08 Jan Starter Course in Thai Food

I love food. For those of you who don’t know me, I base a lot of my travel around food. I prefer to eat local dishes, I want to learn what locals like and how they cook. I’ve always loved it! I particularly enjoy Asian dishes, and I was extremely excited to take a Thai cooking course.

Just about every cooking course I looked at online has fantastic reviews. It’s a really fun thing to do! It’s an experience you can take home with you and use forever. Totally worth the expense, no matter who you go with.

I had multiple recommendations on whose course to take, but because of timing and location I decided on Thai Asia Scenic in downtown Chiang Mai. (Runners up were Zabbelee and Cooking with Yao). It was an awesome experience and here are a few takeaways:

Asia Scenic Thai Cooking

Asia Scenic is a larger school. We had 8 or 10 people, and there were two other classes going on at the same time as us. It felt very scripted as our teacher, Da, was introducing herself and going over the course, but as we progressed to cooking that didn’t matter much.

She started by taking us into their organic garden area to show us the different ingredients commonly used in Thai cooking. We saw the ingredient as it is used, like ginger root, galangal, etc., tasted or smelled it, were told how and why it is used, then were shown the actual plant. It was very cool to see that and to recognize some of the plants I’ve seen all around me while traveling! We also went to the market where we were shown how some of the ingredients are sold.

In the course three dish ‘categories’ were decided for us. We were to make a fried spring roll, a curry paste, and a curry. You can then decide as a group whether you will make a soup, salad, stirfry, or desert. We chose soup and stirfry, and had multiple options within to choose from. She demonstrated Pad Thai to all of us and we all got to eat that as well.

My menu looked like this:

• Spring roll
• Tom Saab (sexy soup)
• Chicken with chili and basil
• Khao soi curry paste and curry

I was stuffed, everything was delicious, and I had a ton of fun with my group.

Typical Thai Dishes

Dude, Thai food is the shit – but it may not be all that you expect. Here are a few common dishes you will see across the country and what they are. These are mostly ‘safe’ (as in, I can recognize what this is) dishes that you will find in restaurants and at some vendors. There are a LOT of amazing things that are missing on here, so just use this as a basic starter guide!

Soup

**Avoid eating the inedible parts of the soup unless you want to give the locals a laugh. This includes lime leaves, lemongrass, chiles, and galangal.

**Order rice with the soups (especially the spicy ones), but don’t dump it in the bowl. It ruins the texture. Take a spoon of rice and dip it in the bowl to eat bite by bite. Same with curries.

Tom Yum: This is a spicy and sour soup usually with a clear broth that is common throughout Thailand. It translates literally to Tom (soup, or boiled) Yam/Yum (spicy sour salad). Don’t you love how literal Thai language is? It usually has chiles, lemongrass, galangal, and lime leaves that you don’t eat. Then it has tomato, mushroom, and protein (usually shrimp, or ‘goong’) that you definitely eat the shit out of.

Tom Saab: This one translates to Tom (soup, or boiled) Saab/Saap (hot, but not necessarily in a spicy way, more of a physical way – like ‘sexy’). So this is some sexy-ass soup. This one comes from the Isaam or Northeast region of Thailand, but is now popular in the Chiang Mai area as well. The ingredients are similar to tom yum but without the tomato and is more commonly made with pork.

Tom Kha Gai: My personal favorite, Tom (soup) Kha (galangal) Gai (chicken) is a creamy, savory, salty, sweet bowl of deliciousness. I like mine a bit spicy as well. It’s a very rich soup with the same (again, non-edible!) ingredients of lemongrass, lime leaf, chile, and galangal in a coconut milk broth. It also usually has chicken, mushroom, and cilantro.

Joke: Rice porridge. You’re ‘joking’, right? 😂 Sounds kind of gross, but you are so wrong…Thais don’t really have breakfast specific foods, but this is eaten more often in the morning. It is all about the broth – a delicious salt and peppery base with rice and sometimes minced chicken and ginger. Ask for an egg (Ao Kai) to top it off.

Thai Noodle Soup: I can’t give this one a name, because it’s different for everyone. This is the common street vendor soup sometimes sold in bags piled up on a table ready to go, and sometimes being stirred with a ladle by a Thai woman with her hair pulled back – a strange witches brew that smells like heaven in a cauldron. I let my nose guide my for this one and usually only stop if my tastebuds water after passing a particular window. For street noodle soup you choose the noodle type, meat, and sometimes fillers (veggies), which can be daunting, but it will taste amazing no matter what so don’t worry! Top the soup off with condiments at the table if necessary. If you want saltiness, opt for fish sauce over soy sauce.

