We were invited to a Chaophraya cooking class this weekend to try our hand at creating some Thai classics. We had an amazing afternoon and would certainly recommend it to others wanting to get out of the home kitchen and learn how to make tasty dishes from real Thai chefs!
Whilst we waited for the class to start we enjoyed a refreshing glass of juice in the Chaophraya bar and chatted about what we were looking forward to. I was keen to learn how to make a curry, something that I had never tried at home. But before we knew it we were being escorted upstairs where there was a tabled laid for lunch and four stations for cooking. There were 11 keen cooks at the class this weekend.
Within minutes of arriving we were all wearing our Chaophraya aprons and giggling about our chefs hats. We knew that it would be a fab afternoon!
The first dish that we were shown how to create by our Thai chef was a green papaya salad. This is one of my favourite Thai dishes as it is fresh, healthy and delicious. But I have never tried to make it at home as I have always thought it would be a complex dish to recreate. However when we started to make the dish ourselves I realised that the salad of shredded papaya, dried shrimps, carrots, cherry tomatoes and fine beans was easy to make. The dressing, which is sweet and spicy at the same time, is also simple, made by pounding lime, garlic, fish sauce, peanuts, chillies and palm sugar together. We plated up, trying to make our salad look as pretty as the demonstration dish, and sat down together to enjoy it.
After finishing our starter, and chatting with the others about Thai food and our cooking mishaps, we made a start on creating our main course: Red Thai curry with prawns. As I said previously, curry is something that I have always been scared to make because I thought it was a lengthy process and not a dish I would be able to recreate at home. However, like the starter, the curry was very achievable and did not involve loads of processes. We created the whole thing within 15 minutes and were diving in to the rich and creamy dish, mopping up the sauce with sticky Thai rice.
We all loved the curry, and liked that we had been able to adjust the heat to our own taste preferences.
Feeling happily satisfied after the first two courses, we didn't rush up for dessert, and thankfully we weren't rushed by the staff. However as we were keen to learn about how to make coconut pancakes as none of us had them before, it didn't take long before we were back at our work stations ready to cook. The coconut pancakes that we made were tasty and sweet. I loved the sticky texture and the crispy edges. We enjoyed them with scoops of homemade ice cream, berries and salted caramel sauce - what more could you want at the end of a delicious meal?
Overall, we all had a fabulous time. We learnt how to recreate some Thai classics and realised that they are not as scary or difficult to make as we had thought! I for one will certainly be making all three dishes again.
I have already planned a trip to Kirkgate market to buy some green papaya, aromatics and Thai sticky rice!
Have you been to one of the Chaophrya cooking classes? What did you think? Let us know by commenting below or getting social on one of our social media platforms.
Spreading joy through food and drink, Leeds Food Guide
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