When cooked well, Thai food has to be one of my favourites – so many fresh ingredients, lightly cooked vegetables and a ‘clean taste’ – lovely. When I read about a Brighton and Hove company doing small group Thai cooking lessons a few years ago I filed it away as a ‘must do one day’. I finally got around to booking us in last week and what a fantastic experience it was. Highly highly recommended! The company is called Thai Style and is run by a lovely woman called Jiab. The focus is on fresh ingredients and there is no use of mono-sodium glutamate (MSG) or artificial colours – just fresh beautiful produce cooked with a light touch. Sessions are held for 1,2 or 3 people so it really is a personalised experience with hands on support- I’d recommend it to beginners or experienced cooks as Jiab is a fantastic teacher and can advise you on which dishes to choose and help you learn all of the skills you need there and then.
We booked in for a 3 hour lesson which involved selecting 2 dishes from a very large menu then meeting Jiab on Western Road to go off around different shops to buy the ingredients for our chosen dishes before going back to the kitchen to prepare them. I absolutely recommend this if you have the time (there are shorter lessons) . Jiab not only showed us the different shops she uses but also what to look out for in Thai ingredients – seeing first hand which shallots are the correct ones and what decent lemon grass should look like is invaluable and lots of fun too. One of the things I really like about Jiab’s style is that she has a range of shops on her ‘radar’ and she shops around until she finds the best quality ingredients that are available that day. This included shopping in Taj and Waitrose aswell as a number of smaller more specialist Asian shops in the local area – this was perfect for us as we wanted to use organic meats and produce where possible. Jiab is very knowledgeable about food and I just loved shopping around with someone who, for example, understands what type of skin a lime with lots of juice in it is likely to have. A real education.
We chose to cook a Pad Gra-prao ( stir fry with chillies and basil) and a Massaman curry. The Massaman was the more complex dish to cook and it was absolutely amazing to prepare every aspect of the curry paste from basics. I have made red and green curry pastes before but let me tell you , this is an entirely different process and the results are fantastic. A good pestle and mortar is essential and Jiab helped us improve our technique for using a large stone one so it was much less like hard work. We also prepared our own tamarind juice to add to the curry amongst other things- a tactile and meditative experience! Aswell as cooking our dishes to take home and eat that evening ( Jiab even prepares the rice so it’s like having a ready made take-away- only MUCH nicer!) we had enough curry paste leftover for a second helping later that week. Once you have a good curry paste, many Thai dishes can be very quick and easy so a bit of time lovingly preparing some pastes at the weekend can save you loads of time in the week- and you can still have an amazing and healthy supper.
I was so engrossed, I forgot to take a photo of the Massaman but here’s a picture of the Pad Gra-prao – I love this dish and often order in restaurants. It is a very quick stir fry- the secret , as with any stir fry, is to have everything ready prepared, chopped and sliced and close to the pan before you start- we learnt how to adjust the heat as we added different ingredients to make sure everything was perfectly cooked. Three birds eye chillies in ours made for a very authentically spicy dish – just as I like it. Here’s the result – with freshly fried basil leaves to boot! It was gorgeous.
Chicken Pad Gra-prao
All in all , a really great afternoon and I’m already wanting to book in another lesson! Why not give it a go. Happy cooking!
