Top 8 'Market-to-Mortar' Northern Thai Dishes to make at a Cooking Class for Foodies in Bangkok - Goh Ling Yong
Step into any of Bangkok’s sprawling fresh markets, and you’re hit with a sensory overload in the best possible way. The air is thick with the scent of fresh lemongrass and galangal, mountains of fiery red and green chilies stand in stark contrast to pyramids of purple shallots, and the rhythmic thump-thump-thump of a granite mortar and pestle provides a steady backbeat to the symphony of vendors' calls. It’s a chaotic, vibrant, and utterly intoxicating world that holds the secrets to Thailand’s incredible cuisine.
For many foodies visiting Bangkok, the culinary journey stops at Pad Thai, Tom Yum Goong, and Green Curry. While these dishes are undeniably delicious, they represent just one facet of a vast and diverse culinary landscape. To truly understand the soul of Thai food, you need to travel north—at least with your taste buds. Northern Thai, or Lanna, cuisine is a world away from the sweet and coconut-heavy dishes of the central plains. It’s rustic, herbaceous, and deeply savoury, with influences from neighbouring Myanmar, Laos, and China.
This is where a "Market-to-Mortar" cooking class becomes more than just a lesson; it's an immersion. It’s about connecting the raw ingredients you see in the market to the finished dish on your plate. You'll learn not just what to cook, but why certain ingredients are used, and how to build layers of flavour from scratch. Having explored these flavours extensively myself, I, Goh Ling Yong, can attest that pounding your own curry paste is a transformative experience. So, grab your apron and a sturdy pestle—here are the top 8 Northern Thai dishes you should absolutely make in a Bangkok cooking class.
1. Khao Soi Gai (Northern Thai Coconut Curry Noodles)
If there is one dish that acts as the flag-bearer for Northern Thai cuisine, it’s Khao Soi. This iconic noodle soup is a glorious contradiction in a bowl. It’s creamy yet spicy, rich yet fragrant, and features the brilliant textural play of soft-boiled egg noodles swimming in a coconut curry broth, topped with a nest of crispy fried noodles. It’s a complete, soul-satisfying meal that perfectly encapsulates the region's Burmese influences.
Making Khao Soi from scratch is a revelation. Instead of scooping paste from a jar, you’ll start with whole spices like coriander and cumin seeds, toasting them to awaken their essential oils. You’ll then pound them in a mortar with fresh turmeric, galangal, lemongrass, dried chilies, and shallots until you’ve created a fragrant, brilliantly coloured paste. This is the heart of the dish. A good class will teach you how to balance the creaminess of the coconut milk with the savory depth of the paste and the brightness of a final squeeze of lime.
- Pro Tip: The magic of a great Khao Soi lies in its accompaniments. Don't skip the side plate of pickled mustard greens, raw shallots, lime wedges, and roasted chili paste (nam prik pao). Each one adds a crucial layer of sour, sharp, or spicy flavour, allowing you to customize every single bite.
2. Sai Oua (Chiang Mai Herbal Sausage)
Forget every sausage you’ve ever known. Sai Oua is a flavour bomb that explodes with the quintessential herbs of Northern Thailand. It’s not just meat in a casing; it's a fragrant, juicy, and intensely aromatic experience. The coarse-ground pork is kneaded with a potent mixture of finely chopped lemongrass, galangal, makrut lime leaves, turmeric, and a healthy dose of red curry paste. The result is a spiral of sausage that, when grilled over charcoal, releases a perfume that will have you salivating from a block away.
This is a truly hands-on dish to learn. You’ll get to feel the texture of the meat mixture as you combine it with the herbs, learning the ideal ratio of lean pork to fat for maximum juiciness. The most exciting (and sometimes comical) part is learning to stuff the sausage into natural casings. It’s a skill that requires patience, but the reward of grilling your very own, perfectly imperfect coil of Sai Oua is immeasurable.
