Jennifer is ready to get dicing!
What is the best souvenir you can bring home from Thailand? For us, it was the recipes and techniques we learned from a Thai chef at our cooking class at Anantara Spice Spoons at Anantara Rasananda Koh Phangan!
Chopping and dicing!
After a week of eating delicious curries at nearly every meal, we were very excited to learn how to make Geang Kiew Wan Gai, otherwise known as green curry, from scratch. Although our time in Thailand would soon come to an end, we’d be able to bring home a recipe to make one of our favorite Thai dishes right at home. We met our patient chef in the beach-side show kitchen and donned our own aprons and chef hats. We quickly got to chopping, dicing, and plucking the various fresh ingredients.
Tim grinding all the ingredients into green curry paste
We were learning to make the green curry paste that we’d need to make our green curry. As Tim put some muscle into grinding all the fresh vegetables and herbs into the green curry paste, chef told us a bit about the history of Thai food. The green curry paste was already becoming fragrant and chef explained that Thai food is known for its balance of four fundamental taste senses: sour, sweet, salty, and bitter.
Up to the challenge of creating something delicious from the complexity of flavors we were working with (and threatened that if we didn’t pass, we’d have a lot of dishes to wash), we slowly stirred our green curry paste on the stove. As we added the coconut milk, chicken, and eggplant, the paste began to transform into an aromatic green curry that made our mouths water. We tasted and seasoned with fish sauce, palm sugar, and chillies to adjust the spiciness. Medium spicy for us, please!
Making Tom Yum Goong
But it wasn’t time to eat just yet. We were also making Tom Yum Goong, a spicy prawn soup. Another popular Thai dish known for its hot and sour flavor, we actually hadn’t tried this soup yet in Thailand. We had some more vegetables and herbs to chop up before adding them to the prawn stock to simmer.
Seasoning the Tom Yum Goong
The soup is actually very easy and quick to make. After the vegetables simmered for a few minutes, we added the prawns and seasoned with fish sauce and roasted chili paste. Chef poured our soup into bowls and it was finally time to eat!
Tom Yum Goong and Green Curry
We added a tad too much chili paste and ended up with a very spicy soup, but it was still delicious. Our green curry was perfect. Executive Chef Don came by to declare we’d passed our Thai cooking class – no washing dishes for us today!
Tim and I were both surprised at how easy it was to make both the green curry and spicy prawn soup. The dishes are light, though look complex. But with the patient instruction of a Thai chef, you can easily learn to make delicious Thai dishes at home that are sure to impress. Best of all, we got to each take home a wonderful set of 16 Thai recipes, cutting boards, and our Anantara Spice Spoons aprons and chef hats. And we’re sharing the delicious green curry recipe with you!
Geang Kiew Wan Gai (Green Curry) Recipe
Green Curry Paste
- 10 grams green pepper diced
- 5 grams coriander root
- 10 grams galangal
- 10 grams lemongrass
- 20 grams shallots peeled and chopped
- 10 grams garlic peeled and chopped
- 5 grams Bird’s eye chili sliced
- 1 Kaffir lime zested
- 5 grams shrimp paste
- 2 grams salt
- 2 grams white pepper
- In a mortar make a fresh curry paste by grinding all the ingredients.
Green Curry
- 10 grams green curry paste
- 2 Kaffir lime leaves
- 5 grams coriander powder
- 4 grams cumin powder
- 1.5 liters coconut milk
- 50 ml Thai fish sauce
- 40 grams palm sugar
- 180 grams diced chicken breast
- 30 grams diced eggplant
- 20 grams small pea eggplant
- 1 sprig sweet basil, leaves removed
- 1 large red chili
- Heat oil over medium heat and add the green curry paste, Kaffir lime leaves and all the spices. Stir continuously for 2 minutes until aromas have developed.
- Slowly add coconut milk with continuing to stir for 5 minutes.
- Season with fish sauce and palm sugar.
- Add the diced chicken and the eggplant. Continue stirring for 3 minutes.
- When the chicken is fully cooked, add the chilies and sweet basil. Transfer to a serving bowl.
- Garnish with coconut cream, sweet basil and sliced red chilies. Serve with rice.
