Thai cooking: you'll like it

(Credit: Roseanne Pereira)

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It’s Thursday night and a group of five friends are having a night out on the town. They sip from the wine glasses in front of them and chat with the man behind the counter. But — they’re not at bar, they’re at a cooking class at "Let’s Cook" in NE Minneapolis.

Tonight’s chef is Joe Hatch-Surisook, who plans to open his own Thai noodle restaurant in Minneapolis later this year. Hatch-Surisook is making four Thai noodle dishes – including one curry dish and the infamous pad thai. It’s a demonstration class, which means the students are sitting in a half moon around the chef while he cooks their meal — the stovetop, and bowls of ingredients, are laid out inches in front of them. For those at farther corners, television screens hanging from the ceiling to broadcast the chef’s handiwork.

With coconut milk can in hand, Hatch-Surisook shows how he skims off the coconut cream that rises to the top and cooks with it. The cream doubles as both a fat and flavor. He talks about trying to get as many of the six flavor points of Thai cooking in one dish to create complex flavor. They are salty, sweet, spicy, sour, bitterness/rawness and a neutral/blandness to cleanse the palate.

Ambar Hanson, a kitchen assistant at "Let’s Cook", says a range of people are drawn to the cooking classes. “There are friends who come in, young couples on dates, singles and older people who just discovered a particular type of cuisine.”

Among the most popular classes at "Let’s Cook" are a tapas class and a make-your-own pasta class that’s been sold out three times in a row. Hanson says that people are drawn to technique classes where chefs can teach students the best way to do something they are intrigued by.

Hanson says the appeal of the class is also the hands-on nature. In participation classes, groups of students make their own meal, but even in the demonstration classes, students do more than just sit around. In Hatch-Surisook’s class, students hear the sizzle of his stir-fry, smell the Thai basil he passes around, and see and touch the packages of rice noodles he uses (so they know which ones to buy later).

Of course, there’s also the eating. Though prices for the classes can range from $45 to $70 a head, Hanson says, one way to think of the cooking class is “dinner out, with a little more activity” and entertainment.

Talking to a real chef also seems to be a draw. At the Thai noodle class, one student seeks advice from Hatch-Surisook for a frequent dilemma in her fridge, “Okay, one chicken breast in the refrigerator, what do you do?”

Chef Hatch-Surisook says he would go the sandwich route —  poaching the chicken (dropping it in boiling water), then adding walnuts and apples.

After the "oohs" and "aahs" have subsided and everyone’s had more than enough to eat, it’s time to go home. People vow to try the dishes at home and shake their heads in wonderment at how full they feel and how delicious the food tasted. Not a bad way to end a night.