I’m excited about this post. Pad Thai is one of my all-time favorite dishes, and I finally learned how to make Pad Thai the authentic Thai way!!

I signed up for a cooking class at Thai Farm Cooking School in Chiang Mai, Thailand. I grabbed some breakfast at my favorite restaurant and juice bar in Chiang Mai, The Blue Diamond Breakfast Club, and leisurely strolled over a few doors down to the Thai Farm meeting point at about 8am where a van from was already waiting to take us out to a local market to explore and see where locals shop, and then take us on a long and winding drive out into the jungle to an organic farm where they grow almost all of the ingredients that they use for the cooking class themselves. Dozens of enormous vibrant lillypads greeted us as we walked in over the wooden bridge over a pond to the kitchen, which was relatively small- enough for everyone to stand comfortably and not be in each other’s way, but not any larger than that. Inside of the kitchen was about ten individual cooktops and food prep tables- one for each of us, and one for the teacher. We were allowed to select which meals we wanted to cook off of a menu, and also choose whether we wanted to do a version with meat or a vegetarian, vegan, or gluten-free, version. We then donned bright red aprons and spent the whole day at our cooking stations preparing a LOT of food for ourselves, followed by tasting and eating breaks. We all got to make our own curry paste with a mortar and pestal. The dishes I chose were Pad Thai, Khao Soi (A curry with noodles and crispy fried egg noddle on top), Tom Yum (A hot and sour soup), and delicious Mango Sticky Rice. We spent about six hours cooking and eating. Those of us who signed up were all fed very, very well that day.

They did a lot of the prep work ahead of time to make it easy for everyone in the class, so some things were already chopped, cut, or pre-cooked so that we could keep things moving along easily (the sticky rice, for example, was already pre-made). I tend to enjoy doing things myself, from scratch, so that I know how to do every step. That part wasn’t necessarily my favorite, but I will say it did make things run smoothly for the class.

Pad Thai is one of my all-time favorite dishes, I’ve been cooking Pad Thai for almost ten years, I only now realized I’d been doing it wrong all along. There’s a better way (The secret ingredients are tamarind and palm sugar, and it turns out you can add the noodles straight into the wok instead of soaking them first as I’d been doing).

One of the best parts about the class was getting to meet other travelers and share stories over the meals we’d cooked. We also shared the meals themselves, so that we could try each other’s dishes! There was a lot of variation, even following roughly the same recipes. As a solo traveler, making friends is one of the most important aspects of travel. Taking classes is a great easy way to meet folks while abroad, and exchange tips and tricks, experiences, and recommendations.

One notable bit about Thailand is that there are these stunning indigo-violet flowers that grow freely on vines called Butterfly Pea flowers. they’re often used in food as either a garnish, or also to add a blue color to a dish. Between the fact that we had a woman with a heavy Thai accent teaching the class, the fact that there were many foreigners taking the class who barely spoke a lick of English, and the fact that p-e-a and p-e-e are phonetically identical, we had a few brilliantly hillarious moments when the teacher instructed everyone to “add butterfly pea” to the sticky rice dish. The confused looks were priceless.

Everything in Thailand is generally a lot cheaper than it would be in the US, EU, or EK. The class cost was 1500 THB (Thai Baht is the local currency), which is about $42USD for a full-day of cooking. There also was a half-day available for 1200 THB ($33). Here’s the link to the school if you wanted to check them out yourself!

https://thaifarmcooking.com/

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