Food Minia

I got to go to Bangkok for a meeting last week and went a day early so I could explore the city a bit on my own first.  Besides visiting the temples, enjoying the view and drinks at Sky Bar, shopping at Siam Paragon, and getting massages for 270 baht ($7.50!) an hour, I also took a cooking class at the Silom Thai Cooking School .  I chose a Sunday morning class because I liked the proposed menu:  tom yum soup, green papaya salad, pad thai, massaman curry, and mango sticky rice . The class was very well organized;  first we took a bus to a wet market to pick up the ingredients and then we walked to the classroom which had three different sections:  one for food prep, one for cooking, and one for eating.  Most of the ingredients that we used were already pre-measured for us, so there was only a minimum of chopping and stir frying but enough that we felt like we were actually cooking!  We also got a go at the enormous mortar and pestle to make the papaya ...

This is a delicious coconut curry seafood stew with a lot of ingredients common in Vietnamese and Thai cooking. INGREDIENTS: 1 tablespoons canola oil 2 tablespoons grated ginger 2 tablespoons pureed lemon grass 2 tablespoons curry powder 6 cups chicken broth 2 tablespoons fish sauce 1 tablespoon light brown sugar 1 tablespoon tamarind soup base  (or 2 tablespoons of fresh lime juice at the very end) 2 (13.5 ounce) cans coconut milk 1 teaspoon chili oil 1 pound medium peeled and deveined shrimp 1 pound hardshell clams 8 ounces mussels 8 ounces halibut (cut into 1x1 inch pieces) or fresh Alaska king crab meat 1/4 cup chopped cilantro cooked jasmine rice about 4-6 cups Siracha Chili paste (optional to add heat) DIRECTIONS: Heat oil in large pot over medium heat.  Cook and stir in ginger, lemongrass, and curry powder in oil for 1 minute.  Pour in chicken broth over mixture and stir continually to incorporate irall ingredients.  Stir in fish sauce and brown sugar; si...