Know Before You Go
Our stay was provided by Anantara Hotels & Resorts in order to bring you this story. However, Luxe Adventure Traveler maintains full editorial control of the content published on this site. As always, all thoughts, opinions, and enthusiasm for travel are entirely our own. This article contains affiliate links. When you book on Anantara or Booking.com
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Marlene Dombrowski says
looks great such fun
Jennifer Dombrowski says
We’ve done a couple cooking classes now and they are a really great way to connect with the local culture through the food.
Val says
Yum!! Thai food is one of my favorites….hard to find the ingredients here in Mexico, though…
Jennifer Dombrowski says
I’m afraid it will be a bit hard to find all the ingredients for the fresh curry paste. Pre-made green curry paste can be substituted and I think I’ll have to give that a try at home.
Christy says
I really wish we had taken a cooking class while we were in Thailand. The dishes I make at home don’t even compare to the food in Thailand! I’ll have to see if I can get all of these ingredients at home. Thanks for the recipe!
Jennifer Dombrowski says
It’s one thing to google a recipe and totally another to get hands-on time with a Thai chef. This was such a great experience!
We had our cooking class on a remote Thai island, but Anantara Spice Spoons is available at many of their resorts. And many include a visit to a local market to pick out your fresh ingredients too.
Cheryl Howard says
Yummy and fun! It’s a dream of mine to do a cooking class in Thailand.
Jennifer Dombrowski says
Yummy and fun indeed! I love my set of recipe cards I got to bring home. Chicken satay, another of my faves is included and I can’t wait to try that one out at home.
Jenny says
This is what I desperately need! I’m not a natural cook when it comes to Thai dishes so a cooking lesson would be a great start! Thanks for the recipe. I’ll definitely be trying it!
Jennifer Dombrowski says
The list of ingredients can sometimes be daunting when I look at a recipe. So it was really awesome to have a chef show is just how easy these dishes are to make. Let us know how your green curry turns out Jenny!
Devlin says
It’s so hard to find thai food down in Mexico, all I can do is salivate at those shots and hope to find something somewhat resembling thai cuisine in our next location.
Jennifer Dombrowski says
I think Thai restaurants are non-existent in Italy. I just hope I can find the ingredients so I can make up Thai food at home! On the up side, you get all the delicious Mexican food you want all the time, Devlin. That’s another cuisine we crave.
Stef says
This looks so tasty! Thanks for sharing the recipe!
Marcia says
Yum-my, Jennifer. I love Thai food, especially green curry but I thought it would be more difficult to make, especially when you have to balance those four distinct flavors. But I guess that’s the beauty of it – you can adjust to taste. Thanks for the recipe, can’t wait to try it. It’ll definitely be a change from the regular curry I’m used to. Thanks for linking up this week!
Jennifer Dombrowski says
I was surprised at how easy it is to make too! That ingredient list is a bit daunting at first look. Pre-made green curry paste can be substituted if you can’t find all the ingredients to make it fresh.
Ilaria says
Thank you very much for sharing your experience with Anantara! We hope to see you in one of our resort soon
Jennifer Dombrowski says
Thanks Ilaria! We’ve had the opportunity to experience six Anantara Resorts now and we most definitely recommend Anantara for world-class customer service and the unique amenities!
Abby says
Yummmmmmmm!! That looks SO good. I love curry.
Jennifer Dombrowski says
Me too, Abby! I usually opt for a red curry, but this green curry was sooo good.
Cathy Sweeney says
You guys look like real naturals in the kitchen. The dishes look divine and I can almost smell the aromas coming from the pots. What a fun experience and it looks like you enjoyed it.
Irene S. Levine says
Thanks for sharing these recipes! The only thing better than eating when traveling is learning about new foods and recipes to carry home with you.
Jennifer Dombrowski says
So true, Irene!
Marcia says
Great idea about the green curry paste, Jennifer. Will see if I can get some this weekend. It must be the weather here in NYC, I need different spices to jazz up my cooking.
Thanks for linking up!
Jennifer Dombrowski says
The weather has been crazy this winter! We’ve had nearly non-stop rain for two weeks and literally one day of sunshine so far this year. Sometimes food can help bring you out of the winter weather funk.
Deb says
Mmmmm delicious. Thai Green Curry is my favourite food. It is true, Thai food is quick and easy to make. You two look so cute in your class too.
Indochina travel says
This looks so good! Thanks for sharing!