Cooking with Rungsan Mulija

Menu for the day was as follows:

Massaman Kai - Chicken curry
Pu Ja - Deep fried stuffed crab shell
Phad Kee Maow Talay - Stir fried Seafood with Thai chilli paste
Kluy Buad Chee - Boiled banana with coconut cream

We were 5 in today’s class -a business-leisure traveler, a professional chef, 2 amateur chefs (including myself) and a market vendor’s teenage son the business traveller had befriended on his trip to market in the morning.

At the start of the class, we were presented with a folder full of recipes, ingredients list, note papers, a pencil and an exclusive Blue Elephant embroidered apron.

Chef Rungsan Mulijan (Chang) started the class with a description of all ingredients for Massaman Kai. Apparently, this dish should be cooked a day earlier and braised in the gravy for the full flavor to develop. Since we were on a fast track mode, we settled for an hour of braising. After describing all ingredients one by one in detail, Chef proceeded to prepare the dish. Wonderful aromas started filling the class room.

The classroom had 3 rows of student's chairs, a chef's station and a huge mirror hung from the ceiling over the chef's station. the mirror was hung in a slanted manner and we all could literally see inside the cooking pan. I loved watching the chef deftly chop herbs and pound away at the Massaman paste.

Soon, Massaman Kai was done. Now the Chef invited all of us to taste the curry. This was truly wonderful. The flavors had mixed in so well, and nothing was standing out strongly. Chef Chang was an expert in Royal Thai Cuisine! No wonder he is the Corporate Chef at Blue Elephant!!!

After the tasting session, we were ushered into their kitchen. All of us donned our brand new aprons. There were individual cooking stations to each student. All ingredients were washed, cut and placed in a tray for us to start working on.

I started working on my very first Massaman Kai. I pounded all herbs together to make fine Massaman paste, and fried it in the wok for a minute. Since I had taken notes during the session, I remembered all the chef's moves and mimicked it excellently. My Massaman Kai was ready in a jiffy. I transferred it into a blue casserole and put a sticker with "5" printed on it.

I wondered aloud about this sticker. I was told that this is to identify the stuff i make in this class so that they can serve it to me later for lunch...I made a note to myself that today's lunch is as good as I cook. I decided to study well today :) . We proceeded likewise on all three items on the menu.

After the class, we were presented with our certificates and a gift hamper.We were looking forward to our lunch now!

Look at my Massaman Kai!!!