- Pro Tip: When you make Sai Oua, don't be shy with the herbs! It should be more "herb" than "sausage." A key ingredient that distinguishes authentic Sai Oua is makrut lime leaf, which you should slice into hair-thin slivers so its citrusy perfume infuses every part of the meat.
3. Nam Prik Ong (Pork and Tomato Chili Dip)
In the North, meals are often communal affairs centered around a basket of sticky rice and a variety of dips, known as nam prik. Nam Prik Ong is perhaps the most famous and approachable of the bunch. It’s a mild, savory, and slightly sweet dip that resembles a Thai bolognese sauce. Minced pork and ripe cherry tomatoes are simmered in a base of pounded dried chilies, shallots, and garlic, creating a rich, scoopable relish.
This dish is a fantastic introduction to the art of the mortar and pestle. You’ll learn the fundamental technique of pounding aromatics to create a flavour base. The beauty of Nam Prik Ong is its simplicity; with just a few quality ingredients, you can create something incredibly complex and satisfying. It’s traditionally served with fresh, crunchy vegetables like cucumber and long beans, as well as crispy fried pork crackling (kap moo) for dipping.
- Pro Tip: The quality of the tomatoes is key. Use sweet, ripe cherry tomatoes and crush them slightly before adding them to the pan. This helps them break down and release their juices, creating a naturally thick and flavourful sauce without needing any additional liquid.
4. Nam Prik Noom (Young Green Chili Dip)
If Nam Prik Ong is the friendly, welcoming member of the nam prik family, Nam Prik Noom is its smoky, fiery, and mysterious cousin. This vibrant green dip gets its signature flavour from its core ingredients: long green chilies (prik noom), shallots, and garlic, which are roasted or grilled directly over an open flame until their skins are blackened and blistered.
The process of making Nam Prik Noom is primal and deeply satisfying. Peeling the charred skins off the softened vegetables reveals a smoky, tender flesh that you’ll then pound—not pulverize—in a mortar. The goal isn’t a smooth paste, but a rustic, stringy texture that clings beautifully to sticky rice. It’s a masterclass in drawing out flavour through technique rather than a long list of ingredients. The taste is addictively smoky, with a creeping heat that builds with every bite.
- Pro Tip: For the most authentic smoky flavour, char your vegetables over charcoal. If you don't have a grill, a gas stovetop works well. Hold the vegetables with tongs directly in the flame. A broiler is a good third option. The char is not just for show; it's the soul of the dish.
5. Gaeng Hung Lay (Burmese-style Pork Belly Curry)
This dish is a testament to the rich history of the Lanna Kingdom and its cultural crossroads with Burma (now Myanmar). Gaeng Hung Lay is a pork curry unlike any other in Thailand. It contains no coconut milk, deriving its richness from tender, slow-braised pork belly. Its flavour profile is a complex dance of sour, sweet, and salty, perfumed with a unique blend of spices that includes tamarind, pickled garlic, and a powdered masala-like spice mix called pong hung lay.
Making Gaeng Hung Lay is a lesson in patience and flavour-building. You’ll learn to render the fat from the pork belly and sear it before braising it slowly in the fragrant sauce. The curry paste itself often includes ginger and turmeric, but the real star is the tamarind pulp, which provides a deep, fruity sourness that cuts through the richness of the pork. It’s a dish that tastes even better the next day, making it a perfect one to master.
- Pro Tip: Don’t rush the braising process. The pork belly needs at least 1.5 to 2 hours of slow simmering to become melt-in-your-mouth tender. The low and slow cooking allows the meat to fully absorb the complex flavours of the tamarind and spices.
6. Larb Kua (Stir-fried Spicy Minced Pork Salad)
Many foodies are familiar with the zesty, lime-and-herb-forward larb from the Isaan region. The Northern version, Larb Kua, is a different beast entirely. The word "kua" means to dry-fry or roast, and this extra step transforms the dish. The minced pork is stir-fried, often with offal and blood for richness (though this is optional in a class setting), until cooked through. It’s then tossed not with fresh herbs, but with a complex, pre-made dry spice mix.
