Explore Thailand 2015
Thai Cooking Lesson  - Krabi Cookery School

A very popular attraction for many visitors to Thailand is to learn how to cook delicious Thai food. Trevor’s favourite Thai dish is the famous green curry chicken, and so he decided to take a cooking lesson from Chonlaya ‘Ya’ Laothang, at Krabi Thai Cookery School.

Ya has been teaching Thai cuisine for 16 years and has taught both chefs and tourists from overseas. The school offers one-day cooking course, and introduces the students to the ingredients of Thai cuisine and making wonderful dishes from scratch.

When Trevor took the cooking course, he started out by making the paste itself. He learnt to crush and chop garlic and red onion – and right away the beautiful fragrance of the two were released.  Aromatic galangal, red chilli, skin of kaffir lime, lemongrass, green chilli, coriander root and leaf were also crushed and chopped, ready to be placed in the mortar. Interestingly, coriander root has more aroma than the leaf itself. Then shrimp paste and salt were added and everything ground up with a mortar and pestle into a paste. Cumin, peppercorn, turmeric and coriander seeds were also added at this stage.

It tasted amazing.

Now --- with the Thai vegetables. We were introduced to the little round Thai eggplants and also the snake bean. We soaked the Thai eggplant to get the bitterness out.

Next, we started cooking up the curry. We poured half cup of coconut milk and heated it until hot and then add 2 tablespoons of curry paste. We mixed it into the coconut milk. The next step was to add chicken and mix it into the curry, adding more coconut milk. We then added the eggplant, kaffir lime leaves, palm sugar, and fish sauce. The last ingredient was the Thai basil at the very end.

Here we share the recipe with you…to make this glorious dish at home for your friends and family.

Thai Green Curry Chicken (Kaeng Kiaw Wan Kai)

Ingredients

Green Curry Paste
1 thumb size galangal
1 stalk lemongrass (white part)
3-4 kaffir lime leaves
2 stalks fresh coriander
1 stalk Thai basil, leaves only
1 red onion
4-5 cloves garlic
2 tbsp. salt
1 tbsp. shrimp paste
10 small green chillies
1 tbsp. mixture of ground peppercorn, cumin and coriander seeds

Thai Green Curry Chicken
2-3 tbsp. green curry paste (recipe above)
300g chicken, cut to small pieces
2 small round eggplant, cut to quarters (soak in water to get rid of the bitterness)
2.5 cups coconut milk
2 kaffir lime leaves, shredded
2 stems Thai basil, only leaves
2-3 red chillies, sliced
2 tbsp. fish sauce
1 tsp. palm sugar
Pinch of salt to taste

Instructions

Green Curry Paste
Finely chop all the aromatics and ingredients, except for the spices.
Lightly toast black peppercorn, coriander seeds and cumin in a dry pan. Use a mortar and pestle to grind it to fine powder.
Put in all the ingredients in and add in 2 tbsp. of water and grind it up to create a paste. You could use a food processor at this stage.

Thai Green Curry Chicken
Pour half the coconut milk in a pot and bring to boil. Add in the green curry paste and cook till fragrant. Reduce heat.
Add chicken, coconut milk, palm sugar, fish sauce, chillies, and cook for 10 minutes.
Add in eggplant and kaffir lime leaves and cook for another 5 minutes or until eggplant is soft.
Add in the Thai basil leaves, salt if needed.
Serve with rice.

The recipe is from Krabi Cookery School.

One-day cooking course includes the cookbook recipe, preparation of pastes and sauces used in Thai cuisine (such as green curry red curry and masaman curry), introduction to typical Thai vegetables and preparation of Thai salads.

For more information, visit krabicookeryschool.com or visit www.tourismthailand.org