One of my exciting itineraries in my recent Bangkok Trip consist of a learning experience through attending cooking class in Silom Thai Cooking School.
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| Silom Thai Cooking School |
Strongly advocated by my colleague who was there during his recent trip, I find it no harm trying out and thought it would be fun.
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| Interior of School |
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| On Display |
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| Along the Stairways |
Silom Thai Cooking School allow us to learn the culture and popular thai dishes in a relaxing environment. Not to worry about language barriers, the coaches are friendly and speaks good English.
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| Settings for class |
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| Kitchen for class |
Arrangements and reservations were made before hand via email and a very detailed write up with venues were given to us on the venue of meeting.
There are 3 sessions daily, namely morning, afternoon and evening classes with each start starting their session by a visit to their local market. Having lived in the city lives, its quite an eye opener to experience the down-to-earth and laid back feel of buying vegetables from a wet market. It's really exciting as it was a totally different experience. With the trip to the market, one benefited by having seen some of their local Thai ingredient by touching and smelling it. What an authentic way to experience Thai culture!
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| At the local market |
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| Prawns? ANyone |
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| Fruits |
We paid 1000 Baht for a lesson which includes course material, ingredients and refreshments. Just bring yourself there will do. Note that no MSG in the cooking and vegetarian option is available.
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| Way Back to School |
Different Cooking Menus were available at the different day. Ingredients were all readily lined up and prepared by the school assistants for every dish.
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| Preparations before hand |
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| Spices |
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| Spices |
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| Spieces |
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| Ingredients |
Let's start by doing the hands on now!
As a beginner, we took up the Set A menu on a Thursday with dishes such as
1) Tom Yum Kung,
2) Phad Thai,
3) Phaneang Curry with Beef / Chicken
4) Green curry
5) Mango sticky rice
We started off with making coconut milk from the scratch in the traditional method and that is using our bare hands.
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| Obtaining Coconut Cream & milk in a traditional way |
1) Tom Yum Kung
With ingredients readily prepared, it is easier to whip out one dish in a few minutes! Tom Yum cannot exist without the main ingredients like blue ginger, thai garlic and lemon grass.
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| Preparing to go under the flame |
The dish is really yummy with taste above average especially when the prawns tasted so fresh.
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| Spicy Sour Shrimp Soup (Tom Yum Goong) |
2) Phad Thai
As explained by the teacher, it's hardly that Thai will cook this at home as it contains too many ingredients.
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| Ingredients for Phad Thai |
With all the neccessary ingredients all in and right control of fire, the delectable plate of Phad Thai is ready!
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Fried Noodle Thai Style (Phad Thai) |
3) Phaneang Curry with Beef / Chicken
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| Minced Chicken Salad (Laab Gai) |
4) Green curry
With readily packed Green curry paste nowadays, its more convenient and time saving while cooking. However, through their class I had learned to create them from scratch which involves pounding the ingredients on the heavy stone pounder! Everyone will get their chance to experience the pounding after demonstrated by the instructor.
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| Pounding ingredients for Green Curry |
Ta-da! Here's the results after pounding.
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| After Pounding |
So for green curry chicken rice, we added a small portion of our hardwork into the wok.
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| Whipping up Green Curry Chicken for 1 person |
And here you go! It's almost effortless.
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Green Curry with Chicken |
5) Mango sticky rice
Last but not least, we have mango sticky rice as the dessert. With orchid as decoration and mango being sliced beautifully, the ball of rice that drenched in coconut milk was really a scene stealer.
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| Mango Sticky Rice |
Silom Thai Cooking School
Location: 68 Silom Soi 13(Opposite Narai
Hotel and Triple Two Hotel)
Nearest Station: Chong Nonsi (BTS)
Website
