

Followed by Green curry!

When I was pounding on the mixture of green curry one of the guys explained that men in Thailand listen for the sound of the pounding to see how good of a wife (or at least a cook) a woman will be!

And... Sticky rice and mango! Yummm  

Then we headed back to the hotel where we had to wait until it was time for our mid afternoon train to Bangkok!