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| Chef Edgar ready to begin cooking |
Although
Steve swears he can’t cook, he’s always happy to eat so he immediately took to classes
at My Mexican Kitchen because of their motto – Learn or Just Eat! We savored
(pun intended) our first class with Travis and Edgar, owners and chefs, in
April because of their passion for traditional food. We couldn’t wait to sign
up for more classes so this trip we booked the “Chef’s Choice” menu on Monday
night and went back for the “Tapas” menu on Friday night.
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| Concentrating on my knife skills |
Travis
and Edgar’s classes are always an exciting adventure in preparing handmade
tortillas and getting them onto the hot griddle without any wrinkles in them.
We pick up new information about all of the chilies that are available there
and how to use them. One of the things that we love about the classes is that
they’re ‘hands-on’. We help with
chopping, sautéing, hand pressing and cooking tortillas, and best of all –
eating the results of our efforts.
Our
“Chef’s Choice” menu included Enchiladas Verdes, which are authentic Mexican
enchiladas, nothing even close to the “drowning in cheese” dishes that you get
in the US. Our sauce was made with tomatillos, not tomatoes, so we had a green
salsa to cover the enchiladas and we used only enough manchego cheese to add
taste, not smother the tortillas.
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| Smell all that garlic! |
The
aroma from one of my favorite dishes, Papas Cambray Al Ajillo (Chile-Garlic
Potatoes), as the garlic was sautéing, filled the kitchen and made everyone’s
mouth water. Although we’d had an enchilada, we were ready for tasting of the
rest of the meal. We were each given a few blanched almonds to carefully pop
out of their skins. “Careful” was the word because it was easy to send them
shooting across the prep table. These were used in our Pollo Almendrado
(Chicken in Almond-Chipotle Sauce). Our evening culminated with us retiring to
an adjacent table to enjoy our creations along with some wine and good
conversation with other students.
All
day Friday we tried being careful not to eat too much before arriving at class
as we’d been warned that the tapas evening would be a constant eating festivity.
We started off with two of the staples, Guacamole and Salsa Pico De Gallo. Even
though we were warned, again, to not gorge ourselves because there was a lot
more to come, it was just too hard to resist both of these favorite flavorful
dishes.
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| Perfect - no wrinkles! |
We
moved on to making the handmade tortillas for Chalupas Poblanas (mini
tortillas). The process was the same as for the larger tortillas but it was
just making smaller versions. As usual, our challenge was to get them on the
grill without any wrinkles. We made our own salsa for these – a red one this
time, adding a chili de arbol, it’s a hot and spicy one, to make it according
to our taste. Travis and Edgar are very good to make the salsas in three
different levels of spicy; mild, medium and ultra-spicy for Edgar and me.
Enfrijoladas, our next dish, definitely is not low-calorie because of all of
the sour cream, avocado and cheese. But – YUMMM! These were followed by
Empanadas De Papa (Potato Empanadas). As if we’d not had enough of the
high-calorie goodness of the previous dishes, we made empanadas with mashed
potatoes and then fried the filled tortillas in hot oil. Again, can’t eat those
without the cream and queso fresco.
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| Frying the Empanadas |
Another
basic in Mexico is the Tostada. We made ours with handmade tortillas, brushed
with oil and fried, and our homemade refried beans. Another dish that is
definitely not low-cal. To top off our evening of gluttony, we made Pollo en
Adobo (Chicken in Adobo Sauce). We were struggling to find room to appreciate
this delicious dish. After the previous dishes, we may have cooked it to
perfection but by this time we were too full to do it justice in savoring it.
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| Tostada with toppings |
Every
single dish was exceptionally tasty and truly authentic Mexican cooking! The
only problem is that you need someone to wheel you out to your car and drive
you back to home away from home. As if eating yourself silly is really a
“problem”! The lessons are incredibly fun, the eating is phenomenal and you
leave with recipes to recreate at home so that you can relive the scrumptious
food adventure that you experience at My Mexican Kitchen (Bucerias, Mexico).
This time we’ve returned home with our own personal My Mexican Kitchen chef
aprons and a salsa dish and tortilla basket with cover, thanks to Travis and
Edgar!
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Our aprons, salsa bowl and tortilla basket from My Mexican Kitchen
More photos of Mexico and Mexican cooking can be found at
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