Thai cooking class

Another of the many advantages to living at Pun Pun is that our neighbors -- Krit and Yao -- run a Thai cooking school.

Pi Krit and Pi Yao



Every week a new group of friends -- mostly farang (foreigners) joins our community for three full days and nights of cooking up delicious Thai dishes. We at Pun Pun get the spillover benefit of the surplus of good food that they create.

The Pun Pun interns had a chance to spend a day with head chef Pi Yao to learn some authentic Thai techniques for pleasing the palette. Here are some of the goodies we cooked up...

(Hadar is a fantastic food photographer -- thanks to her for all these photos!)

The cooking class students get a market tour in Chiang Mai prior to coming out to Krit and Yao's place (You Sabai) for the class.

Pi Yao gets all the ingredients laid out.



Key ingredients: fresh spices...star anise, coriander, cumin, cardamom.



Here are garlic, lemongrass, turmeric root and Thai chilis ready to be ground with a mortar and pestle into fresh curry paste.

Pi Yao tells us the story that a Thai man, walking by a house where a woman is cooking, will listen for the sound produced by the mortar and pestle. He can tell by the sound if the woman is doing a good job making the curry paste. So the women are concerned to get the quality of the grinding just right, in order to attract a good husband.



With her sweet spice-grinding technique, Julia is sure to get a good husband...



A Thai classic, pad thai



My favorite food: sam tum. This is green papaya salad made with garlic, chilies, tamarind juice, soy sauce, lime and salt, green beans, tomatoes and eggplant. It's so spicy, and so good on a hot day...



Spring rolls



My other favorite food, Massaman (Muslim) curry. This is a specialty from the south of Thailand, where most of the Muslim population lives. This one has potatoes, mushrooms and tofu, but they are often made with meat as well.



Enjoying the sunset from You Sabai as we prepare the dinner...



Capping the day off with a candlelit feast...