Tantalising Thai Food

Report by Mum

We have been in Koh Samui for about two weeks now and one of the most overriding things we have experienced is the wonderful food.

We had certainly been spoiled by Nita in Bali who cooked all fresh Balinese food for us and we didn’t know how we would react to the changes here.

We have been pleasantly surprised. The food is so fresh and very cheap to eat out. There is plenty of street food and each area has a weekly street market where there is such a variety of food on sale.

We have found a local favourite place to eat called Haad Bang Po. It is right on the beach with amazing views and even more wonderful food. The staff are so friendly and the boys have become minor celebrities. It is run by a man with dread locks who is the image of Bob Marley!

It is very rustic to say the least and I don’t think it would pass any health and hygiene standards at home, but we are not at home and I can honestly say not one of us has had a dodgy tummy since we have started our travels.

Even though the food is fresh and cheap we don’t want to eat out every night so I decided to do a Thai cooking class.

Thai Cooking Class - Koh Samui

I researched several places and decided on SITCA, Samui Institute of Thai Culinary Arts based in Chaweng. As Thai green curry is a national dish I decided to go on a day when this was one of the meals I would prepare.

So off I went into the world of Thai cooking. I was lucky as only one other person had booked to go this day, a guy Darryl from Canada who was with his Thai girlfriend Lak.

We were met by Rose who was the chef at the school and introduced to our chopping boards, knives, pestle and mortar and wok!

The food I was going to prepare was :

Small trays were laid out in front of us with lots of ingredients, some I knew and had used but some I had never heard of. Rose made us try everything! I don’t recommend the tamarind juice; it was awful on its own but was great in the food.

We started cutting and chopping and laying everything very neatly in little piles back on the tray, ready for cooking later. It was great fun and great to be learning about new dishes from this part of the world.

The most important ingredient in the green curry is the paste. There are 13 ingredients alone in the paste. We had to grind the spices, which had been toasted for us, using the pestle and mortar. This was hard work and Darryl thought as he was a big strong man he could do it quicker but I had a better technique! One nil to me. Rose was very impressed.

We worked in the other ingredients and pounded it all to a smooth paste. Lots of work for a paste that would only do a meal for two!

Next we started to cook the meals. These only took minutes to cook, all the time was spent in preparing the ingredients!

We dished up our food and Michael and the boys were able to join us for lunch. Tom loved the curry and I really liked the sweet and sour. I was not so keen on the glass noodle dish, but overall the food was very good.

It was a wonderful morning which I really enjoyed. Now I just have to try and make it on my own!

Thanks to Rose for being a wonderful teacher and to Lak for taking the photos.