The Adventures of Kerri & Matt

This salad is mostly chicken and mint leaves.

Ingredients:

• 200g minced chicken, boiled.
• 2 shallots, thinly sliced.
• 2 spring onions, cut into 1/2cm wide pieces.
• 2 saw-tooth coriander, cut into 1/2cm wide pieces.
• 8 mint leaves.

Dressing:

• 1/2 tsp chili powder
• 1/2 tsp sugar
• 1 tbsp fish sauce
• 1 tbsp lime juice.

First you take the stems off of the mint leaves.

Then you put the dressing ingredients in a pot with the chicken and heat it.

Then it looks like this. Which is basically what it looked like before. But warmer.

Then you dump it onto a plate and make it all pretty.

Then EAT IT ALL!

Cashew chicken is a similarly easy meal to make. Have your kitchen gnomes assemble:

• 50g chicken breast/thigh, cut into bite size pieces.
• 1-2 cloves garlic, finely chopped.
• 1 large, dried red chili, diced. (Then, while the instructor isn’t looking, carefully remove those chilies and all traces of seeds from your plate.)
• 1/4 onion, halved.
• 2 ears baby corn, sliced into 1/2cm wide pieces. (They actually had fresh baby corn. I kind of thought it just grew in cans, and the jolly green giant just came along and picked the cans off of the vines….)
• 1 spring onion, cut into one inch lengths.
• 1/4 carrot, sliced into 1/2 cm wide pieces.
• 2 tbsp roasted cashew nuts.
• 2 tbsp cooking oil.
• 1 tsp sugar.
• 1 tsp fish sauce.
• 1 tsp soy sauce.
• 1 tbsp oyster sauce.
• 1/2 tsp ground pepper.

Get the gnomes to arrange everything like this, with the sauces pre mixed and everything nicely piled.

Then heat the oil over medium heat.

Cook the garlic pile. (Be careful – if you weren’t quick enough this pile may still have traces of chilli in it.)

Add chicken and stir until cooked.

Add the veggie pile and the sauce bowl and stir until veggies are cooked.

Add the green onion and nut bowl and stir, then remove from heat.

Pour next to the rice the gnomes made and eat.

First you smash the chillies with the side of your knife.

Then you pull some leaves off of the hot basil. Hot basil is like basil but hot.

Then you get your behind the scenes kitchen elves to assemble:

• 50g chicken breast/thigh, cut into bite-size pieces
• 1-2 cloves of garlic, finely chopped.
• 3-5 chilies, crushed.
• 1/4 onion, halved.
• 1 long bean, cut into 1 inch lengths.
• 2 tbsp hot basil leaves.
• 4 diagonal slices red chili.
• 2 tbsp cooking oil
• 1 tsp sugar
• 1 tsp fish sauce
• 1 tsp soy sauce
• 1 tbsp oyster sauce
• 1/2 tsp ground pepper.

Also get them to mix the sauces and sugar in the little bowl to dissolve the sugar. And arrange everything in nice piles like this so that they are easy to add.

Then you heat the oil over medium heat, add the garlic and chilli pile and stir fry until fragrant.

Add chicken and stir until chicken is cooked.

Add the onion and  bean pile and the sauce bowl. Stir until veggies are cooked.

Add the remaining chilli and basil pile, stir quickly and then remove from heat.

Then pour it onto the rice that your elves made for you and eat.

We went for a stroll through the garden before cooking class.

They grow all the herbs and vegetables we needed to cook.

The scarecrows were very Thai.

They even rode bikes.