Cooking Thai food in Chiang Mai with “The Best Thai Cooking Class”
Chiang Mai, Thailand’s second city, is a melting pot of South East Asian flavours. Thai, Laotian and Burmese all mix together and are peppered with influences from China and India. Chiang Mai is an amazing city for eating, it is also the perfect place to take a cooking class. With vibrant markets selling the freshest of produce and an endless choice of menu items, Chiang Mai is the obvious choice for donning an apron and learning some Thai recipes.
With all this in mind we had to book ourselves onto an afternoon’s cooking class, this is what happened that day!
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Our Thai cooking class - An afternoon cooking a Thai feast
It started, as many good meals do, in a market. We unloaded ourselves from a minivan and stepped into the massive heat, crowds, bustle and colour of a local Thai market. This was the first stop on our half day cooking school.
We had signed on to “The Best Thai Cooking Course” in Chiang Mai, Thailand. We had been picked up from our accommodation in the Old City and whisked off to the market. Before we could get to cooking we needed to learn about what we were to be chopping and simmering. Our afternoon class would start with a tour of all the ingredients we would be using later that day.
Thai markets are always a hectic rainbow of produce!
Our guide was Mrs Oily, or so she asked us to call her. She was a whirlwind of a lady, bouncing and flitting through market stalls explaining the different herbs, fruits and vegetables. We were shown all the different kinds of produce, told what kind of flavours they gave and the best way to use them. Mrs Oily even told us what we could use in their place, just in case our local market had run out of galangal or fresh frog!
We always love a good market especially with a local guide and this was no exception. The market we walked around was not a tourist market full of Chang singlets and elephant pants, it was a real place where locals came to buy the fresh ingredients for their dinner. Having Mrs Oily show us around gave us a real insight into the market and its patrons.
After the market, and the hurried purchase of some fresh coconut milk, it was back in the van and on to the cooking school. We drove about half an hour out of Chiang Mai to a beautiful converted farm. Outside we were shown demonstration gardens of the different rices as well as aubergine (eggplant to our American friends), beans and different kinds of basil plants.
The purple rice gives a rich black colour to the grains
The house was also lucky enough to have a tree full of weaver birds with their delicate nests swaying in the breeze above.
After our garden tour it was time to get ready to cook our Thai feast! Inside we were greeted by a beer fridge (a welcome sight on such a hot day) and rows and rows of shining metal cooking stations. We put on our aprons, opened our beers and were ready to get stuck in!
Earlier, in the minivan, we had each chosen our own menus to cook. We each selected: a soup, a stir fry and a curry. In addition to this we would all be cooking a pad thai, som tam papaya salad, spring rolls and a mango sticky rice dessert. As this was not our first rodeo and being tactical thinkers, we had both selected different options for each course, that way we could have double the different dishes. We were, however, beginning to regret our lunch!
Concerns about our stomach capacity aside, it was time to start cooking our feast. Our first task was cooking a Thai soup.
Our selected soups were the spicy and sour tom yam and the creamy and coconutty tom kha.
We were guided through the steps and were shocked at how easy the soups felt to make. Very little chopping was required; we mainly smashed things with our cleavers or tore them apart with our hands. It felt organic and very rewarding, cooking simply and manually with fresh ingredients.
Next up, and before our soups could cool, we blitzed through a pad thai. Honestly we were amazed, it was maybe four minutes from start to finish. We smashed some garlic, sliced a little tofu tossed some noodles, spring onion and peanuts along with sauce then cracked and egg on the back of our ladles. Before we knew it we had made a pad thai, smokey with wok flavour and completely delicious.
You know this pad thai looks gooooood!
The soups were fantastic too, they were made with no stock, just fresh ingredients, soy, fish sauce and a little oyster sauce. Like many good dishes, the key was simplicity and not messing around with the ingredients.
Over the next few hours we smashed, chopped, pounded and flamed our way through our chosen menu of penang curry, pad krapow, chicken with cashew nuts, deep fried spring rolls, khao soi, som tam salad and multi coloured sticky rices. All the time being cheerfully guided along by Oily and the head Chef.
The curry pastes all started with the same base ingredients, tossed into a big wooden pestle and mortar. Our instructions were to beat it like you would beat your enemies and our group set about turning fresh ingredients into vibrant curry pastes (some with a worrying degree of enthusiasm).
We assembled the spring rolls by hand, folding and rolling them up in little pastry envelopes before sealing them shut ready to be deep fried. A quick dipping sauce was whipped up out of sugar, fish sauce and pickled plums.
