Brass Wok--Steamed Fish and Squid with Chile Lime Sauce

How could something so delicious be so simple?

It took just minutes to prepare and was perhaps the best fish dish I ever tasted. Move over Salmon with Orange Thyme Pesto! And as always, Chef Pui had a little secret ingredient up her sleeve--pickled garlic juice. Who knew?

One of the squid was filled with eggs. That was a good thing, said Chef Pui, a bonus. The eggs were creamy and molten after cooking, lending a little pop in the mouth. None of us will ever be the same.

Brass Wok--Tom Yum Time

We each stood at our own soup pot and concocted a dish to our preference. I threw the Chef a curve ball requesting a sudden switch to chicken as I'd had a recent encounter with a prawn that did not like me. She gracefully provided chicken and cream for my soup and it morphed from Tom Yum Gung to Tom Kha Gai. All were delicious after her masterful adjustment with the secret ingredient--a can of sweetened chili paste. Yum indeed!

My own chicken version was equally delicious--Tom Kha Gai.

Brass Wok--Ingredients

Chef Pui described the "trinity of Thai cooking" as lemongrass, galangal, and Kaffir lime but that doesn't include the base of garlic and shallot. I see it more as a Boddhisatva with multiple arms that include chilies, cilantro, and turmeric along with sugar, salt, fish sauce, and coconut milk. A trinity times 3 perhaps...

Yes, there are a lot of them. And they repeat in every dish, in various states of mashed or chopped, roots or stems or leaves, peel or juice, different applications in each recipe. How to keep it all straight? Have Chef Pui by your side, adjusting and sampling, adding a spoonful of this or that for more umami, more flavor.

We had whole leaves and stems in our soup and chopped bits for the curry paste. The fish bed of herbs was prepared for the steamer, an aromatic cradle. We moved to our hot station to each prepare our own version of Tom Yum Soup. Rose pounded the lemongrass to smithereens!

Brass Wok--Sticky Rice, BLUE

Mango with Sticky Rice is the go-to dessert in Thailand and when you have it properly made you understand why. Chef Pui kicked our presentation up quite a notch when she showed us how to make the rice blue with color from pea flowers, a common ornamental. Glutinous rice, presoaked overnight, drained, cooked in the straw "hat" over simmering water in the special round pot with a tight lid, cooked precisely the right amount...that's all. We watched as Chef Pui led us through the prep of this extraordinary dessert.

Brass Wok--Green Curry Prep

Chef Pui's class included some geographical/sociopolitical/cultural notes about curry evolution and regional cuisine. So much info! And so much work to do for the curry. Using the ingredients from her front centerpiece, we learned what goes into those little cans of green curry paste so common in Asian markets in the US. And like all pro culinary instructors everywhere, she started with stock, showing us the chicken carcass that she had simmered to provide the basis for our subsequent Tom Yum soup.

Black pepper, cumin seeds and coriander seeds are toasted to release aromas that define the curry paste

Brass Wok Cooking Studio Class--Thursday, 12/12

I had searched Yelp and Trip Adviser for best Thai cooking classes in Phuket and the number one recommendation was for Brass Wok run by Chef Pui. As it turns out, Chef Pui is a good friend of Som's and her daughter Gracie is a friend of Eileen's from Shining Star school. Celia, Donna, Rose and I signed up for a 3 hour class and started learning just as soon as we entered that chill space. Within minutes we all agreed the class was worth the $100 per person that we paid. And how happy we were to support one of the female entrepreneurs of Thailand!