Today we are going to cook Khao Soy – among other things – with Yui at her cooking school – A Lot of Thai. We’ve cooked with Yui before and loved her, so we are excited to come back again and try different recipes. She arrives to pick us up – not in her signature VW bus, but in a new Honda. I almost didn’t recognize her! Kwan (her husband) has the van and is picking up people on the other side of town.
We chat and catch up as we make our way across town to pick up another student, Barnie, who is originally from England but living in Kuala Lumpur working as a music teacher. We marvel at the fact that her son, Sid, is now 13. And the “baby,” Jun, is 9, and plays the piano. No way! Oh my gosh! Time flies.
We get to Yui’s house and meet up with the other participants of today’s school – a French family of 3, a Hong Kong couple and an American/Turkish couple who live in Istanbul. Fun group. We gather around Yui’s station to listen to her explanation of our first dish – Stir fried noodles with chicken and vegetables. She is such a great teacher, so smart and friendly and easy going. And such a great background – her family history has farming (both produce and cattle), wholesaling and running a butchery. She is knowledgable about lots of aspects of food – and has this mathematical mind (loves the chemistry of things) so she is always trying to find out why and how things work. Fascinating to listen to her.
Demonstration over, we retreat to our stations and begin to cook. The first dish is easy, and we all breeze through it – then it’s time to eat. Yum! I finish the whole thing – even though I know I should pace myself, we have a lot of food coming…but this is just too good!
Next up – Hot and Sour chicken soup with coconut milk. We get an explanation of the difference between coconut cream and milk – it’s all basically milk here, just different strengths. Not like what we can get in the States, because it is too expensive to ship. But, when we get back home, we can just water down the “cream” we get, to get the consistency of milk for these dishes.
Now our craftiness is tested with the steamed fish in curry custard, because first we have to make a banana leaf cup. Oh joy! Yui shows us first, and of course hers is perfect (not like she’s not had practice!). We all go back to our stations to try our hands, and, well, you can see the results here….not too shabby, but think we need some practice!
It’s time for the filling! I’m not too much a fish girl, so I’m a little worried about this one, even though we are using Tilapia. We make our currey custard with half an egg (we get to share the egg, that was fun trying to separate it evenly!), coconut cream, curry and of course the fish. Once all mixed properly, we pour it into our little cups and then place it in the steamer.
At the appointed time, we pour on coconut cream, garnish and repair to our tables. And I actually really, really like this. It is sort of like a cross between a souffle and quiche in texture. and the taste is fantastic. Definitely a do again at home recipe.
All right. I’m stuffed. And we have 2 more dishes to go. Yikes! But, first we get to go to the market. Ah, good. We can walk off our “food baby” tummies. Yui navigates, and narrates, us through the market, showing us the different vegetables (more types of eggplants than you can even imagine), the grilled herbs and and shows us the weirdest pumpkins and most gigantic squash we’ve ever seen.
In the “prepared” food section, there are whole battered and fried ducks and the fish custard we just finished cooking! How cool!
Tour over, we all scramble back in the bus for the second half of our cooking.
We lose half our class – the French and Hong Kong couple only took the half day class – so our smaller little group get more one on one time with Yui. We start with the banana custard, because it has to steam the longest. It’s really easy to make, smashed bananas and a couple of other ingredients – although we have to make those darn banana leaf cups again! That’s what ramekins are made for – let me tell you!
Finally on to the main event: Khao Soy. It’s really quite simple to make. It is basically a curry based soup, and with the exception of the fried noodles (which are easy to do with Yui’s equipment and expert tutelage), we can easily recreate this at home. Chicken, curry paste, coconut milk, vegetables. We’re handled!
So, so good. But oh, so so filling. We are all stuffed by the time we finish our Khao Soy. So stuffed in fact, we can’t even think about trying one bite of the banana custard. But, of course, Yui thinks of everything, and she’s got little take home cups ready for all of us. Perfect.
It’s well after 5 when we finish up – didn’t seem like that long at all. What a great day. The 5 of us left stuff our over fed bodies into the van, and away we go. Within minutes, we’re dropped off outside Twin Peaks, waving goodbye to all our cooking pals.
We stop and pick up our laundry, all cutely packaged up and ready to go…
…and then collapse on the couch in the condo. We are so stuffed. No dinner for us tonight – we are so full we can’t even begin to think about trying the banana custard yet – so full we can’t even contemplate dragging our bloated bodies out into the night for a drink at the Bamboo. Nah, we’re in for the evening, savoring our overindulgent – but oh so worth it – cooking … and eating day.
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