Be it a team building event, occasional evening class at a local cooking school, or a gourmet holiday coupled with cooking lessons, hobby cooking is one of the world’s most popular leisure activities. In South Africa cooking schools struggle to meet the demand for team building cooking events. Wickedfood Cooking School offers a variety of  Thai cooking classes to meet the demand of our corporate and individual clients. Recently  we embarked on an eight-week culinary journey through Southeast Asia to learn more about the food.

Chiang Mai Thai Cookery School • Thailand

The oldest in town and one of the slickest operations Wickedfood came across in Asia. Owner and head instructor Sompon Nabnian has become quite a celebrity, having appeared on many TV cooking shows. He has a quiet charm and a wicked sense of humour that instantly puts his students at ease. Located outside of town, the cooking school comprises air-conditioned lecture rooms and outdoor cooking areas, and all students have their own preparation area and stove. The school offers a five-day cycle of classes and students are able to do one or all of them. During the day classic dishes are covered, while those requiring more intricate preparation are saved for evening masterclasses. An added bonus is that every student receives a beautifully compiled full-colour recipe book containing all the recipes. During the classes each recipe is demonstrated in full in the lecture room, and then students go to work stations to prepare them.tom-yam-soup-large
During our two days there we mastered a classic Tom Yam soup, green curry with chicken, Thai-fried noodles, Panaeng curry with pork, sweet and sour vegetables, noodle salad, and black sticky rice pudding. We also did an evening masterclass where we made four curry pastes from scratch and Chiang Mai noodle curry with chicken. The latter is one of the most interesting Thai curries I’ve had, served on a bed of steamed egg noodles and garnished with deep-fried crispy noodles. This is definitely the place to go to if you’re serious about learning the tricks of Thai cuisine.

Click here for a recipe from the school.

Great Asian recipes – Click here:

Chicken feet

Biryani

Kaeng kari kai – yellow curried chicken

Phanaeng Beef Curry in sweet peanut sauce

Phat Thai

Tom yum kung

Green pawpaw salad

Fish head curry

Warm squid salad in a pineapple

Spiced pork spare ribs

Deep-fried silken tofu

Thai beef salad

3 Cup Chicken

For other articles on South East Asia see:

A Taste of Thailand

Floating markets in Bangkok

Must try Singapore dishes

The ABCs of Singapore food

Singapore hawker food centres

Vietnamese cuisine

Cooking schools in South East Asia

Thai House cooking school • Bangkok • Thailand

Chiang Mai Thai Cookery School• Thailand

Red Bridge Cooking School• Hoi An • Vietnam

Books reviewed by Wickedfood on Asian food:

Secrets of the Red Lantern

Kylie Kwong: Recipes and Stories

A Passion for Thai Cooking

Balance & Harmony, Asian Food

 

Sunninghill – (011) 234-3252 sunninghill@wickedfood.co.za

Wickedfood Cooking School in Johannesburg runs cooking classes throughout the year at its purpose-built cooking studios in Sinninghill. Classes are run in the mornings and evenings 7 days a week (subject to a minimum of 12 people). The venue is also popular for corporate events and private functions – team building cooking classes, birthdays, kitchen teas, and dinner parties with a difference.

Our classes are hands-on, where every person gets to participate in the preparation of the dishes. They are also a lot of fun where you not only learn new skills, but get to meet people with similar interests. For corporate groups and teambuilding cooking classes these classes are a novel way of creating staff interaction or entertaining clients.