Hello. Welcome to my second In-Depth post of 2022.  

A lot has happened in the last three weeks. First of all, I got a mentor. When I wrote my last blog post, I had just sent an email to a skilled Thai chef on Vancouver Island. The next day I found a reply from them in my inbox. I was excited because she was the first person to respond to my request. She wanted to talk over the phone. I was unable to because she had not completed the school’s paperwork. So, I emailed her back. I linked the files she had to complete and gave instructions about how to complete them. Unfortunately, she told me she didn’t want to complete the paperwork. This was both frustrating and disappointing because she was the only person to reply to my emails. I had hoped she would be able to mentor me, but she couldn’t. This left me frustrated and lacking a mentor. 

 I did not know what to do, so I asked my peers for advice. They recommended asking the school’s culinary teachers for advice. So, one day after school I popped into the cafeteria and met with one of the chefs. I explained my situation and told him I was looking for a mentor. I asked if he knew any Thai chefs that could mentor me. He told me that he knew Thai cooking and was willing to mentor me. This surprised me and left me ecstatic because I wasn’t expecting him to mentor me. I am very fortunate because he is a highly skilled chef and a teacher. That means he is familiar with teaching students to cook. This is useful because he has experience working with students, which means he is a great fit to mentor me.  

I had my first meeting two weeks ago on February the seventh. I wanted to discuss the dish I had made on the weekend prior and my plans for the next week. The planned to challenge myself by recreating the dish with a more complex recipe, but I wanted to consult my mentor before I did. I brought a recipe with me, and we went through it together discussing different skills and ingredients. He recommended using extra firm tofu for a more pleasant texture. He also told me how to find specialty ingredients like tamarind paste. By the end of the meeting, we had discussed the entire recipe and my mentor had given me some palm sugar from the kitchen. 

The first lesson I learned from the meeting is to add the egg to Pad Thai after adding all the other ingredients. This allows the flavours to mix and combine with the egg. The second lesson I learned is to be flexible when mentoring someone. My mentor allowed me to ask questions through the entire meeting and he was always willing to answer them. Something else I learned is to be kind and accepting when acting as a mentor. My mentor is kind and willing to help, which makes learning easier. When I mentor others, I can make learning easier by accepting them and doing my best to support my mentee. 

At the start of February, I learned some basic food safety practices. The first one I learned is to constantly wash your hands when working with food, which is obvious. The second is to use fresh and safe ingredients. That means using ingredients that are clean and fresh. To do this, I will buy fruits and vegetables fresh from the store and wash them before cooking or eating them. Any leftovers will be put in the fridge, which will keep them fresh. The third lesson I learned has to do with handling meat products. Meat can carry harmful bacteria that only die when the meat is fully cooked. When dealing with raw meat, especially chicken, it is a good idea to use separate cooking utensils for the meat. Using separate utensils like knives and cutting boards helps to control the cross contamination between raw meat and other ingredients. To tell if meat is fully cooked, look at the colour. If the colour is pink or reddish-grey, then it is raw. If it is a darker color like red or brown, the meat is cooked, however you can always use a thermometer to tell whether the meat is cooked. 

The first dish I made is called Pad Thai. I made it on the Sunday the sixth. I was not confident in my abilities and wanted to practice, so I used a Pad Thai sauce from the store. It simplified the recipe and made cooking a lot simpler. The downside to using store bought sauce is it has preservatives and is not fresh. The result tasted good, but it was bland and sort of syrupy. I wasn’t satisfied with the outcome, so I decided to make Pad Thai again the next weekend, however this time I wanted to challenge myself by making the sauce myself.  

The first step was to get ingredients so (as my mentor suggested) I went to TnT. I liked shopping at TnT because there is a great selection, and everything is fresh. I was a little nervous when making the sauce because I had to quadruple the recipe I was using. But once I finished the sauce, I knew what to do from the week before. I put oil in the wok and fired up the oven. I added the tofu, gralic, and shalots and gave them some time to cook. After, I added the vegetables, the meat, and the spicy peppers. Once they were cooked, I added the noodles then my home-made sauce. After I added my sauce, I noticed that my wok was almost completely full of sauce, but the video I was following had none in it. This made me extremely nervous because I had worked hard to make the sauce and I didn’t want it to go to waste. To solve the problem, I just let the sauce boil off and absorb into the noodles. Once most of the sauce had been absorbed/boiled off I added the egg and bean sprouts. 

The result was a delicious and authentic Pad Thai. The sauce I made tasted a lot better than the sauce from the store. I also added the perfect amount of spice. I didn’t burn when I ate it, but if you ate too much too fast a lot of heat built up in your mouth. The Pad Thai was great, and I am proud of it. However, there are a few aspects I can improve for next time. The first is the noodles. They were a bit stiff and should have been cooked for a little longer. The second mistake I made was mixing the bean sprouts into the noodles. They became soggy and didn’t add any opposing texture to the dish. The final problem is I didn’t make enough. Between my family and I, we ate it all and I couldn’t bring it for lunch the next day! 

The recipe I use can be found at https://hot-thai-kitchen.com/ 

After eating the Pad Thai, I discussed the project with my family. They told me I “need to keep practicing”. Pretty much they just want me to keep cooking for them, so I guess I am doing something right. My family told me to learn to make red curry. Probably because they want to eat it. So, I guess, the next dish I will learn how to make is red curry. 

Some questions I have are how to plan/ alter meals for those with dietary restrictions. How do I make red curry? And how do I make food spicy, without making it too spicy? 

My goal for the next few weeks is to meet with my mentor again and make some red curry.  

I would also like to continue researching Thai culture and customs and continue to work on my cooking skills so I can start cooking independently.