Cooking Class

Cooking Class in Penang

smoking banana leaf
Kim-Manta Khaira
with her banana leaf

Cooking class in Penang at the Tropical Spice Garden is a bit different from what you would expect from other demonstrations you have seen either on television or in the magazine.

Here, we try to go back to the basics by explaining the origins of spices, their significance in Malaysian cuisine and using the old methods as practiced by our ancestors.

students at cooking class
Samille (right), Margaret, Oliver and Kat checking out the kerisik.

One of our first students was Samille Mitchell, a freelance journalist from Perth, she was brought in by Margaret Jasper, who is a travel agent attached to Tourism Malaysia. Later the experience was published in a West Australia newspaper:

A self-taught cook, the
delightful Nazlina Hussin provides
the cooking classes, allowing you
to experience cooking in
traditional Malay style.

There are no canned or packet ingredients here — you even straddle a traditional coconut scraper to extract the flesh of the coconut and squeeze it by hand to make coconut milk.

Nazlina guides you through the
process of making a seriously tasty menu of seafood curry, stir-fried flat rice noodles with prawns and a dessert called bubur cha-cha.

Then comes the best part —
sitting down to sample the
culinary offerings.

According to Margaret, Samille confided to her that out of the three days of packed tours of Penang that they did, the cooking class and the guided tour at the Spice Garden was the most memorable experience she had.

You may see the full article here.

Later Kim-Manta Khaira of Kuala Lumpur wrote: "Can't say much, but thank you very much! I learned lot and it has been a great experience during the holidays especially. Thank you and thank you again!"

Jordan Francis of New York came with his friend and both of them had fun cooking with us.
He quipped: "We will be back!"

Penang Cooking Class on Facebook

Sajni Bulchand even though being a local lady from Penang still enthused about the class that she would recommend it to all mothers to bring their teenaged girls to learn cooking with us!

Stephen Treloar from Sydney sent us an email: "Thank you for sending through the recipes. We tried cooking the curry last weekend and it was great. We managed to talk our guest into grinding the kerisik paste so it was even easier than usual. I just thought I would write to say how much Kristin & I enjoyed your class. It was just what we were looking for - cooking great local food from scratch and learning from a wonderful teacher. We will happily recommend it to any of our friends and we'll come back if we're back in Penang one day."

Ali Henderson and her friend Lisa came to cook with us in September and then within a week recommended the class to their friends: Sally and Rod. Later, they told us "When we are back in Adelaide, we will have a neighborly cooking competition!"

Click here to add in your cooking class experience.

lunch after cooking
Our students enjoying
the fruit of their hard work (September '09 menu).

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fresh ingredients chicken curry with kaffir lime leaves

stir-fry dry curry

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