Today, I had a very unique opportunity to get to go to a Thai person’s home and help prepare an authentic Thai meal thanks to the wonder of technology (specifically, Meetup.com). Our host, Petz, is an organizer for the Freestyle Cooking group. He bought all of the ingredients and provided the cooking space (which included a gas stove and oven – novelties in Thai homes). He even decorated the dining table with a lovely tablecloth & fresh flowers to make a truly lovely experience.
Thoughtfully, he provided Chicken Satay made by one of his friends for us to snack on when we arrived. This gave us a good opportunity to enjoy yet another local Thai snack as well as give us some time to get to know each other a bit before getting started. It also ensured we didn’t get “hangry” while we were cooking (English slang which they all enjoyed learning).
We then got to chopping & prepping ingredients. We started the soup first since that would take the longest to cook. The soup was very similar to a soup that I would make – start with chicken stock add meat & vegetables, and let cook. The only difference was that sugar was added, because you add sugar to everything in Thailand.
The curry was absolutely delicious. It’s rare to find it in Thailand served with duck, but that’s because duck is hard to prepare, which we didn’t. Our host bought some pre-roasted duck which made our lives easier.
The stir-fried morning glory was a simple dish that is the one I will repeat most often for myself at home. Simply prepared with some garlic, chilies, and soy sauce.
The dish which really hooked me into coming to this event was the pumpkin filled with coconut custard. Pumpkin & coconut are two of my absolute favorite things in the world, so I’m always excited to find them together. I read about this traditional Thai dessert before moving to Thailand, but have never encountered it. Luckily, our host did a test run of the coconut custard filled pumpkin using David Thompson’s recipe which didn’t set properly, so we decided to try again, but use some starch to help it set. The mini pumpkin we made came out perfectly, but the larger pumpkin was taking much longer to cook. Since he had an oven, I suggested giving it a whirl to help it along. It definitely helped, and after 20 more minutes in the oven we had a (mostly) set pumpkin! It was everything I dreamed it would be – and was even more enjoyable since it was a team effort.