The city of Chiang Mai in northern Thailand boasts many picturesque spots, beautiful Buddhist temples, and a rich cultural tradition. Though not as sophisticated as Bangkok, it is still a beautiful place, located far from the hustle and bustle of the capital. Many visitors come to Chiang Mai to visit its temples, such as the popular Wat Phrathat Doi Suthep, but a popular “must-do” activity when visiting this fine city is to take a traditional Thai cooking class.

Many places offer these classes around Thailand, but one of the most popular are the courses offered by at the Chiang Mai Thai Cookery School. The school’s founder, Chef Sompon Nabnian (host of UK TV’s “Thai Way”), started the very first cooking school in the area. The school offers 5 different courses, which can be taken individually or all together for a complete Thai cooking experience.

I took the course that was devoted to making curry. For our class that day, we made Panang Curry (Nam Prik Panaeng) from scratch.

The first part of the recipe was making the actual curry paste. Traditional Thai curry consists of several different spices and ingredients. Chef Sompon first showed the class the different tools and ingredients used to make curry.



The paste consists of the several ingredients: coriander seeds, cumin seeds, mace (the outer shell of the nutmeg seed), green peppers, ginza, lemograss, shrimp paste etc. The complete list of ingredients and recipe can be found here:

Basically, all the ingredients need to pounded together in a large mortar.


After about 20-30 minutes of pounding, the paste is ready!

But the we’re only halfway done! The curry is then cooked with coconut milk, pork, palm sugar, basil and kaffir leaves to make delicious Panang Curry Pork.

Labels: International Flair