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| Thai Som Tom Salad |
Tom and I spent one Saturday morning at May Kaidee's cooking school to get some tips on the finer points of cooking some of our favorite dishes. After four hours, we were so stuffed we had to start packing the food in a to-go bag instead of our stomachs. We made at least 12 dishes, alongside a British couple whose sons had arranged their visit to the cooking school. Our teacher was a vivacious Thai woman from northern Thailand (Issan) where the primary language is Laotian; she was very fluent in English and kept us on task as we moved from one dish to another. She gave us a compact May Kaidee cookbook, which we have now used many times. I have been able to recreate several of the dishes but may have to visit the cooking class again to gain the nuances of a few dishes. One of our favorite recipes is one of the easiest: som tam salad pictured above. Green beans, tomatoes, chilies, garlic, peanuts and lime juice are pounded in a mortar; then shredded green papaya is added for a few more poundings of the pestle.
We learned to make soup in 3 versions, all based on the same combination of ingredients. Here is my version at our wok (bought in 1975 on Prince Avenue in Athens Georgia):
12 dishes? That's a lot of cooking! Both the soup and the salad look yummy to me.
ReplyDeleteThe salad is one of my favorite dishes. Spicy, sweet and sour all at the same time.
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