Cooking With Joy, Bouldering, Migraine
We found an amazing smoothie bar for breakfast where I had a poached egg on homemade chia seed bread with avocado, and Robin had the great berrier reef smoothie bowl. After munching we navigated to Joy’s house where we were to do our cooking course.
Deep in the jungle up a mountain stood the cooking school overlooking the trees and out into the ocean beyond. The view was incredible. Unfortunately this exposed position also meant quite a bit of wind and with our gas stoves that was not very helpful. There were 3 pairs doing the course, 2 from England including us and then 2 friends from the Netherlands.
Joy let each pair pick a dish each for the group to make; we chose massaman curry, the others chose spring rolls and Tom Yum. We got started by smelling and tasting all the herbs and spices that make up a massaman curry paste: cardamon, turmeric, clove, cumin, galangal, cinnamon, bay leave, pepper, salt, chili, lemon grass, coriander seed, and probably more that I have forgotten. Joy made it clear that with Thai curry you measure with your eyes and sense of smell; something smell strong use less, something weaker use more. She also introduced us to ‘Joys teaspoon’ which is a huge heaped portion rather than an even level dose.
We ground up the ingredients with a mortar and pestle careful to add only 7 chilies. Once tired Joy finished the paste with a healthy amount of oil and a blitz in the blender. With the paste complete we moved onto the filling for spring rolls.
Joy taught us that any dry vegetables work best with spring rolls such as carrot, cabbage, potato, pumpkin. She also recommends pairing with glass noodles. The base of any Thai stir fry is oyster sauce, soy sauce, salt, and sugar. We fried our veg and noodles with the sauces and set it aside.
Next we cooked our curry with coconut milk and water and ate it for lunch. The curry is a sweet and spicy curry with a peanutty flavour.
We assembled the spring rolls and got started on our final fish Tom Yum. Joy gave us a choice of Tom Yum and Tom Kha Kai as they use the same ingredients just a different broth. Robin and I did one of each. The flavours were from lemongrass, baby corn, tomato, kefir leaves, lime juice, carrot, spring onion, parsley, galangal, ennoki mushrooms, salt, sugar, and black pepper. We both chose to make our soups with prawn.
Robin then stewed her veg in a broth of chili paste in oil and water whilst I did coconut milk and water. The tang from the limes paired perfectly with the flavours and made a flavorful broth. Lastly we added the prawns and then got to eat our soups.
After packing up all our food to take home, we said thank you and goodbye to Joy and went on the hunt for a bouldering gym. We are both missing climbing very much. We found one but on asking the prices it became very expensive with the shoe and chalk hire. I had the genius idea of finding some shoes to buy so we wouldn’t have to pay rental every time we went eventually saving money. We managed to find shoes in my size but Robin will have to wait a little longer. The shop we bought the shoes introduced us to a map of the Koh Tao outdoor bouldering. We plan on going the day after tomorrow with hired shoes for robin and a crash mat.
We returned close to the hostel for some shopping and I got a migraine. I think it was from cooking for most of the day with a hot flame and no aircon. After a nap and some food I felt better but still decided to miss the pub crawl tonight. Probably for the best as we have a snorkel day tomorrow.
-M
