Cooking Class, Day 1: Flautas de Papas con Salsa Roja

The children didn't wash their hands and were closer to the stove than I liked.

That was one impression after my first day of cooking class. Another was: yum.

I finally have started taking the afternoon cooking classes that our language school offers. I say "finally" because I meant to a while ago but between cancellations of the class and wanting to have afternoons free for our onslaught of visitors, actually doing it has waited until this week.

The class is taught in the school's kitchen by a local woman and my classmates this week are three adults and the three children who go with a combination of them: one of the families is from Oregon and the other from Colorado. I liked them, but tomorrow I might suggest, "Let's all go wash our hands before we begin!"

Today we made Flautas de Papas con Salsa Roja (Potato "Taquitos" with Red Salsa). I learned about a chili and about a cheese, two things I feel pretty ignorant of here, apart from some familiar basics (there is a ton of unappealing processed cheese choices, and I know the delicious Oaxacan Quesillo, which is all I feel confident to buy, plus anaheim, poblano, jalapeno and guajillos chilies, but that's just the tip of the chili iceberg).

As the person who clearly washed her hands, I was given the task of cutting up the lettuce, tomatoes, and onions that would go on top fresh -- not a great challenge, but not so bad to be using a sharp knife again (I miss my good wedding knives!). Then, I took over frying the flautas.

Meanwhile, others toasted the dry pullo chilies one at a time over the flame, then pulled off the stem and dropped each one in the blender. The children took the peels off the tomatillos and cut each one in half. Those were then fried in a little oil and added to the blender, along with garlic "dientes" (teeth! that's how you say cloves! how cool is that?), a little water, and some salt. Blend, and voila, you have some good red salsa with a little kick.

The filling of the flautas was made from boiled potatoes, peeled then mashed with queso ranchero (like farmer's cheese back home: blocky and bland). The kids got to mash this up and spread it with spoons on the corn tortillas before one of us adults fried them up.

Spread on top some crema (I always think of it as like sour cream, but it's more like creme fraiche), the salsa, and the tomatoes, lettuce and onion so carefully sliced by me, and there you have it.

Meanwhile, because I had some ideas already, I set the menu for the rest of the week, even as I said I was not sure how many days I would be there. Tomorrow we will make chiles rellenos and sopa (soup) de chayote, something I am excited to work with. One day we'll do mole verde, and another will be chiles en nogada. I told them I probably won't be in class on Friday (my brother arrives Thursday night), so I don't remember if they chose a dish for that day or not.

I have actually never taken a cooking class before, and was not sure there was much value to it. Honestly, I mostly just choose a recipe for something I like and make it. So far, I think the advantages of today's class were the social part (it was fun talking to the other adults in class), and the experience of making something as a group which makes it appear much easier (especially when there is someone there whose job it is to do the dishes afterward, as was the case today). I also learned that tomatillos are called "tomates" here (I already knew that red tomatoes are called "jitomate"), and hope to learn more kitchen vocabulary.