Gluten Free Cooking Classes in Bangkok

Gluten Free Cooking Classes in Bangkok

We do offer gluten free cooking classes! Lately, our in person class in Bangkok has had a lot of inquiries from people who want to learn how to make delicious, gluten free Thai food. As many of those guests have found, we’re ready to talk with you in detail about Thai ingredients, recipes, and food culture that make it possible to enjoy even with strict dietary restrictions.

Thinking Healthier Post Pandemic

The pandemic has made us all a little more health conscious. We’ve used the down time to reformat our classes and our cooking space. First off, we’ve converted our main cooking class to a plant based format. This means most of the ingredients we use in each cooking session are vegetarian or vegan. Also like a lot of people looking to destress over the past few years, we’ve expanded our garden space. So much so, that our guests often remark that it looks like a jungle! Our little urban jungle is full of edible plants that are local and less well known by newcomers to Thai food such as pandan, long pepper, and wild betel leaves. It isn’t a coincidence that these two things go together, as we teach we encourage others to be more mindful about what’s on our plates, where it comes from, and how it impacts our personal health, and the health of our local environments.

Gluten Free Thai Food

Going plant based helps us accommodate people interested in gluten free cooking, or who have other dietary requests and restrictions. But helping people who may struggle to find classes in Bangkok that can accommodate them also gives us an opportunity to highlight the versatility of Thai cuisine and ingredients. For example, there are many great dishes that rely on gluten free staples such as rice noodles. This means with the exception of some of the sauces included, dishes such as pad thai and pad see ew already lend themselves well to gluten free cooking!

This version of pad thai is made traditionally but is vegetarian, gluten free.

This is good news for everyone, whether they may be avoiding wheat due to a serious allergy, or a dietary preference. We would love to encourage you that, although you have to be persistent about asking about ingredients, there are still plenty of things to safely feast on and cook in Thailand. Since wheat only began making appearances in Thai dishes fairly recently, much of local, traditional Thai food may already be gluten free. Out tip? Be careful to ask about the sauces used to season food, which may contain wheat. You can always prepare a short script to explain your diet before your trip and have it translated. We’ve even seen some travelers bringing their own gluten free seasoning to restaurants!

If you’ve got a question about booking a class, please use our contact page to reach out to us. As always, thank you for your support!

BBQ Jackfruit, Vegan Burgers, and Other Songkran Menu Upgrades

BBQ Jackfruit, Vegan Burgers, and Other Songkran Menu Upgrades

The Thai new year is a holiday is one where we’re enjoying not being in the kitchen! This doesn’t mean that we’re not thinking about food, in particular new additions and upgrades to our vegan menu.

When the pandemic began last year, it was during the holiday that we decided to try our hand at selling vegan food. We didn’t know what to do, but tourism had come to a screeshing halt. What was clear, was that if possible we wanted to continue to employ our staff and help communities in need.

Vegan sloppy joe sandwich from our plant based vegan menu.

Today we do this by offering virtual cooking classes to people around the world, and a plant based delivery service to Bangkok locals. We started with selling meat alternatives like tofu and tempeh, kitchen staples for vegans and vegetarians. However, not long after we introduced food menu that people could pre-order from, that started with about 7 dishes and has no expanded to 20+ items.

The menu is plant based, vegan, and strives to be clean. That means there’s no meat products, no white sugar, and lots of oil-free options. Need an example? Try cooking the chickpea salad from our menu with using the recipe we recently shared.

One of our best sellers is the BBQ pulled jackfruit sandwich. The texture imitates pulled pork and the sauce is plenty sweet, spicy, and flavorful to convince you to try more, whether you’re eating vegetarian or not!

BBQ “Pulled Jackfruit” Sandwich

This vegan pulled pork sandwich is one of the recent additions to the menu. To create it we source organic, juvenile jackfruit, which is in season right now, and stew it until tender. We originally served this on a burger bun, but the sweet and spicy bbq sauce that coats the pulled jackfruit demanded bread that holds up better.

