Wok's Cooking In Bangkok?CHANDLER BURR, an American food writer, discovers the joys of Thai food by doing crash courses at three of Bangkok's famous culinary schools. |
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THERE are, of course, many ways to travel Thailand, but the best, I would argue, is a behind-the-scenes hands-on trip through its cuisine. Which is why I found myself beginning a recent trip to the kingdom at the Cooking School of the Oriental, the legendary luxury hotel on the Chao Praya River in the heart of Bangkok where Chef Sarnsern Gajaseni holds his classes. Chef Gajaseni (or Phae, his nickname) opens with a simple recipe: fried rice. He explains the strange concept of eating with our hands "Small amounts of rice" and what oils to use: "Never olive, and only very little sesame oil, that's a seasoning; use palm or soybean, but lard is best, oil from pig fat." Only use long grain rice, not jasmine, he says. "And it has to be leftover from yesterday. Heat the oil, add some 'nam pla' (literally 'water fish', the famous sauce of fermented anchovies), and stir fast. That's it!"
"Here's the recipe for red curry paste," says Phae. "Nine dried red serrano chilis. They're quite big, see?" He holds them up. "Cut them open and deseed. The real strength of the chilis is in the white membrane holding the seeds, not, as most people think, in the seeds themselves. Soak them in warm water for 20 minutes; never use them dry. Next: seven cloves of garlic. Five shallots with small heads. One stalk of lemongrass, only the bottom five or six inches. Galanga, which is Thai ginger, five slices the size and thickness of a quarter. One tablespoon of coarsely chopped kaffir lime peel. One big coriander root. Don't use the leaves, that's cilantro. Ground white pepper, one teaspoon "Thai never use black pepper, only white. And one teaspoon shrimp paste. Grind to a paste with a mortar and pestle."
We move to the kitchen, and Phae then teaches us the rest of the recipe as he makes the curry: He boils 5 cups coconut milk in a wok, throws in the chili paste, and lets it boil furiously till oil starts forming on top. "Fry the paste in reduced thick coconut milk till the oil seeps out," he says, "that's the secret." Then he puts in whole shrimp ("If you want to use fish," he says, "use catfish with the skin on"), soy sauce, palm sugar, fresh Thai basil and kaffir leaves, pea eggplant, and fresh bamboo shoots. He dumps in a nice handful of sliced red chilis. "The other secret," says Phae, "is that you should always age curry 2-3 hours or more at room temperature. In Thailand, we try to make it one day ahead, then we bring it to a boil the next day and serve it at room temperature.
The Thai Cooking School at the Oriental Hotel Bangkok
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Then he turns to our centerpiece today, the most important dish in
Thailand: Thai curry. "Which isn't," says Phae forcefully, "curry at
all. It's really chili. 'Curry' is the word that's used, but remember:
the foundation of every Thai curry is a terrific chili paste. "There
are two major chili pastes," says Phae, "red and green. If you mix
them, you get brown, called 'massaman' curry, thick, with peanuts,
meat, and potatoes, but that's not Thai, it's really Indian" the
Indians came as spice traders and adapted massaman to their taste. In
the south you can get curries with yellow chilis and turmeric, but
that's actually Malay. So let's study real Thai curries.
And green curry? Exactly the same, says Phae, except instead
of nine red serranos, use 27 of the tiny fresh green birdseye
chilis. Don't deseed the green chilis. You can also freeze
the paste. Two or three tablespoons makes curry for eight
people. And, you can freshen up commercial paste by adding
small amounts of fresh ingredients. 
A few days and a flight to the north later, I walk up the
gracefully curved stone steps leading to the teak gate of
the Cooking School at the Four Seasons Chiang Mai. This, it
turns out, is completely different from the Oriental's. Here
it's all about hands-on: We move to our stations and, after
demonstrations from our chef-instructor, Pitak ("Pok"),
gentle and methodical, we start flinging ingredients into
our woks, dropping wrappings in hot oil, stir frying spring
onions and cabbage and shrimp. We make "krathong thong"
(pork and shrimp tartlets) and "kung sa rong," deep-fried
crispy egg noodle-wrapped prawns; I use palm sugar, golden
brown and deliciously fragrant, for my dipping sauce instead
of white, and everyone agrees it tastes better. By the time
the class ends, at around 1 p.m., we are all so sated we can
barely move. We receive our diplomas in a stupor and wander
off to the Four Seasons pool.
I fly back to Bangkok. Next morning I arrive at the Shangri-La
Hotel. Once again, a marked difference. I make everything
with the chef, Wiwat, and we make a full three-course meal.
We start with "poh pia jae thord," deep fried spring
rolls with mixed vegetables: white cabbage, taro, Chinese
mushrooms, celery. We wrap the vegetables in thin pancakes,
fry to a golden brown, and dip in a sweet and sour sauce with
red chilis. Wiwat's prawn green curry is simpler than Phae's
but no less delicious. And then we do a dessert: "woon
kati," literally jelly, coconut cream. It's incredibly
simple: Take out the juice and meat of one young coconut;
mix the juice with 30 gr jelly powder and 100 gr coconut milk,
50 gr sugar and 5 gr salt; mix, then boil 5 minutes with the
coconut meat; pour into a mold and set 30 minutes in the fridge.
Thai Cooking Schools
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