—Noodles: There are several kinds, so let’s start with rice varieties. Sen yai are the white, very wide, flat soft noodles. Sen mii are white, thin, round angel hair type noodles. Sen yek are white, flat, usually dried noodles like what you imagine in pad thai. There is also woon sen or bean thread noodles that are tiny and almost clear when cooked, also called vermicelli here. Then ba mii, which are the yellow noodles made from wheat and egg.

—Meat: There is usually only one kind of broth at a station, and the meat usually reflects the broth type. Most common is pork or beef, I think. But there are strips of meat, meat balls, liver, blood cake (not as bad as it sounds), sometimes tripe or intestine, and dumplings. All are amazing, just point, smile and enjoy.

Salad

Som Tam: Ah, the famous papaya salad! Both refreshing and fiery! ‘Som’ translates to ‘sour’, while ‘tam/tum’ means ‘to pound’. This is a sweet, spicy, and sour dish of shredded papaya and occasionally some other veggies, tomato, chiles, fish sauce, sugar, garlic, and long bean mixed with a large mortar and pestle. If you have a sensitive palate ask for ‘mai pet’ or no spicy, as this dish can get hot! Order with rice to soak up the delicious sauce and cool the dish down.

Yam Nua: It would seem that this salad would have a similar flavor profile to som tam considering I also describe it as sweet, spicy, and sour, but it is totally different. As above, ‘yum/yam’ translates to ‘spicy sour salad’ and ‘nua’ means ‘beef’. Easy enough, it says exactly what it is! I would describe the flavor as ‘bright’. It has the usual lime and chiles, but it also has mint, onion, and coriander which adds a whole new spin.

Larb Moo: Minced pork salad – Laab or larb just means meat salad, so this can go by other names. It is minced meat with lime, onion, herbs (especially mint), and toasted rice. Yum yum yum!

Curry

Khao Soi: A northern Thai curry, this is made with a mixture of red and yellow curries, making it more spicy and savory balanced by the sweetness of coconut milk. It is borrowed from Myanmar and the name has no direct Thai translation, but it is basically curry noodles. The curry sauce is cooked with meat, poured over egg noodles, and served with several garnishes including more crispy noodles. Fucking yum.

Gaeng Keow Wan: AKA sweet green curry. A protein, small Thai eggplant (they look like green cherry tomatoes), and basil make the bulk of this dish. It is almost a soup with slightly spicy green curry paste and lots of sweet coconut broth. Sop it up with a plate of rice.

Panang Curry: Less soupy than the green curry, it has a similar sweet and spicy taste, but rather than the light coriander and basil broth, this has more of a smokey, citrus flavor. Sound weird? Try it, you’ll thank me!

Massaman Curry: This is a Muslim dish altered to suit Thai tastes. It is more savory and earthy with very little spice and will suit someone with a sensitive palate. It is protein and potatoes in a coconut milk broth with star anise, cardamom, cinnamon, and tamarind. I am not a potato person, but I love the broth. It smells just as good as it tastes.

Stirfry

Pad Thai: This is one dish you can find everywhere, and is probably the most well known and best loved Thai dish for foreigners. Funny thing is, according to my Thai friends, not a lot of locals eat pad thai! I blame both of those things for all of the bland and flavorless pad thai stands on Khao San Road and other extremely touristy areas, though there are diamonds in the rough. It is a simple stirfry dish of rice noodles, bean sprouts, tofu, and meat tossed in a tamarind sauce and topped with lime and peanuts. Sweet and sour, salty and savory, it is a safe bet anywhere you go.

Pad Pak Bung Fai Daeng: What a mouthful! But literally…it means stir fried morning glory/water spinach. Fai daeng refers to the red fire that leaps up from the wok when you add the veggies. I have felt a distinct lack of vegetables in my diet here – not that they don’t use them, but stir fry veggies tend to be mostly green pepper and baby corn, neither of which I am fond of. I love this as an additional side dish when I’m craving some greens. It is usually tossed in oyster sauce or garlic.

Gai Pad King, Gai Pad Prik Gaeng: Gai Pad is just chicken stirfry. King is ginger and prik gaeng is curry paste. You can also get chicken with garlic. These are all similar delicious dishes. The ginger is seriously spicy ginger, the curry paste is spicy hot, and the garlic is really garlicky, so be prepared!

Pad Kra Pao Gai (or Moo) Kai Dao: Another one of my favorites 😍 It is usually noted on the menu as chicken or pork with chile basil. Pad krapow is fried holy basil, gai is chicken or moo is pork, and kai dao is fried egg. This is minced meat in a sweet, salty sauce with lots of basil and chiles. Throw the fried egg on top and eat with rice and this may become your new favorite comfort food.

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