KARLA: As I have mentioned before, I grew up playing in The Plaza’s bakeshop and kitchen. And even until today, whenever I feel the tension building up in the office or if I get bored or just need to take a step back, I find myself wandering into the kitchen. The same goes for all our trips. My lolo would always plan our itinerary with my mom based on where or what he wanted to eat. Probably even our number of days on a trip were based on how many restaurants we had to go to. Since Lolo Joe passed away, mom and I have somehow been left with so much time to spare. We either bury ourselves in work or go on shopping sprees, both of which aren’t good. Haha!
Because of this, we claim year 2012 as our travel year. Just recently, mom and I came from Bangkok. The last time I was there, I was around 10 years old. Although I barely remember parts of it, I do remember that it was my date with Lolo Joe. Mom, Lola Meldy, Lolo Joe and I went to Bangkok with his golf friends as they had a tournament there. So we spent most of the time on the bus for sightseeing, which I of course I didn’t appreciate at that age. When mom’s school friend from Cornell Univerity, Pimjai Bhodhipakdi, offered to take mom and lola around to go shopping, I was left to continue the rest of the tour with lolo. All I remember is that we went to the floating market that day and he bought me a bunch of baby bananas. That moment was the highlight of my trip and it’s almost all that I can remember.
This time, I told mom that I wanted to do more sightseeing, see the temples, go to the night market, etc. Somehow I ended up searching for cooking schools. My cousin, Vince Reyes, the front desk manager at the Peninsula Bangkok, recommended that I take classes at the Peninsula. Due to the head chef being hospitalized, he recommended that I attend classes at another school called Blue Elephant instead. Still, I wasn’t yet convinced that I would take cooking classes until I read the schedule for the week and saw that I would be learning how to make pad Thai. Without hesitation, cooking classes were a go.
The class started out by taking us on a trip to the market. The objective was just to familiarize the class with common Thai ingredients and what they look like in their raw form. Although I was already familiar with most of the ingredients, I was surprised that some people in class didn’t know what tamarinds were and what they tasted like. Some students even asked what Thai fish sauce was, which we all know as patis, and how Thai shrimp paste was made, which we know as bagoong. Aside from that we got to taste the Thai fish cakes, Thai iced coffee and Thai iced milk tea sold at various stalls in the market.
When we got back to Blue Elephant, we were immediately brought to a classroom where chef Nooror Somany-Steppe would demonstrate a dish for us, then we would be asked to taste it. After, we were ushered into a kitchen across the hall with a station for each student.
The first dish we made were Thai fish cakes, made from white fish with red curry paste with long bean and kaffir lime leaves. It pretty much felt like making a meatball but using fish … with chili. To accompany it, we were also taught how to make sweet and sour cucumber salad, which went very well with the hotness of the fish cake. Next, we made kaeng phed kai nor mai or red curry with chicken and bamboo shoots. It was fun to make and very simple, too. I spent more time prepping the ingredients than actually cooking. Chef said that this is just basic curry and that there are more items you can add to make it a totally different dish. Like change the chicken to duck or add in pineapple chunks, etc. When we were done, the kitchen assistants brought us clay pots or palayok to transfer our dish into, and to stick on a piece of paper to help me identify later on that it was mine. The next dish we made was pad Thai, my favorite! It was fast to make since most items were pre-portioned for us already. Pad Thai is stir-fried rice noodles with shrimp or prawns, egg, sweet turnip, peanuts, tofu, bean sprouts, spring onions and chili powder. Yum! And lastly, we made yum ma-khua yao koong sod, or eggplant salad with prawns. It is basically eggplant topped with ground chicken, chili, coriander leaves with a dressing made of lime juice, tamarind juice, fish sauce, palm sugar, garlic and chili.
I learned that Thai food is actually very healthy and not oily. Also, instead of using sugar, which is processed, they use palm sugar, which is traditionally made from the Palmyra sap but is now made from coconut palm. I noticed that we barely used salt and pepper but used tamarind, fish sauce, palm sugar and, of course, chili in most of the dishes.
MILLIE: Karla’s choice of a cooking school was indeed the right one. The owner, Thai chef Nooror Somany-Steppe, came from Chachoengsao province and gained her foundation of culinary skills from her mother and elder sister, learning various dishes, mostly curries and desserts. She later went to Brussels, Belgium, to learn French and advanced culinary arts at the Madame Jacob Institute. It was there that she met her husband, Karl Steppe, and with his support, together with two friends, Chai Wayno and Somboon Insuri, she opened her first Thai restaurant named Blue Elephant.
I came to pick up Karla past noon but classes were still ongoing, so I decided to browse around the little shop and bought chef Nooror’s cookbooks Cooking from the Heart and Tapas and Desserts to add to our already extensive collection of cookbooks from all over the world. I was particularly interested in acquiring the tablecloth for my elephant collection as it had blue elephants with the trunk up!
While waiting for Karla to come out of cooking class, I managed to take a peek at her doing hands-on cooking, took a few photos and decided to wait in the restaurant. The place had the warmth and cozy feeling of a home. It was bustling as it was the height of lunch hour. There was soothing Thai music, beautiful fresh Thai orchids and antiques adorned the lovely place and the staff was very cordial. I could not help but order a dish, even if I knew I was supposed to try out the Thai dishes Karla had prepared in cooking class. The proof is in the eating, so they say, so I ordered roast duck red curry cooked with coconut milk, fresh Prachuab Khirikhun pineapple, kaffir lime leaves and organic sweet basil. I had it with a huge heap of steamed jasmine rice!
After Karla’s cooking class, I was invited to sample her dishes and was amazed at how she was able to capture the authentic Thai flavors after only one lesson. Her pad Thai was so delicious I almost ate it all! The thod man plaa or Thai fish cake was also very good … for a beginner at Thai cooking, I mean. Honestly, not because she is my daughter, the kaeng phed kai nor mai or red curry with chicken and bamboo shoots was truly exceptional! But most of all, I enjoyed the yum ma-khua yao koong sod or grilled long eggplant salad with prawns so much that I finished the whole dish!
Learning about the cuisine of a country greatly contributes to one’s knowledge about the culture and its people. There is definitely something about taking cooking classes and savoring the authentic dishes that adds to the excitement when visiting a foreign land other than just sightseeing and shopping. We’ve been lucky to have Thai friends to guide and show us around and we will definitely be back!
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Visit Blue Elephant Cooking School and Restaurant at 233 South Sathorn Road, Yannawa, Bangkok. For more inquiries and reservations, call (66) 2-673-9353-8, e-mail cooking.school@blueelephant.com. or check out their website at www.blueelephant.com.
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Send e-mail to milliereyes.foodforthought@gmail.com. and karla@swizzlemobilebar.com. Find us on Facebook and read articles you might have missed: Food for Thought by Millie & Karla Reyes.