COOKING LESSONS IN CHIANG MAI

The Little Kitchen Cookery School

One thing high on my to-do list when I visited Thailand was to take part in a Thai cookery class. There were tonnes to choose from in the northern city of Chiang Mai, so my new pal Tom and I went with one recommended by our hostel, The Little Kitchen. It turned out to be one of the best days of my entire trip! I met Tom randomly at the Paddy's day pool party at my hostel, turns out we have a few mutual friends and live about 30 minutes from each other. Such a small world! I love it when that happens.

We were expecting to be in a class of about 10, but it turned out it was just us two. Since we booked so last minute (a couple of hours before), I guess they had no classes planned for that afternoon. Which was perfect, as it meant we had 4 hours of one-on-one time with the chef. They even picked us up in a private car and drove us to and from the place, all included in the discounted price of 800baht/£16 each! Any activity you want to do can be organised through your hostel, so don't worry about having to book things yourself. You often get a slight discount too. For this price we made 5 dishes, with all ingredients included, which is incredibly cheap! You also get a certificate, which was such a cute touch, and recipe book to keep so you can recreate the dishes at home.

The class starts with a trip to the local market to buy fresh ingredients like meat and veg. We got to make 5 courses each papaya salad, pad Thai, green curry/massaman curry, tom yum soup and mango sticky rice. I was so excited to make my number 1 favourite Thai dish, massaman curry, which turned out beautifully! I was a bit disappointed we didn't get to make the curry paste from scratch, but it was pre-prepared fresh by the chef. The recipe book came with a recipe for the paste though, so i'll give it a go soon and share the recipe with you guys. I have since recreated the dish at home using Tesco massaman paste and it turned out amazingly tasty - you just an't go wrong with this curry!

The curry pastes are prepared with fresh ingredients by the chefs

Everything you need for a BOOM pad Thai

Smashed it

Tom Yum soup is so yum

Papaya salad

Thai green curry and chicken massaman curry

Mango sticky rice - a strangely delicious pudding

We stupidly went out for breakfast before the course, which was a big mistake! I was so full after the first two courses, that the last 3 went straight in the bin. I sooooo regret that now i'm sitting here drooling over these photos. DO NOT EAT BEFORE YOU GO!

I would recommend this cooking course to any budding chef. Even beginners will find it easy! I can't wait to cook more of these dishes at home. I lived on pad Thai, eating it most days in Thailand - for a noodle dish it's sooo full of flavour! YUM YUM.

Lucy xoxo