THE best way to unveil the magic behind a country's cuisine is to head straight to the kitchen.

During my recent trip to Chiangmai - one of Thailand's culinary cities - I did just that. For 2,500 baht (S$100), I took up the challenge to recreate quintessential Chiangmai specialties such as khao soy gai (chicken curry noodle soup), and nam prik ong (chopped pork with tomatoes and chilli paste with fresh vegetables), right from the kitchen of the Chiangmai Thai Cookery School.

Cooking up a storm

Established in 1993, the cooking school is a family-run business located next to owner instructor Somphon Nabnian's home. A spacious, airy and well-equipped kitchen with individual workstations means that every student gets hands-on experience.

Here, you start from scratch - that means prepping or setting the mise-en-place for all the dishes. For my particular class, this involves pounding with a pestle and mortar, five different types of aromatic pastes that form the basis of each dish.

Lest you dismiss this as child's play, pounding ingredients into a smooth, fine paste is hard work. Pound too fast and you will tire easily; too forceful, and ingredients will go flying out of the mortar. Under the watchful eye of chef Somphon, who came round to show us the right technique, we were soon diligently pounding our way through the different pastes.

The pastes are then fried separately in oil till wildly aromatic, and different ingredients added. As chef Somphon explained concisely, Thai food is all about the balance of flavours - fish sauce, palm sugar, lime juice and chillies are most frequently used for seasoning.

After toiling over the stove for three-and-a-half hours, we plated our dishes and brought them out to the verenda where we sat, ate and marvelled at our scrumptious fruits of labour. Naturally, each bite seemed like the best we had ever had.

A lesson on Thai food

Generally, in northern Thailand, simple and mild flavours dominate. A large amount of pork is used, evident in dishes like sai ua (Thai sausage) and curries. Even pork skin is fried to a crisp and eaten as a snack. Pork fat or lard is also commonly used in cooking.

Due to its close proximity to Laos and Myanmar, sticky rice rather than steamed jasmine rice is preferred, and the locals usually roll the rice into little balls before dipping them into various dishes.

The main take-home point at the end of my trip was that the ingredient that maketh a good Thai cook is patience, patience and more patience. How else would one be able to cope with the preparation of the numerous ingredients and the measured, and sometimes laborious cooking style?

In case you are wondering - the dishes I learnt in Chiangmai have since become part of my cooking repertoire, and I am eagerly looking forward to my next culinary lesson.

For more information on the Chiangmai Thai Cooking School, visit www.thaicookeryschool.com

Loh Hsian Ming is a food and beverage public relations consultant from Sixth Sense Communications & PR Consultancy. Photos: Loh Hsian Ming

Note: This article was part of the Natas Travel 2006 Special published in The Straits Times on March 23, 2006. As a reference to the project's main lead, 'Travel is a numbers game', it's original headline in print was: '2,500 baht is what it costs to learn Thai cooking in Chiangmai'.