The stir fries were fun and frantic affairs. Once the ingredients were prepped (smashed mainly) it was all hands on deck for a searing hot wok session. The stir frys went from raw to perfectly seared in about three minutes! For the daring the chef showed us how to add…a little theatre…
This was an optional activity for those who like to gamble their eyebrows.
Som tam, papaya salad, was grated up and pounded with chillies, tomatoes, fish sauce and lime into a zingy, buzzy, crunchy salad. Som tam salad is the perfect accompaniment to the richer curries, it balances and refreshes everything.
Look out shes got a club!
The multi-coloured sticky rices were all made by adding a natural colourant to rice and coconut milk. Blue pea flower turned one batch to sky blue, pink was achived with dragonfruit whilst the purple rice was made with the inventive addition of violet sweet potatoes.
Each dish was assembled quickly and with surprising ease. Nothing was buried in mystery or complicated with terminology, everything was clear and fun. There was no pressure even if you did mess up a little (John likes to jump the gun sometimes).
All the ingredients had been conveniently prepared for us and were easily and immediately to hand. We felt a little like those TV chefs, you know know the ones who show you a “thirty minute meal” (that actually takes an hour and ten), with unseen sous chefs prepping all the ingredients for us!
A deconstructed pad thai!
When it came time to eat the sun had long since set and we had a mighty spread on our lakeside table. We dug into our banquet of self cooked dishes and devoured the fruits of our labour. It was delicious! Each of the dishes was unique and full of those amazing Thai flavours we love so much! Creamy, coconutty, zingy and zesty all underscored with the cheeky heat of thai chillies.
It was a feast!
Sat on tables overlooking lamplit water, with swallows darting overhead it was a meal to remember.
After eating our body weight in curry, we were presented with cookbooks with all the day’s recipes as well as a coconut spoon to take home.
It really was dinner with a view.
When the minivan came around to take us home you could nearly hear the suspension creak under the increased load of our stuffed bellies. It had been a great afternoon and we definitely felt we could recreate a little of it in our own kitchen... Even if we cannot find the galangal in Tescos!
Why take a cooking class?
We love our food so our answer may be coloured by our infatuation with flavours but, that being said, we really don’t think there are many better ways to get to know a place than through its food. Cooking lessons mean you get to take a little bit of that home. We love our photos and stories from our travels but it is amazing to be able to bring the flavours of a country home with us. Taste and smell are amongst the most evocative triggers of memory so why not have a slice of Thailand on hand in your kitchen?
If you are more of an eater than a cook, or want to get an amazing overview of the Chiang Mai food scene check out our article on one of the fantastic food tours we went on:
If you have the time, do both! Do the food tour and then book a cooking class and learn some of the dishes for yourslef!
Is Chiang Mai a good place for a cooking class?
Short answer, yes! Long answer: Yes but so is pretty much anywhere in Thailand! Chiang Mai does have the unique advantage of the Northern Thai flavours. Its proximity to both Laos and Myanmar means that you get some amazing extra flavours to play with. Khao Soi is a great example of this with Thai/Burmese and even Indian influences all blending to make a uniquely northern Thai dish. You can do a cooking class pretty much anywhere in Thailand but we would definitely recommend it in Chiang Mai!
What cooking class is best in Chiang Mai?
There are so many to choose from! We opted for, and had a wonderful time at, the “Best Thai Cooking Class” you can book it here.
Our guide asked about and could accommodate vegetarians and allergy sufferers -just let them know in advance. Our class was meant to run from 15:30 to 20:30 but ran slightly longer with the taxi dropping us back in the Old town around 9pm. The price (1200 baht per person when we went) included everything: pick up and drop off at our selected hotel in the Old Town, all the ingredients, tea, coffee, water and aprons. The only thing extra were soft drinks, wine and beer and these were all reasonably priced. We had a fantastic day and can highly recommend the “Best Thai Cooking Class”.
We only tried one cooking school but there are dozens of other operators in Chiang Mai serving every niche imaginable:
We cannot recommend cooking classes enough. If you enjoy food and travel it is a no-brainer, get out there and learn to recreate a little piece of your travel story!
Thanks for reading,
John & Ellie x
#adventuresofjellie
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Chiang Mai is a beautiful city full of unique Northern Thai cuisine. Follow us as we embark on a food tour sampling all the best dishes Thailands second city can offer! From the famous “Cowboy Hat” lady’s pork leg on rice, raw buffalo laab and northern sausages to the delicious Shan Burmese noodles outside the city walls, we eat our way to the heart of Northern Thai cooking with A Chef’s Tour!