This week was all about thai-food. Real thai-food. Taught by a guy who learned from a genius dad and is learning and making it himself now good. Really, really good. Even though I have to admit that I'm not a big fan of some of the flavours and scents but the techniques were really great.

The way they start currys and soups is to take aromas, we had galanga (or thai-ginger), lime-leaves and lemon-grass, cut it in pieces and first boil it a while to bring out the flavours. Then the curry-powder and/ or coc-milk is added, and only at the end chicken to keep the freshness of it. Right when the chicken or shrimp is cooked through you add some fresh diced tomates and cilantro (?) to it to, again, provide the freshest soup possible. I love this concept or technique, this is really different then how i'd start a soup which would be with a rouge or sauteed onions and such. This opened my eyes to a totally new world of how soups and sauces could be made. What if you'd start a tomato-sauce like that. Boiling some thyme and other hard herbs in the beginning, adding pureed tomatos and finish with some fresh tomatos and mint at the end? I got to try this...

What I'd like most was of course what I was used to the most. Now I don't have my notes here at the moment, atherwise I could brag with some fancy thai-names but it basically was chicken, marinated in a thai-curry-marinate and another marinate with fish-sauce, oystersauce and such. Simply grilled, served with a spicy chilli-dip and some rice.

Talking about fish-sauce. Thai kitchen barelly uses salt, they use fish-sauce insted. Makes me thinking what I could do with fish-sauce. I have to forgett how that is made and just use it more. Same with seafood. Yes, I ate the shrimps, but I just don't like it that much. I don't know, I'm just not a seafood guy. I start to become a fish-guy I think. Bought some salmon today that I will probably cook this weekend. Not shure what sides I do but we'll see.

How could I forget! How am I able to start with anything else but this! We finally got our knive-sets, yeah! 7 wüsthoff-knives (+sharpening-steel), made like 2 hours away from where I come from in germany! German steel, yeah! They are AMAZING! You barely have to apply pressure anymore. You just have to let them slide back and forth and let them do they'r thang! Here's a picture:

Just to brag some more about it here's the description from top to bottom:

• 9inch cook's-knife (knapp 23cm Kochmesser)
• Sharpening steel (Wetzstahl)
• Boning-knife (Ausbeinmesser)
• Big fish-slide (not part of the set, I had that before)
• Santoku-knife (check this out! If you think about getting a chef's-knife I'd strongly consider to get either a normal cooks-knife or a santoku. Many things are easier to cut with a santoku)
• 6inch utility-knife (which is funny because in german it's a Schinkenmesser; so a ham-knife...)
• 3 1/2 inch pairing-knife (Spickmesser)
• small fish-slice (also not part of the set)
• super-slicer (...which is amazing. This knife is not just sharp like nothing else, cutting-edge is made in a way it sligthly pushes away what you cut making it possible to cut even thinner slices and more accurate. Not shure if my explanation makes sence, I show you guys when I'm back in germany)
• and my good old knife that serves me well since more then a year.

There are some more pockets on the other sice where I have some pens, peeler, timer, my super cool garlic-peeler and some other gadgets.

But where was I? Right, thai-food... Here are some more pictures:

So this was this week. The next two weeks will be baking, like bread, cakes, fillings, etc. I'm realy excited about that since that's something I have to do if I want to get good bread in ethiopia. Plus I like baking, see below.

That's it! Thanks for stopping by!

Hey, what about leaving a comment? Please take those 5 seconds and tell me what you think!

Greetings,

Chef Paul

PS: Sidenote: Always use a thermometer when using the ovens in the kitchen. I made brownies for a somali-prayertime and was surprised why they turned black so quickly. I had the oven on 350°F/175°C but it actually was 470°F/245°C. Lesson learned.