While we were in Bangkok I spent a lovely morning at May Kaidee’s learning how to cook some vegetarian Thai food.

May certainly is a character. First off for the day, in full traditional Thai dress, she took us for a walk round the back streets of Bangkok to visit her local shops where we gathered some ingredients for the day’s class.

A small street side stall provided most of the main key ingredients – galangal (Thai ginger), lemon grass, Thai basil (more aniseedy tasting than the usual Italian type flavour we tend to have at home), chili and kaffir limes leaves.

The lime leaves were fresh. It’s unbelievable how much of a difference it makes to use fresh leaves. I looked into the possibility of buying/growing kaffir fresh at home. To buy the fresh leaves are £5 for 10 leaves! , although possibly worth it, definitely out of my budget. Or a 18″ tall plant could cost you £30 then of knowing my luck it would die as soon as the winter came. Hmmm. Ah well.

Next stop was the rice paper lady where we bought some fresh rice paper to make spring rolls. As a real treat we arrived just in time to watch her make some.

The woman was like a machine! A scoop of batter from one hand slapped onto a hot pan where it formed a perfect circle, cooked in just a few seconds and was then skillfully whipped off the pan with a cut off end of a aluminium food can which had been folded in half to create the perfect scooping tool with which it was tossed onto the pile of rice paper at her side. I have a video of it. At some point I’ll get a fast enough connection to upload it. It really was amazing to watch.

So the cookery class, what did we learn? Well to be honest it was quite a whirlwind cooking marathon! In less than 4 hours we prepared and ate over 10 different dishes!

First of she showed us how to make the essential red and green curry pastes, then it was onto Tom Yam Soup, Isaan, Fried Veg and Cashew Nuts, Pad Thai, Peanut Sauce, Spring Rolls, Massaman Curry, Penang Curry, Green curry, Pumpkin Hummous and Green Papaya Salad! Phew! We were all stuffed! PLUS – at the end of it all May brought us a dessert of sticky rice, mango and coconut milk, very tasty, but we were all just so full. Luckily just at this moment Andy walked through the door to pick me up. Strange coincidence? I think he’d been secretly watching, ready to pounce. Well ok, so maybe we’d arranged that he should come meet me when the class finished, but I’m sure he wasn’t disappointed to arrive to a free banquet of delicious Thai food.

It really was a great day. May was so happy and enthusiastic I spent half the morning just smiling to myself at her funny ways “…mmm… more spicy…more tasty…”. She ended the day with a Traditional Thai dance, which she got incredibly excited about showing us. She donned a set of long brass curly fingers and danced around the shop to the music from her cd player with a huge grin on her face. If you ever happen to be in Bangkok I’d highly recommend doing her cookery course, it was great!

A Recipe for you! Not had one of them for a long time…

Thai Green Curry

Serving for one person

Fry one teaspoon of green chilli paste (google how to make, or you can buy ready made jars) in a tablespoon of hot oil until fragrant.

Put 2 slices of galangal, 2 lime leaves and 2 inches of lemon grass in a pestle and mortar and bash slightly to bruise. Add this to the pan with one tablespoon of coconut milk.

Add veg (a small bowl full) – you can include whatever is in season, but good things to use are pumpkin, squash, green beans, carrot and onion. Anything that would take more than 5 minutes to cook through (eg pumpkin) can be cooked before.

Add half a cup of coconut milk and cook until the mixture is thick.

Slacken with a little water then add one tablespoon of light, half a tbsp of dark soy sauce and a tsp of sugar, cook until veg are soft.

Add about a tbsp of coconut milk (or coconut cream) before serving, serve with brown rice and garnish with chopped Thai basil.