The We Cook cooking class is privately run by a young woman called Miaw – and the classes take place in her home in one of the residential area of Chiang Mai. You can book the class directly by contacting her via Facebook, or via your guesthouse or hostels. The price of the classes is slightly lower than those run by restaurants.

You will be picked up by her from your accomodation. The first stop will be a local amrket where Miau will explain several of the key ingredients of Thai cooking. In addition shye will get some little unusual snacks to try – like coconut pancakes and deep fried pork skin (which turned out to be nice and would be a great snack while having a cold beer – though to be honest everything goes down well with beer…). You also have some free time to walk around while she buys ingredients for the class itself.

The cooking class itself took place in the garden of her house. It was a nice set up with a table to prepare the dishes, and a few gas cooking stations. For a ittle rest there are chairs to sit in the garden. The food was eaten in her living room, sitting on the floor aroud the table. The whole setting added a very homely feel, and made the class even nicer.

The class iteself is great. Unlike other classes where everyone makes the same dishes you can select one item each from 6 different categories: 1) one curry paste; 2) one appetiser; 3) one soup; 4) one main dish; 5) one noodle dish; 6) one desert. The choice of paste really depends on the main course you want to prepare. I choose those dishes I always like to eat, and thought it is good to learn how to prepare them: red curry paste, Khao Soi, a coconut soup, Pad Thai, Papaya Salad and Banana in coconut. Some of the other guys have choosen other dishes, so it was interesting to see the various outcome

Miaw explained the processes well, highlighting any pitfalls, explaining the various ingredients and also how you can substitute them if you cannot get some of them back home. Her excitement to teach and cook really shines throughout the day. Except of some chopping, which the friendly staff did before you have to do everything yourself to learn about it. Well, except the desert where one person was volunteered. Surprisingly I was chosen by the others, but thankfully it turned out to be tasty, which was good as you wouldn’t dissapoint two hungry women….

Rather than eating everything in one sitting there were breaks between the class to enjoy the food. But I would highly recommend to come to the class with an empty stomach – as you will eat a lot!

At the end of the calss you get a little cook book to take home – very uiseful when trying to do the dishes again back home.

The whole course was very enjoyable, and thanks to Miaw (who is an excellent teacher) think I learnt quite a bit. I leanred some new tricks that I use now for my day to day cooking, and getting the advise of subsitute ingredients is very useful, as you will not get every ingrediant back home.  THere are many different cooking classes in Chaing Mai, but I really can highly recommend this class.

She has no website, but can be contacted via her facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/We-Cook-Thai-Home-Garden-Cooking-School-397432923663490

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