The day started early with a trip around the local food market. Pon picked me up and we joined a tour with a few others. We were taken around the coconut mashing facilities – a big part of Thai cuisine. There’s some seriously heavy duty machinery, the crusher, the skinner (a massive circular dish that takes off every part of the shell), the juicer (which could happily take my arm off) and what I like to call the DESICCATOR which essentially takes all the waste and hacks it into a pile of delicious coconut.
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| Considering large chunks of coconut went in, juice comes out the middle and powder the other end, you really don't want body parts in there |
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| That was someone's skull |
We moved onto the rice store, which is one of the most befuddling parts of Thai markets. Look at these bags:
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| All of these are very different... apparently |
Are there any differences? You bet there are. I can tell jasmine rice, wholegrain, sticky and black sticky at a glance now, but Thai’s seem to take everything at a glance, and know which is best for which meal. It’s creepy.
As we toured, we saw the fresh fruit and veg stands and the meat stalls.
Lots of pork and whole chickens, but also fish. Dried, fresh and alive.
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| Alive |
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| Dead |
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| Dead |
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| Alive |
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| Dead. Also gross |
You can’t get fresher, and they can be killed right in front of you. It’s morbidly fascinating as you watch a catfish get its head bashed in with a rounders bat. There’s also a lot of offal – whereas we have to go to our local butcher to get hearts and tripe, they have it here proudly displayed. I must try to cook offal sometime, it’ll be nice to get protein at uni cheaply.
We later started cooking a meal I was really looking forward to – the pinnacle of Thai soups. Coconut and lemongrass with chicken. It’s delicious, perfectly flavoured, not too hot and really creamy. I love it, and it came out really well.
After that was thick noodles in gravy, it’s a very common dish you can find in every lunch place in Thailand. It’s not spicy, but more peppery and rich. It’s a ‘meh’ dish to me, it’s good but nothing to write home about.
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| Waiter skillz |
For lunch we enjoyed green curry. For those who don’t know, green is actually hotter than red, as green chillies are younger and therefore fierier. It’s toned down by the coconut cream, yet still leaves you drinking water with every taste.
As a side order, we stir fried various vegetables and served them in thick sauce. It’s simple, mushroom, peas, sweetcorn and onion. Simple yet elegant, and a great accompaniment.
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| My fourth meal of the day |
Finally we created one of my favourite dishes – steamed banana cakes. It’s so simple to make and is truly delicious. You can do it with mango or even sweet potato, but I’ll try them in the future. You start by mixing banana, coconut milk and a little sugar and mix it in a bowl to a truly unappetising mess. It’s then spooned into a basket and topped with desiccated coconut and left in the steamer for roughly half an hour. After this it bakes into a thick mix, not a cake but similar. The coconut really sets off the banana, and the creamy texture is incredible. It’s definitely something I’ll try again. You can also bake them, which I might try with my Aga.
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| The Chiang Mai blender |
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| Perfect |
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| Cakey goodness |
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