You know we love to eat, so today we've signed up for a cooking course where we're going
to learn how to make some of our favorite Thai dishes.
Right now we're at the local market, so we're just going to be walking around picking out
some of the ingredients we'll need today for the class.
Let's have a look.
Judging from the amount of cooking videos we make you'd probably think that we're constantly
in the kitchen and that we always like to cook.
That couldn't be further from the truth.
Most of the time when we're on the road we eat out, so this is actually kind of an excuse
to get into the kitchen and cook and to actually try and make food because normally we don't
do that.
We have now arrived at the Thai Farm Cooking School.
We drove about seventeen kilometers outside of Chiang Mai and it is a completely different
world out here.
We're just surrounded by nature and an organic farm.
We're actually going to be picking a lot of vegetables from here.
We had a choice between doing the cooking course in the city or going out to the countryside
and I think we've made the right decision.
Now clean rice already.
Please come inside.
I would like you to pick by yourself the whole leaf basil.
I'm making my Yellow curry paste.
Pound, pound, pound!
Harder!
Faster!
Stronger!
So Sam is lagging a little behind right?
Come on.
Master Chef here - look at that.
Perfection.
No, I really am lagging behind, I better hustle up.
I'm making a yellow curry today.
This is mine.
This is what I created and Sam went for the green curry, so this is his.
And I'd like to point out I don't think he did a very good job.
Oh, that just fell in there.
What is this?
Whatever.
Total chunks.
You get an F!
Alright, oh!
It's boiling!
It is not supposed to boil.
We're making the Tom Yum soup.
Mine is going to have shrimp and I've got my coconut milk here, so I'm going to be adding
some ingredients - mushrooms, onions.
I'm ready to try fine creation.
This is my Tom Yum with shrimp.
Let's see.
I made mine really sweet.
I think maybe I put in to much sugar but it is kind of nice and creamy because I used
coconut as a base.
You need to add more salt or fish sauce then.
Mine does need more salt.
How is yours?
You look like a farmer drinking soup.
I'm keeping this hat I swear.
I'm quite happy with mine.
I put quite a bit of salt in it and I also put fish sauce.
I'm making my Yellow curry now.
I'm just stirring the coconut milk.
I put in the curry paste I made earlier.
There is also some pumpkin and potatoes and I accidentally added some leaves that I wasn't
supposed to but shhhh.....Cheater!
Not that we've chopped everything up we're going to be throwing this into the Wok and
making our stir fried rice.
I was wrong about this dish.
It is not a stir fried rice.
It is just a vegetable stir-fry.
It's really good.
I made one with chicken and string beans and mushrooms and here is my yellow curry with
potatoes and pumpkin.
Is it good?
Uh-huh.
At this point in the day I'm getting completely stuffed.
I actually wouldn't mind taking a siesta right now but we're going to be making two more
dishes.
I'm going to be making a Pad Thai and then a Mango Sticky Rice.
So I'm suffering from what my family calls bulbous plumptitude.
I'm making Pad Thai.
Your favorite.
Here is my Pad Thai which is probably one of the easier Thai dishes you can make.
We saved the very best for last.
Here we have our favorite Thai dessert - Mango Sticky Rice - and it has some deep fried Mung
Bean on top.
It is crispy.
This is going to be good.
Alright, let's check out that first bite.
It is nice and coconut-y and it is amazing.
So overall that was a really cool experience learning how to cook Thai food.
I made five different dishes.
I'm beyond full.
Like I feel like I'm ready to hibernate now.
So this was 1100 Baht.
It was like lunch and dinner and the thing I really liked about this particular school
was that it was out in the countryside where we were able to get outside of the city and
away from the pollution and whatnot and just have a really cool organic cooking experience.
This morning we've got a special activity planned.
We are taking a cooking class - a Khmer cooking class.
I'm all thumbs in the kitchen but I'm going to give it my best shot.
Right now we're at the local market and we are going to pickup some ingredients for the
cooking class and it is raining.
It's a red curry paste and this is a chili paste.
They are fresh vegetables.
And then they say ginger.
It is not ginger.
It is galangal.
Coconut and then she grates it to get a coconut milk.
So we've got our aprons on and we're ready to cook.
Siem Reap, Phnom Penh and Sihanoukville they converse and they change how to make fish
Amok.
They make shortcuts for three or four minutes.
I'm trying to slice lemongrass.
These are our ingredients so far.
They smell really good.
What might you be doing?
I'm just crushing the ingredients.
You're making the curry paste here.
It looks so good.
We're really earning our meal here.
We're making our curry paste.
We've been pounding away for almost ten minutes now.
Now we're slicing up the snake fish.
I still haven't cut my finger.
Here is our Amok.
We made a little curry type thing and put it into the banana bowl that we've prepared
and now it is going to be steamed.
Here is the meal we prepared today.
We have spring rolls with a nice dipping sauce, lok lak (a kind of beef meat) and over here
Amok, which is fish in a coconut cream sauce.
I'm going to try my Lok Lak.
Let's see how this turned out.
It is really nice.
I cooked it myself.
I'm going to try one of the spring rolls we made.
I still can't believe I didn't burn down the kitchen and it is delicious by the way.