This spice mix, prik larb, is the secret weapon of Northern Thai cooking. It’s a closely guarded blend that can include over a dozen dried ingredients like cumin, cloves, star anise, cinnamon, and most importantly, makhwaen (a relative of the Szechuan peppercorn) which imparts a unique, tongue-tingling numbness. Learning about this spice mix opens up a whole new dimension of Thai flavours, one that I, Goh Ling Yong, find is often overlooked by visitors.
- Pro Tip: To finish the dish like a true local, top your Larb Kua with a generous amount of crispy fried shallots, garlic, and dried chilies. This adds a crucial crunchy texture that contrasts beautifully with the tender minced pork.
7. Jin Som Mok (Grilled Sour Fermented Pork)
Venture into the world of Thai fermentation with Jin Som Mok. This is a truly fascinating dish that showcases an ancient preservation technique. Jin Som (also known as Naem) is pork that’s been minced and mixed with cooked sticky rice, salt, and garlic, then allowed to ferment for a few days. This process gives the pork a distinctive, tangy, and slightly funky flavour that is incredibly delicious.
In a cooking class, you’ll likely work with pre-fermented pork, but the real skill you’ll learn is the mok, or the art of wrapping. You’ll take a portion of the sour pork, perhaps with a whole chili or some sliced lemongrass, and wrap it tightly into a neat parcel using banana leaves. The parcel is then grilled over charcoal. The banana leaf protects the meat, steaming it gently while imparting a subtle, tea-like aroma.
- Pro Tip: The banana leaf parcel is not just for cooking; it's a natural serving vessel. When you serve Jin Som Mok, simply snip the top of the parcel open with scissors and let your guests dig in. It’s rustic, interactive, and beautifully aromatic.
8. Miang Kham (One-Bite Leaf Wraps)
While not exclusively Northern, Miang Kham is incredibly popular in the region and serves as the perfect introduction to the Thai principle of flavour balance. The name literally translates to "one-bite wrap," and it’s a delightful, DIY appetizer. The star is the fresh, peppery cha phlu leaf (wild piper leaf), which you use as a vessel for a medley of finely diced ingredients.
A typical Miang Kham platter includes tiny portions of roasted coconut, peanuts, lime with the rind on, shallots, ginger, and bird’s eye chilies. You pile a little of each onto your leaf, top it with a sweet and savory dipping sauce, and pop the whole thing into your mouth. The result is an explosion of flavours and textures—sweet, sour, salty, spicy, nutty, and fresh, all in a single, perfect bite. A class will focus on perfecting the all-important sauce, a sticky syrup made from palm sugar, fish sauce, and aromatics.
- Pro Tip: The most surprising ingredient for many is the lime with the rind still on. Don't be afraid of it! When diced very finely, the bitterness of the pith and the fragrant oils from the zest are essential for balancing the sweetness of the sauce and the richness of the coconut.
The journey from a bustling Bangkok market to a finished Northern Thai feast is about so much more than following a recipe. It’s about engaging all your senses, from smelling the freshness of galangal to feeling the texture of a hand-pounded paste. It's about understanding that the soul of Thai cuisine doesn't come from a bottle or a can, but from the earth, the herbs, and the hands that prepare them.
Learning to cook these eight dishes will not only equip you with incredible new skills but will also give you a profound appreciation for the regional diversity and culinary genius of Thailand. You'll leave with more than just a full stomach; you'll leave with stories, techniques, and the confidence to recreate a true taste of Northern Thailand in your own kitchen.
Ready to get your hands dirty and pound your own curry paste? Book a "Market-to-Mortar" cooking class in Bangkok and discover the true, rustic heart of Thai food for yourself
About the Author
Goh Ling Yong is a content creator and digital strategist sharing insights across various topics. Connect and follow for more content:
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