The Leaves Seen Through My Window Pane: Cooking Thai.

yes!

After a week or so of indulging in some of the best and unique foods we have experienced to date it soon became apparent that we wanted more. So we decided to learn a few tricks of the trade of Thai cuisine. Jennifer and I took part in a Thai cooking class at the Time For Lime (http://www.timeforlime.net/ )cooking school and guest house located on Hat Khlong Dao beach on the western shore of Koh Lanta Yai. We both share most of the same passion and enjoy the culinary pleasures of Thai cuisine and decided we could benefit from becoming educated to prepare these meals for ourselves and friends. With about ten other individuals (representing 9 countries) we prepared, cooked, discussed and sampled Thai dishes such as massaman curry, crispy spring rolls, spicy seafood salads and winter squash curry soup (Time For Lime specialty soup). We learned about the three “s” theory to Thai seasoning and flavor. In the pre-test I was certain that one of the “s” stood for spicy. On the contrary, spicy is an added element to a dish. It is common for locals to include up to fifteen chili’s to add hot spice to a dish. I found this to be amazing since I could barely go for three in my prepared dish! The three “s” stand for salty, sour and sweet. It is this combination of flavor that is essential to all Thai dishes. The first item we sampled was a bite sized “taste of Thai” which included all the general flavors of Thai cuisine in one bite. It consisted of minced shrimp, peanuts, ginger, fish sauce, garlic, tamarind paste, and birds-eye chili’s all wrapped up in one kaffir leaf. In addition, we learned about the correlation between how vegetables are cut and what they are intended for. For example, thinly sliced items like ginger, lemongrass, kaffir leaves and chili’s are for you to eat with the dish and the larger pieces typically cut at a slanted angle are solely for flavoring purposes. So its proper to leave food like galangal root in your bowl or on your plate. That’s the way the dishes were intended to be consumed. Another interesting and helpful piece of information was about how to eat (etiquette) Thai cuisine. Apparently, the use of chopsticks is rare and the only utensil that goes into the mouth is the spoon. The fork’s sole purpose is to assist the knife in the cutting of the food. Only the right hand should be used if needing to eat with when eating “finger food”. The left hand is to be used for certain hygienic bathroom rituals that won’t be discussed here. I wish I had known this about a week earlier. There is good possibility that I offended others and probably the reason why a bowl of hot lime water was brought to my table after eating fish with both of my hands! After five hours of cooking, eating two of our prepared meals and a few lemongrass margaritas, it was off to bed dreaming of birds-eye chili peppers jumping over the moon.