Green Curry & Confetti Rice: Southern Thai Food with Nok Suntaranon

It’s time to take your appreciation of Thai cooking far beyond Pad Thai with the guidance of guest chef Nok Suntaranon.
About this Event

NOTE: iphone and ipad users,to register for class.

What’s on the Menu:

Homemade Green Curry Paste

Green Curry with Prawns

“Confetti” Rice

Fish Sauce and Chili Condiment
Southern Thai food is many things: it’s spicy and sweet, bright and complex, plus intensely colorful. Join guest teacher Nok Suntaranon, author of the book “Kalaya’s Southern Thai Kitchen,” for a class where you’ll learn to make a meal that checks all of those boxes. You’ll start by making a homemade batch of Thai-style green curry that Nok grew up making alongside her mother with a mortar and pestle. Nowadays, Nok uses a food processor to simplify the labor-intensive task. Once you see it come together in five minutes flat, you’ll have no reason to buy watered-down, bland green curry paste again. We’ll use ours as the flavorful base for a big pot of curry that balances the herbal and spicy flavors of the paste with the savoriness of fish sauce. While you can cook nearly any protein in this flavor-packed base, we’ll choose sweet, plump prawns this time. Nok will also teach you how to overcome dreaded oxidation—the culprit behind murky, brownish curries—and keep your curry brilliantly green in both color and flavor. To accompany your curry, you’ll learn how to use one of Nok’s favorite spices to turn a pot of rice deeply blue and whip up a batch of a garlicky, spicy and tart sauce called prik na plan—but which Nok simply refers to as the “everything sauce” because of its incredible versatility.
About Nok: Chutatip “Nok” Suntaranon is a James Beard Foundation Award-winning chef, restaurateur and author of Kalaya’s Southern Thai Kitchen, debuting November 5, 2024. The book has been featured in prestigious annual lists, including The New York Times Best of 2024 Cookbooks and Bon Appétit's Best Cookbooks of 2024. A career flight attendant from Trang, Thailand, Nok embarked on her second act at age 50 by opening Kalaya, one of the country’s highest-regarded Thai restaurants, named after Nok’s mother, who ran a successful curry paste stall in her local food market, Talat Yan Ta Khao. Kalaya was named one of Esquire's and Food & Wine’s “Best New Restaurants” and was a James Beard Foundation Award nominee for “Best New Restaurant” in 2020. Alongside food, Nok’s lifelong passion is fashion. She has been featured in New York Magazine and Philadelphia Style Magazine.

Thank you to the 2025 Annual Sponsors of the Cooking School, who make our livestream events possible:

Work Sharp, which makes sharpening products that are fast, easy to use and work every time. Find their products on the Milk Street Store and use code SHARPSMART for 10% off: t.ly/gZgyU

Wulf’s Fish and Savenor’s Market. Together, Wulf’s Fish and Savenor’s Market provide premium seafood and gourmet meat to chefs and home cooks across the country. Use code MILKSTREET for 20% off orders from Wulf’s (https://wulfsfish.com/) and Savenor’s (https://savenorsbutchery.com/).
Want to give this class as a gift? You can purchase gift cards here.
If you have any questions about this class, please don't hesitate to get in touch via [email protected].

This event has limited spots and you must register in advance via Eventbrite in order to attend. One sign-up covers one device. Payments for Milk Street livestream events are non-refundable. If you find yourself unable to attend, you may transfer the ticket to someone else, but we are unable to refund fees and all payments are final.

Closed Captioning is available for all Milk Street virtual events.

Immediately after registering, you will get a confirmation email that contains the Zoom meeting log-in information. One week prior to the class (or within 48 hours, if you register less than one week in advance), you will receive instructions on how to prepare ingredients and equipment in order to cook along, if you choose.

After class, you will receive a recording of the event, as links to any additional recipes and resources that may come up. NOTE:The recording link is only available online for one month following each event. If you’d like to have access to the recording for longer than that, you'll need to save the recording locally by clicking on “download” on the top right corner of the recording page.

Proceeds from livestream cooking classes and workshops support Milk Street's non-profit work with The Big Sisters Association of Great Boston, The Boys & Girls Club of Dorchester, FoodCorps and other partners.

Bonus: All attendees of this class will receive a one-time 20% off coupon to the after class.