Thai celebrity chef visits Reading College and University Centre to teach students Thai cuisine

Professional Culinary Arts students welcomed a chef from Thailand to Reading College and University Centre on Wednesday 10 December.

Chef Jareuk Sriaroon, also known as Chef Jay, taught the Professional Culinary Arts Level 2 and Level 3 students how to prepare three Thai dishes during a masterclass at the college on King’s Road.

Chef Jareuk Sriaroon lectures at The School of Culinary Arts and is Deputy Manager of Suan Dusit International Culinary Training Centre, part of Suan Dusit University in Bangkok. He took part in Iron Chef Thailand in 2023, which is similar to Celebrity MasterChef. He has also been on lots of Thai television.

He has previously managed award-winning chef teams who have taken part in many overseas events, including the Penang International Halal Chefs Challenge 2018 (5th Edition), the Philippine Culinary Cup 2019, the Makro Horeca Challenge 2019 and the Wandee International Culinary Competition.

Suan Dusit University is the top hospitality university in Thailand, which has a long-standing relationship with Activate Learning. Professional Cookery students from Activate Learning have been visiting the Suan Dusit International Culinary Training Centre, every year since 2015 (apart from during the pandemic).

Students learnt to prepare Thai Stir-fried Noodle with Prawns (Pad-Thai), Chicken in Galangal Infused Soup (Tom Kha Kai) and Spicy Minced Pork Salad (Larb Moo) with Fresh Vegetables during the masterclass.

During the masterclass, Chef Jay demonstrated each step of each dish which the students would then follow as they prepared the dishes. The students could also try each dish before preparing it.

Chef Jay gave individual feedback on each of the students’ dishes.

Jessica Hopley, 18, from Arborfield, is studying a Professional Culinary Arts Level 2 Certificate at Reading College and University Centre.

She said:

“It’s been an eye-opening experience. I’ve been shown food from a different country I’ve never experienced food from, and it was lovely.

“It’s helped me learn loads. It’s taught me how to season my food without just using salt and pepper. If I’m using an Asian food, I can use fish sauce rather than salt.

“It’s helped also assisted me for ideas in the future. If I had to make a menu like this, I could go back to the days I made this and using the recipes we’ve used today and make meals out of them and tweak them to the way I’d like.

“It was wonderful to receive individual feedback because I wasn’t expecting him to come around and try every single student’s food.

“When he came around and tried mine and he told me he loved every single dish I made; I was like really surprised.”

Chef Jareuk Sriaroon, Lecturer at The School of Culinary Arts and Deputy Manager of Suan Dusit International Culinary Training Centre, part of Suan Dusit University, said:

“I’ve thoroughly enjoyed my time at Reading College and University Centre. The students were keen, enthusiastic and produced some great flavours.

“This masterclass will help to distinguish the students against others when they go for jobs or back into their existing culinary work as they’ll be able to cook authentic Thai food.

“It was an honour to be here. Thank you for having us.”

Katie McNelly, Chef Lecturer at Activate Learning, said:

“Thank you to Chef Jay for leading an inspiring workshop. It’s been an amazing opportunity to have someone with such good experience in Thai cookery to come and give our students an insight into the cuisine.

“The students have got a lot out of the masterclass. I’ve been pleasantly impressed with the flavours that you can get from Thai cookery using basic ingredients.

“It’ll open their eyes to ingredients and produce that you can source in Thailand like Galangal. Hopefully we can recreate something similar in the future using the skills that Chef Jay has taught us.”