Going forward, you’ll find that when you order this sandwich, it’s now served on a baguette that is plenty crispy when toasted. This is seemingly a small change, but adds so much texture and portability to this beloved menu item.

Nam prik ong is a Northern Thai chili dip, and one of the few in the country that uses a fresh tomato base.

Nam Prik Ong, the Northern Thai Chili Dip

Northern Thai food isn’t a cuisine that makes cooking plant based easy. Many of the dishes derive their delicious flavor from the inclusion of meat, especially pork. This includes foods like nam prik ong, a sweet-salty chili dip with a spicy kick.

Like the rest of the genre of chili dips in Thailand, you typically enjoy nam prik ong with a platter of vegetables. The amount of blanched and raw vegetables included is usually so large that it dwarfs the size of dip with generous bunches of local leaves, crispy vegetables and fresh herbs. However as these dips drift away from their humble beginnings and into mainstream view, the amount of accompanying vegetables shrinks, with some even being replaced by fried meats.

We’d encourage you to enjoy this dish traditionally with a flurry of healthy local veg. Our version is made with plant meat so you can enjoy it regularly, and don’t have the worry that the vegan version has any less flavor or spice than what meat eater’s enjoy.

Homemade vegan burger patties that you can use to craft your own delicious burger!

Vegan Burger Patties

An addition to our staples menu, we introduced vegan burger patties to offer a meat alternative that was more familiar than tofu and tempeh. The patties combined chickpeas and soy pulp (okara) with a mix of herbs and spices to make them flavorful and filling. However they were a lot of work to create and from our original vegan sliders, to the substantially larger final patty prototype there was a complete transformation.

We’re proud of what we created last year, but we’ve now simplified the recipe and given the burgers an upgrade that improves the texture. To do this, we’ve combined them with the product of a local plant based meat company called More Meat. The product is locally produced, uses few additives, and the resulting patty is easier to cook.

That’s not all, these better tasting burgers hold up to more pressure when eating. They don’t go crumbly and retain some moisture inside so they’re juicy too. In fact, the firmness that the plant meat adds has allowed us to ditch their plastic packaging, and send them to customers wrapped in banana leaf.

Thank for reading. For more information on our plant based, vegan delivery service in Bangkok, find the full menu here.

Welcome the Hot Season with 6 of Thailand’s Spiciest Dishes

Welcome the Hot Season with 6 of Thailand’s Spiciest Dishes

The hottest time of the year has arrived in Thailand! What better way to celebrate the sweatiest time of the year, than with Thailand’s hottest foods?

This was exactly the thinking the US Embassy had when enlisting diplomats to taste test six of the spiciest Thai dishes they could find. The fun video starts with the least spicy and slowly builds up the heat with each progressive dish. The result is a quick video that helps introduce a few new Thai dishes to people around the world and wishes everyone a Happy Thai Year, which the Songkran Festival celebrates each year around this time.

Watch the video below and read on to learn more about the dishes that appear in the video. Have you tried them all? Join one of our cooking classes when you’re ready to spice things up!

Americans trying spicy Thai food as a fun way to wish everyone Happy Songkran!

6) Nam Prik Noom น้ำพริกหนุ่ม

Roasted and Pounded Thai Pepper Dip

Warm up the palate with a dish that is often served as an appetizer in Northern Thailand, nam prik noom. The chili dip is made up of medium-sized and juicy light green peppers that most closely resemble banana peppers. Keep in mind though, the flavor and spice level can vary depending on the vendor. The best versions are charcoal roasted before being pound in a mortar and pestle to make a soft, stringy dip.

Nam prik noom is often accompanied by large platters of vegetables, grilled meats like sai oua, and crispy pork cracklings for dipping.

Spicy Bonus Facts:

Nam prik noom is most often enjoyed with a variety of ingredients to dip into the paste. While most of them are raw and blanched vegetables, the most infamous is pork crackling. The curly pork rind is tough and crunchy making it easy to scoop up the dip, and the combination of textures makes it super addictive!

