Chiang Mai - Monday

Well today was something completely different.  We booked to do a day's Thai cooking.  Unfortunately we couldn't get booked on the one we originally wanted, which was in the country.  So second choice was in town.

They picked us up in a rot daang, these are usually shared taxis that ply up and down the roads. You find the direction you want to in, flag one down, show them where you want to go, and if they are heading that way, you jump in. Costs peanuts. A bit scary when you first do it, (but after A few times its old hat I think!).

Any way ours was private, and we already had a French Canadian guy, his Mexican girlfriend and five Japanese ladies.  It soon became apparent that our ladies were out to enjoy themselves and they turned out to be a complete hoot. They kept us well entertained through the day.

Our first stop was a local market where the girls explained all the vegetables that we would use and all the spices and herbs needed.  Hopefully we will be able to get most of them in the UK.

Anyway, we chose our six dishes to cook for the day, some together, some apart. We started off with fried cashew nuts with chicken.  Then appetisers of Spring Rolls and Papaya Salad.

We were doing well here. We then went onto a soup. I did seafood and he did chicken.

Absolutely delicious. But the problem was after each course we had to sit down and eat our food, and we were getting a little full.

Thankfully we had a break and got to know our fellow cooks.  There was some French people, who kept themselves to themselves, and some Canadians, originally from Argentina. A good bunch.

Oh and this guy who added seven chilli's to our one, think he was Mexican.  I was amazed his head didn't explode.

So back to more food.  It was time to make coconut milk and not from a tin and our own green Thai curry paste.  Really quite easy, but I decided only to add one teaspoon it as my soup made my eyes spray water and I went a strange puce colour.

Here are the ingredients for the Thai Green Curry and the finished item. Absolutely stunning even though I say so myself, and yes I ate it.

And for the finale! Fried banana and sticky rice with mango... Yum.

Well what can you say. It was a fab,fun day. The Japanese ladies were wonderful. We came away feeling confident that we could cook these recipes, even if we had to substitute some I gradients. On the gave us a small cookbook with all the recipes in.

Our fellow cookers

We left groaning so loudly and walked home hoping it would make us feel better.. We felt so stuffed that the thought of any more food that day made us go green. Instead went out for a very long walk that night and had an iced tea.