After eating soups, salads and appetizers, it was time to learn how to make curry paste. It is interesting that in Thailand, the basis for the delicious curry sauces we got to eat are wet pastes made from fresh herbs and ingredients rather than curry powders.We had four choices for our curry paste: green, red, yellow and phanang curry. As a group, we made all four of them.
The key ingredients in the majority of Thai curry pastes are: fresh chilies, lemon grass, galangal(Thai ginger), garlic, shallot, kaffir lime, cilantro roots, and shrimp paste. Nan and Pot said that shrimp paste is nicknamed Thai chocolate;and it sure looks like melted chocolate, but it smells horrible! They had fun getting us to smell the "chocolate" and watching our faces getting animated.It is a good thing that with the other herbs used, the curry paste smells nothing like the shrimp paste used in it.
For making the pastes, we used a mortar and a pastel for combining and grinding the ingredients. Combining the main ingredients, one will get green curry paste. Once we add to that red dry chili peppers, the green curry paste is transformed to red curry paste(the hottest I thought). 
From red curry paste, if one adds curry powder,yellow curry paste is born, and if one adds peanuts, phanang curry paste is created.It is amazing how much the peanuts absorb from the heat of the chilies making phanang curry paste the least hot I thought. It was a fun experience making these curry pastes, although I imagine, I would whip out the blender when I make them at home:)
With the curry pastes we made, we cooked our curry sauces, adding different ingredients depending on our curry paste choice. Yellow curry was my choice, and I got to use a boiled potato in my sauce, I loved it.
Bill had green curry, which he used a mixture of eggplants, carrots and baby corn in his sauce. It was delicious as well.
It is normal for the Thai to have two choices for the main course to eat with the rice, so we had to make another course before we sat down to eat our meals. I went with sweet and sour chicken with mixed vegetables, and Bill made fried cashew nuts with chicken.
For dessert, we first learned how to make sticky rice, which to my amazement is a steamed special kind of rice(actually is sold as sticky rice).The rice needs to be soaked for couple hours, and then cooked in a bamboo steamer for about half an hour. Adding some coconut cream, sugar and salt to the sticky rice and heating it at low heat, then cooling it and serving it with fresh slices of mango produces one of Thailand's most known and requested desserts: sweet sticky rice with mango. Yum!
Bill chose to make bananas in coconut milk for dessert, which is a lot easier to make and extremely delicious. He started off by boiling coconut milk on medium heat, adding sugar and salt, and letting it boil for another couple minutes,then adding the banana slices, and when that was cooked, he added the coconut cream. Yum again!
It was an amazing day we spent alternating between cooking and eating,all with large amounts of water being used to cool off our tongues to be able to keep on eating. Everything was delicious, and we got printed recipes for what we made and some more recipes. I hope to be able to recreate some of these recipes here at home. As I do that,I will be posting what I make with my notes.
At the end of the course, we received certificates of participating ,with our names written in both English and Thai,and were taken back to our hotel, happy, full and ready for a nap.
Combining traveling with eating deliciously is heaven!
Comments (11)
Hi Candi, great post. It was so interesting to learn how they made the different curry pastes. All the dishes you made including the wonderful desserts you learned to make looks so delicious. What a fun and fulfilling experience! I liked all of your photos, especially the one with you and your husband with your certificates.
Thank you so much for sharing this part of your trip. Very enjoyable read. Have a great day!
Posted by Kathy (Trekcapri) | June 16, 2009 6:28 AM
Posted on June 16, 2009 06:28
My mouth is watering! All of those dishes look amazing. And that photo of you and Bill is so cute!
There's an article in the latest issue of Food and Wine about a Thai restaurant in Portland OR; the chef also leads culinary tours to Thailand. He says that the biggest challenge of cooking Thai food over here is getting ingredients that are as good as theirs - he says that their limes are more flavorful, their cilantro and chilies are better etc. It's very interesting.
Anyway, great post. The more I read your blog, the more I want to go to Thailand. :)
Posted by Annie | June 16, 2009 6:54 AM
Posted on June 16, 2009 06:54
Oh those look so good. I have yet to try to make a paste from scratch. You make it sound very simple - if you can find the ingredients which I can.
Posted by Marta | June 16, 2009 11:40 AM
Posted on June 16, 2009 11:40
Kathy, I think making the curry pastes was the best part of the day. Okay, I take that back,eating was the best part, but you get my point.
Annie, that is very interesting, but I believe it. Everything there seemed to be more fragnant and flavorful.
Marta, I really think making the pastes was not hard at all,a little time and energy consuming with a mortar, but hey there is a blender.
Posted by candi | June 16, 2009 12:56 PM
Posted on June 16, 2009 12:56
Yum! Everything looks so delicious. What a fun day! I hope with time you'll make some of these dishes and share the recipes.
Posted by María I. | June 16, 2009 5:31 PM
Posted on June 16, 2009 17:31
Again, everything looks delicious. Loved reading about the different curry pastes! Hope that you will post the recipe for Sweet & Sour Chicken. It is a favorite of ours!
Posted by sheri | June 16, 2009 7:17 PM
Posted on June 16, 2009 19:17
Maria, I hope I will too. I am definitely planning on it.
Sherri, I'll e-mail you the recipe.It was delicious.
Posted by candi | June 17, 2009 6:05 AM
Posted on June 17, 2009 06:05
Hi again, I made the Thai stir fry last night and it was delicious (in fact, I am eating leftovers for lunch right now). I made a veggie version with green beans, baby corn, and lots of shitake mushrooms, and was able to use a lot of my Thai holy basil which is so good. Thanks for sending the recipe to me!
Posted by Annie | June 17, 2009 10:44 AM
Posted on June 17, 2009 10:44
Annie, I am so glad to hear that you made the stir fry and loved it. We never made that in class, so I will be looking forward to making it one day.
Posted by candi | June 17, 2009 2:07 PM
Posted on June 17, 2009 14:07
Oh Yum!!! I really found the different types of curry paste (how they change from green to red to yellow... to interesting! Red curry has always been my favorite. And sticky rice! I sometimes stop by my favortie Thai restaurant just to order a bunch of sticky rice to take home. I have never heard of the sticky rice dessert though - or at least I have not noticed it on a menu. I have had the bananas in coconut milk. What a fabulous day! I love your photo with the certificates!
Posted by girasoli | August 23, 2009 1:02 AM
Posted on August 23, 2009 01:02
Oh Yum!!! I really found the different types of curry paste (how they change from green to red to yellow... to interesting! Red curry has always been my favorite. And sticky rice! I sometimes stop by my favortie Thai restaurant just to order a bunch of sticky rice to take home. I have never heard of the sticky rice dessert though - or at least I have not noticed it on a menu. I have had the bananas in coconut milk. What a fabulous day! I love your photo with the certificates!
Posted by girasoli | August 23, 2009 1:02 AM
Posted on August 23, 2009 01:02