5) Pad Grapow ผัดกะเพราหมู

Garlic and Chili Stir Fried with Minced Pork and Holy Basil

The most famous of the dishes on this list is pad krapow. For Thais this is the repeat go to dish when you’re unsure what exactly you’re craving. If the spicy, umami combination is right it hits all those hard to reach cravings while giving you plenty of fresh chili — and fish sauce soaked chili as a condiment to increase the heat.

This tongue tormentingly spicy dish is often topped with a fried egg and even more chilies in a fish sauce relish.

Spicy Bonus Facts:

If you noticed one diplomat asking about an egg, the spiciest versions are usually served with a crispy fried egg, or kai dao. Crispy on the outside and slightly runny inside, the yolk helps to tame the spice and add texture.

4) Mama Pad Kee Mow มาม่าผัดขี้เมา

Drunken Instant Noodles Stir Fried Chili and Green Peppercorn

Among Thailand’s spiciest noodle dishes you’ll always find pad kee mow ranked near the top. The dish combines your favorite noodles, in this case instant noodles, with fiery fresh chili and green peppercorn. When flash stir fried in the wok, the smoky noodles and overpoweringly heaty flavors can really separate who can and who can’t handle the heat!

The fresh chili and young green peppercorn always rank Thailand’s drunken noodles among the spiciest noodle dishes!

Spicy Bonus Facts:

The term kee mow is an adjective to refer to someone who is regularly drunk. Since this spicy dish is a favorite hangover cure, it’s not incorrect to translate it literally as, “A Drunk’s Noodles” as the fresh chili and numbing peppercorn forcefully shock you back to life.

3) Gaeng Hed แกงเห็ด

Northeastern Mushroom and Pumpkin Soup

This list is suspiciously missing papaya salad from Northeastern Thailand. However, there’s another dish more people should know about from this region called gaeng hed. This soup uses local ingredients making it hard to find outside of Thailand, but often has plenty of spice from fresh chili and funk from fermented fish paste.

The soupy curry contains lots of mushrooms, pumpkin, bamboo, and lemon basil to tame the heat, it also means chefs making it can add even more fresh chili. This is definitely a dish that you taste and think you’re eating something mild, only to have the gradual, lingering spice build up to a long lasting burn inside and outside of your mouth!

The little known soup can be both spicy and cooling at the same time!

Spicy Bonus Facts:

The dark color of the broth can be attributed to the yanang leaf (tiliacora triandra) which is blended to make the base of the soup. If you can survive all the heat and the funk, you may also benefit from the healthy properties of this leaf which is known to help regulate body temperature, a much-needed benefit this time of year!

2) Gaeng Tai Bla แกงไตปลา

Spicy and Pungent Fish Intestines Curry

If the name hasn’t already scared you away, the fragrant and appearance just might. This murky curry often tops most spicy lists with its spicy and powerfully pungent nature. One sip is enough to give you a dizzying dose of seaside fish market vibes, just before the visions of hell takeover. If fish intestines aren’t funky enough, the most popular way to enjoy this painful curry is over fermented rice noodles. Don’t even bother troubling the restaurant staff because true to the nature of southern Thai food, there is no mild version of this soup!

Spicy Bonus Facts:

Not familiar with why anyone would want to eat fish intestines? The process for sun drying the stomach and intestines of the fish with salt is ancient and similar to the centuries-old process of making fish sauce. While these funky and fishy flavors have been mostly omitted from western diets, they’re still a rich source of umami goodness cherished by coastal communities in Thailand.

1) Gaeng Leung or Gaeng Som แกงเหลืองมะละกอปลา

Sour Yellow Curry with Fish and Pickled Papaya

Thailand’s hottest dish, according to US Embassy staff, is another famous curry from southern Thailand called gaeng leung or gaeng som. While not as funky as the previous curry, this means the chili in the curry has the full attention of your taste buds. Meaty chunks of fish and pickled papaya can provide a brief reprieve from the heat. However, let’s be honest there’s no real escape from this heat.

