I AM Just Here For The Food

So I figured if eating Lao food was great, well then why not try cooking it. A restaurant down the street was offering cooking classes, so I signed up, and got hungry. Now I haven't cooked anything since I left my Mom's inn, so I was a little nervous about the class. I ended up taking it with this older French couple, and they were a lot of fun. The women, Sylvie, had been to Lao before and knew a few dishes, but Jean-Pierre hadn't really cooked South-East Asian food though, but you could tell they were both really into food.

The class started with us gathering around the recipe book choosing dishes to make and drinking tea. After we had chosen, one of the cooks took us to Phousi Market, and gave us a tour. It was really fascinating. I mean I had been to markets before, but with a guide you got to really learn what all these weird things were, and man were there some weird things (the oddest being big blocks of solidified blood). If your at all into proper food hygiene though, then don't go to the market, the amount of flies that were on the meat, probably would had turned you vegetarian (unless you are vegetarian already, Hey Lisa!). So after wandering around the market it was back to the restaurant to learn about Lao food.

First the chef sat us down and showed us the basic ingredients in Lao cooking. If you don't have these she said, then you can't cook Lao. She then showed us a few other ingredients that we probably wouldn't ever find at home, since they usually are only found in the jungle. Me being the smart guy that I am had chosen a recipe that will be impossible to replicate at home since it contained quite a few jungle ingredients including this special kind of wood, which you soak and then throw into the stew. Where the hell am I going to find spicy wood in Canada? I just don't think Maple will cut it. She then told us the proper way to make sticky rice and sticky rice powder, which was really interesting. So after the lesson, we went to our cutting boards and the chef taught us how to properly chop garlic, shallots, lemon grass, and Galangal (which was really tough to cut). After that it was off to the kitchen.

The cooking part was really fun, except, again I chose the wrong damn dish, and spent most of the time stirring the stew, and breaking up sticky rice while the other two were stir-frying their asses off. We did eventually switch though, so all was good. The smells coming out of the kitchen were amazing, and we were just getting hungrier and hungrier. Finally we finished everything and sat down to eat. Below is a description of each dish along with a picture.

Mok This dish, which is a little different than the Cambodian Amok, is a coconut milk/curry based dish which is then steamed in Banana Leaves. It was pretty tasty, but not my favourite. The steaming of the coconut milk gives it an almost custardy texture which I wasn't a fan of. It was good though, and fun to fold into the leaves. Ours was made with chicken, but you could easily substitute fish. I think I like the Cambodian Amok better, as that is more of a stew served in a coconut, and while the taste is the same, I prefer the texture of Amok.


Fried Rice Salad This was probably my favourite dish. You take left-over steamed rice and mix it with beef and herbs, and seasoning, then roll it into balls, coat it in egg, and then fry it up until its a dark brown. Once that done you then break up the balls into little bits, and mix in more herbs and a fish sauce based sauce. It's darn tasty. It has soft bits and crunchy bits, and the flavour was incredible. This is one recipe I'm definitely trying at home, so if you want some come on over. Most south east Asian cuisine is a balance between Hot, Salty, Sweet, and Sour, and this dish does it really well, throwing the change in textures in there for good measure.


Luang Prabang Stew This was the dish I chose, and the reason I chose it was because the original dish I picked was coconut milk based and we already had two of those. This one had a long list of ingredients, so I thought it might be fun. Unfortunately, it was a bit of a pain in the ass, and I can't make it at home, but it was pretty tasty. The pain in the ass part was that after slightly roasting a ball of sticky rice you then have to break up the ball into little bits, since that's what thickens the stew. Well sticky rice is well...sticky, and it was hard to break it into little bits. Plus then I had to stir it for 30 minutes which was quite exciting let me tell you. It did use a bunch of jungle leaves, spicy wood, and jelly mushrooms so that was kind of neat. The taste was good, and it had a kind of earthy taste to it. So I'm glad I picked it, but there were better dishes to be had.


Ginger Chicken If you like Ginger, you'll love this dish. It starts by caramelizing sugar and water until it's a dark caramel colour, you then stir-fry the aromatics, and then add the fish. If I was making this at home I would have added more fish, but I could see them not wanting to give you a lot of fish for the class. It had a really sweet taste along with a strong ginger taste which kind of balanced out both. The sauce it pretty sticky, and coats everything really well. If you don't like ginger, well then move along. This one was a great one to watch being made since at each step you had to add the ingredients at the right time. The sauce had to be just the right colour, you had to stir-fry the onions, garlic, and ginger just the right amount before adding the fish so that the former wasn't burned and the latter wasn't under or over cooked. I'd say this was my third favourite dish of the day.



Coconut Milk SoupThis was probably my second favourite dish, and I think it's because it actually reminded me of the amok I was talking about earlier. It was basically a chicken soup (although you could add fish or tofu) in a coconut based soup. It smelled amazing and tasted even better. The chicken which is stir-fried first with aromatics like onion, galangal and garlic, was really tender, and the consistency was great. If I was making it at home I would probably cut some of the tings into smaller pieces. The jelly mushrooms were a bit big, and the odd texture made it a bit weird to eat, but it was a tasty soup.


So fun was had, food was eaten and I learned a lot about Lao cuisine which is something I knew zero about before coming here. Sure I had made Lap before, but I thought it was Thai. At the end of class they gave us a cookbook full or recipes, so if anyone wants some Lao food when I get home let me know.