The Culinary Institute of America

The glorious city of Bangkok welcomes visitors to Thailand with sights, sounds and smells unique to this energetic metropolis. King Rama I made Bangkok his capital in the 18th century and commissioned the Grand Palace, a landmark compound of royal residences and sacred temples with shimmering spires. But for a food lover, the first stop must be the Aw Taw Kaw market, one of the most exciting food markets in the world. Serious cooks shop here for their tropical fruits and the finest seafood, while serious eaters come for dumplings and fiery curries. Our guide to the Thai kitchen is chef Khun McDang, a Culinary Institute of America graduate and now host—with his father—of the most popular television food show in Thailand. During a visit to the Culinary Institute campus in Napa Valley, chef McDang prepared several Thai specialties, offering us a rare chance to learn from an expert.

Kerala is known for its seafood, which the local cooks often simmer in coconut milk with locally grown herbs and spices. Here, chef Abhijit Saha, prepares a quick Kerala specialty: shrimp cooked in coconut milk with curry leaves.

Shredded green mango salad is sour, salty, sweet and hot—a refreshing condiment for fried fish or grilled shrimp. Chef McDang shows us how it’s done:

In the southern highlands of Mexico lies the vibrant state of Oaxaca, home to some of the country’s best-preserved regional cooking. The Oaxacan kitchen owes much to its Zapotec Indian roots. Even today, many dishes reflect the merging of indigenous ingredients and methods with colonial Spanish ideas.  In the capital city—Oaxaca—the sprawling Abastos market could keep a visitor busy for days.  There, you will find the native Zapotec women selling their handmade rugs and woven baskets alongside food stalls packed to the rafters with dried beans, fresh pork and all the other essentials of Oaxacan cuisine

Chef and Mexican food authority Rick Bayless knows the market’s highlights—where to find the best clay cookware, how to use the produce merchants’ wild greens, and how to choose the proper chilies for each mole. Oaxaca, after all, is the Land of the Seven Moles, so named for the various types that Oaxaca claims its own, from the red mole colored with ancho chilies, to the green mole tinted with pumpkinseed, to the inky-dark mole negro, or black mole, with its exotic flavor base of toasted chilies, seeds and nuts.

Every chef likes to put his or her stamp on a dish, but it’s important to master the basics first, says Rick Bayless.  And, we'll hear from Chefs Robert Del Grande and Roberto Santibañez who say proper roasting techniques are essential to achieving authentic Mexican flavor.

Silvio Campos is a master of Yucatecan pit cooking, the former personal cook for the governor of the state of Yucatán, a caterer, and a market food vendor.   Here, Chef Campos prepares Yucatecan ribs with a spicy salsa.

To fine-tune your paella technique, watch how two Spanish paella masters, Jaume Brichs and Evaristo Triano, make paella. They’re with American chef Steve Jilleba in the Aqua restaurant in Barcelona.

What’s the best-selling dish in America’s Thai restaurants? It would have to be pad Thai, the spicy stir-fried noodles that absolutely no one can resist.  Chef McDang shows us how they’re made...

In many ways, Spain’s home cooking and its modern cooking are closer than we think, say Jose Andres, chef-owner of seven restaurants in the Washington, DC, area and a protégé of Ferran Adria.   We’ll also hear from from Basque food authority Maria Jose Sevilla and Catalan chef Daniel Olivella, who makes impeccable paella at his San Francisco restaurant B44.