Unlike the more common versions of Thai curries, this dish has no coconut milk as a creamy backdrop to soothe your tongue. Instead, the curry paste is added directly to water or seafood stock. This gives the curry a more soupy consistency but also makes it more dangerous. With a close look, you may even be able to spot some of the speckles of the ridiculous amount of pulverized chili, turmeric, and other herbs used to make the intense paste.

Gaeng leung is from Southern Thailand where it is more commonly called gaeng som, meaning sour curry. Don’t confuse it with a milder central Thai dish by the same name.

Spicy Bonus Facts:

If you’ve never had the opportunity to try this dish, the closest combination of flavors would be from tom yum soup. The sour tartness of the curry comes from the addition of tamarind, pineapple, or lime, and can make the dish a pleasantly addictive way to burst into flames. While tom yum may be more well known outside of Thailand, there are few meals in Southern Thailand that aren’t accompanied by this spicy cornerstone of regional cuisine.

New Downloadable Recipe Cards for our Virtual Cooking Classes

New Downloadable Recipe Cards for our Virtual Cooking Classes

Good news for our cooking class students, we’re upgrading our most popular recipes with new, downloadable cards to help you prepare to cook with us. Each of the cards features fun illustrations from a local Thai artist, aimed at helping you remember exactly which ingredients you need to buy. This means shopping for your favorite Thai meals like pad see ew noodles, green curry, and tom yum soup is now even easier. You’ll be able to jump into our virtual cooking classes, hosted on zoom, knowing you’re fully prepared with all of your ingredients.

Each of the recipe cards feature illustrations to help you remember the most important ingredients to grab when shopping.

We know shopping for ingredients can be intimidating. In some stores even the aisle for soy sauce and fish sauce can seem endless and overwhelming. To complicate matters, some people may be dependent on online deliveries during the pandemic and need to make sure they’re purchasing the correct ingredients. We hope the recipe cards will make this process easier, helping you find the right ingredients for tasty renditions of your favorite Thai foods.

You can find the recipe cards in our virtual courses, like our Thai Cooking Class Starter Kit, with lots of supplementary info on ingredients. For example, a key ingredient for our Pad Thai recipe is tamarind. However, the tamarind you find in the stores comes in many formats, and we have had guests purchase sweet tamarind, instead of the sour tamarind pulp needed. The information we provide in the virtual courses (which are smartphone responsive for access on the go) and the downloadable shopping cards for the recipes should help prevent these mistakes.

Each live cooking session includes access to our virtual courses where you can download the recipe cards and find supplementary information on many of the most common ingredients.
We plan to add notes on which kitchen utensils will be most helpful when making Thai cuisine.

If you don’t already have access to a virtual course, you can purchase it, or receive access when you sign up for a zoom cooking course through Airbnb. In addition to these recipes we do take other requests in our private classes. If you’re planning a large cooking session or corporate learning activity, we would be happy to help.

As these course choices become more popular we will continue to add more recipe cards to new dishes and do our best to help you navigate cooking your favorite Thai dishes.

Credit: Special thanks to graphic designer Yui for all of her hard work helping to beautifully illustrate so many of these Thai ingredients!

Thai Style Creamed Corn, A Special Black History Inspired Recipe

Thai Style Creamed Corn, A Special Black History Inspired Recipe

Today’s recipe share is a tribute to my grandparents for Black History Month. In memoriam we’ll be getting into the kitchen to make a dish called creamed corn. This staple side in southern cuisine is something you might find on the dining room table at family gatherings, or as a side at a favorite bbq joint. Today’s version though, brings Thai flavors to this dish and has been written to make it easily repeatable at home.

Thai style creamed corn, made with local organic corn and fresh coconut milk.

There’s so much Black History to share this month and always. And yes it’s important to know the most famous events and people, but learning the history of people you know can help make the month more meaningful. So I’m honored to share a little about my grandparents, whose shoulders I stand on today.

In particular, my maternal grandfather, whose cast iron pan never moved far from the stovetop. His name was Harold Dunson, but people knew him as ‘The Vegetable Man’. After working for US Steel in Birmingham, Alabama for 35 years, he retired but never quit working. Instead, he started a small business delivering vegetables on the west side of Birmingham for decades.