We just finished our cooking class.
I didn't cause an International Incident.
I didn't burn down the kitchen, so overall it was a success.
If anyone wants to come the Kitchen is called Nary's Kitchen and they have a morning and
an evening class.
It costs ten dollars a person.
This restaurant and cooking school is run by Nary and her husband Toot.
They will take you to the market and you will spend an hour there just looking at different
vegetables, picking up ingredients and then afterwards you come back to the school you
cook for two hours and then you get to enjoy your meal.
We highly recommend it.
Excellent food.
Here we are visiting a market again and that can only mean one thing - we are taking a
cooking course yet again.
Today we are going to be learning how to make Lao food and our first stop is Phou Si market.
It is the biggest market in Luang Prabang and apparently it opens up at four in the
morning.
For our cooking class today it's an awesome surprise - we've got this lush garden setting.
It feels like we're just walking into someones backyard.
In Laos his wife and daughter cook for the family not the husband and son.
This is culture.
We don't put much sugar in Lao cooking like Thai food.
You taste Thai food and it tastes milky and creamy and sweet because they add lots of
coconut milk and lots of sugar.
That is why the food tastes like that.
Lao food is very different tasting like lots of herbs and lots of texture.
This is Laos food.
This does not mean Thai food is not tasty.
Thai food is very tasty but our food tastes different.
I'm pounding peppers, onions and that is it.
Now time to try your tomato dip.
I made mine really spicy accidentally because I thought we were cooking this.
I'm making a little ball with the sticky rice.
Voila!
I'll dip it in here.
How is it?
It has a real kick to it but it is so good.
It has lemon juice, hot peppers, garlic.
I like it.
I'd like to point out that Sam and I are making the exact same dish.
This is his sauce.
This is mine.
What are you missing?
Just about everything.
We're making the Mok Pa fish and you are going to show us how to wrap it.
What a work of art Audrey.
Amazing!
Oh, be quiet.
It is going to taste amazing.
We're cooking our buffalo meat right now.
Here we have our buffalo salad.
We stir-fried some buffalo meat and we also added bean sprouts,banana flowers, string
beans, hot chilies and mint leaves.
We're going to be rolling this up in lettuce leaves.
It's kind of like a little fresh roll.
Today we are having lunch at the Green Moss in Hoi An and this happens to be a cooking
school but it has more of a casual feel.
Basically, you choose two dishes from the menu and then you pay an additional two dollars
and you get to go into the kitchen and cook it yourself.
That is what we'll be doing.
Believe me when I say this "If I can do it.
Anyone can."
We are entering into the kitchen and we're making a cooking video.
Audrey is up first.
First like this?
You roll one time.
So you cover it up?
So then we get the sides tucked in?
And then we finish as tight as possible.
There you go.
Not so bad.
It is great.
It is like we're an exclusive peak into the kitchen.
This is how we're making Pho.
Can I try?
Two tablespoons.
Here are the first few dishes we've prepared.
We have the Pho and the fresh spring rolls.
Let's go eat it.
Take them to the table and devour them.
Here is the spring roll that Audrey personally rolled herself.
No, I didn't.
You rolled it.
Do you remember?
Let's see how it turned out.
This is one of my favorite dishes at this restaurant.
It is just such a nice fat spring roll.
How is that Pho?
Delicious, and prior to learning how to make this I didn't realize how many different ingredients
went into this dish.
You can really taste the flavors.
Next up we will be making a vegetable Cao Lau.
So the Cao Lau noodles are made from the water used an ancient well and apparently it is
quite secret.
Not only in Hoi An.
Unique noodles to Hoi An.
It is harder.
It's a crispy noodle.
Now we're making our very last dish the vegetable pancake and it happens to be my favorite one.
We've got a lot of multitasking going on.
We've got the tofu simmering, we've got the noodles being steamed over here and we've
got the pancake mixture ready to be spread on the frying pan.
So that is when we know it is done?
Okay.
Take fermented soy bean sauce.
Here is the finished product and this is round two of our feast.
It was a fascinating experience getting to see how all of this food was made in the kitchen.
We're going to show you how to roll the country pancake in a rice paper, so that it is easy
for dipping into the sauce.
And a big bite.
Oh, yeah.
The pancake is nice and crispy and the sauce is kind of sweet.
It has a bit of a tomato ketchup base I believe but it is also spicy because we added all
of the chilies.
It is a nice combination of flavors.
How is the Cao Lau?
I love it.
What really stands out with the Cao lau is the taste of the noodles.
They are just really unique to this area and I love them.
So the texture of the noodles are a little bit crispy and it almost tastes a little bit
like they are under-cooked but that is what makes them quite unique.
We just finished our cooking class at Green Moss and it was a little bit different from
previous cooking classes we've taken.
This one was a little bit less hands on and more watch and learn, which is great because
we got to watch a professional make it and the dishes turned out great.
Everything was tasty.
That is the first kind of cooking class where it has been more of a just a demonstration
only that I've taken before.
And I really enjoyed it partly because I'm really slow at preparing food but the other
reason was it was so hot in that kitchen.
I don't think I've ever sweated that much, so I could barely handle being in there as
long as I was.
Had I been preparing the food I may have passed out on the ground.