Sunday, June 20, 2010

Top Chef: Thailand

Brad and I spent the day at cooking school. It was great. Good teacher, nice group of people. Also, we were filmed for a Taiwanese TV show. So I think this could be my big break. We are going to be HUGE in Taiwan :)
School started with a trip to the market. I think I probably annoyed some locals by getting in their way with my camera. But the place was ripe with photo opportunities. It made the Chennai Chicken Center look tame.
The school was at a farm a few miles out of town. The first thing we did on arrival was don aprons and hats for a tour of their enviable garden. They had limes, eggplant, peppers, jackfruits, bananas, and many different kinds of basil.
With our garden ingredients we were all responsible for making our own curry paste to go in the food. That required a good deal of muscle with the mortar and pestle. Brad finished first in the group because he was the strongest.
After that we spent the rest of the day cooking and eating. We each made 5 dishes at our own cooking stations. I chose to make chicken yellow curry, coconut soup, chicken with cashews, spring rolls and mango with sticky rice. Brad made chicken red curry, tom yam soup, papaya salad, pad thai and bananas in coconut milk.
I feel really excited about our new cooking skills. Also glad that Brad proved to be so skilled in the kitchen. He should have stood and looked helpless all day. Now he's going to be in charge of dinner.

fish sauce, mushroom sauce, soy sauce...
all the rice you could ever want


these remind me of Fozzy and his rubber chicken!
poor Wilbur.
offal station
Do you know what there are? Look close.
The happy chefs. Our teacher kept saying, "stir and smile. Stir and smile."

Best part of cooking school? No prep-work. No clean-up.
yellow curry
the soups
mango and sticky rice
spring rolls!
Brad cooking pad thai
Brad and the staff. I'm going to look at these picutres whenever I'm in a bad mood.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Brad looks like a giant compared to the staff! You look like you had so much fun! Keep up the good work.