Some of my most vivid memories of my grandfather were of him waking early, likely 4 or 5am, to get a jump on the bunches of collard and turnip greens he would slice and prep for his customers. He powered through with hot coffee and the help of his favorite prep knife, that had been repeatedly wrapped in worn masking tape to make it easier to handle.

To help share about Black History with our Thai friends, these recipe cards were created by the team at the US Embassy in Bangkok.

When daybreak came, he’d already have breakfast on the stove by the time my sister and I woke up. The long day’s work required hearty morning staples like biscuits, grits, bacon, and fried fish. After all, he was delivering to Black neighborhoods long underserved by grocery stores. He provided senior citizens with limited mobility to have access to fresh vegetables and fruit by bringing them to their doorstep and allowing those with limited finances to buy ‘a dolla‘ of this and that from the back of his truck. All of this happened long before we invented the term food desert, in swaths of Birmingham with more liquor stores and fast food than anything else.

Now Mr. Dunson may not appear in your history books, but I can’t help but summon him in my work today. Even though I live half a world away from where he spent most of his life, his compassion for people and his quiet perseverance to serve them into his early eighties still inspires me.

Creamed corn served with black eyed pea empanadas (left) and Thai style creamed corn with both mild and spicy versions.

In remembrance of this hero, I’d like to share a dish from his cast iron pan called creamed corn. This isn’t the dairy and bacon grease laden recipe you will find on websites dedicated to southern and soul food. That’s no discredit to soul food, but having the traditional version too often can be unhealthy. Instead, I’m making a Thai style creamed corn with fresh aromatics, grilled or roasted corn, creamy coconut milk, and a bit of spice. The resulting dish should be smoky and creamy, sweet from your corn and coconut milk, and pack a mild spice kick.

I hope you’ll join me in sharing this recipe, and reflecting on where Black History has brought us today as a society, and in our individual lives.

The recipe is below, happy cooking and special thanks to the US Embassy in Bangkok for helping highlight this story and recipe with a video and Thai language recipe cards.

Thai Style Creamed Corn

This recipe serves 1 person or can be shared as a side dish. The recipe can be made oil free, gluten free, and vegan if desired.

Optional utensils include mortar and pestle, and non stick frying pan or wok.

Ingredients

  • 200g Corn (about 1 cup, optionally grill and cut off the cob for extra flavor)
  • 100ml Coconut milk
  • Oil for cooking (optional, since the coconut milk is rich in healthy fats/oil)
  • 1/2 Bell pepper, diced
  • 1 Quarter of an onion, diced
  • 5-6 Garlic cloves, smashed or minced
  • 1 Tsp Palm sugar
  • 1 Tsp Black pepper, toasted and crushed
  • 1 Tsp Nam prik pow chili jam (optional)
  • Salt to taste
  • 1 Tbsp Sticky rice flour slurry (1 tbsp dissolved into 3 tbsp water)
  • 1 Spring onion stalk tip, sliced thin to garnish
  • Sprinkle of Paprika to garnish

Instructions

  1. Cut your corn off the cobb if needed, and dice your bell pepper. Then prep any other vegetable you plan to include in your recipe.
  2. Over low to medium heat add your onion, bell pepper, and garlic to a small amount of coconut milk or oil.
  3. Sweat these aromatic ingredients until fragrant or lightly browned. Now add corn and stir fry briefly for 2-3 mins.
  4. If needed, add coconut milk, a tablespoon at a time to keep your pan from burning.
  5. When everything smells fragrant, add remaining coconut milk and allow to simmer, gently boiling.
  6. Season with a teaspoon of palm sugar, black pepper, chili jam (nam prik pow), and salt to taste.
  7. Finish by adding a tbsp of your flour slurry at a time and stirring in well. When your coconut milk is no longer runny, or the desired texture is achieved, turn off the heat.
  8. Plate and garnish with a sprinkle of paprika and spring onion before serving.