In the January issue of M! (the food issue) there was an ad for a cooking class put on by the owner of Angelina’s restaurant. Cost $30 USD or 600 pesos of which part is donated to charity. I decided to give it a try.
It is Wednesday Feb. 8th just before 10am and I am hurrying down Constitucion street to Angelina’s house. It was just my luck today that the green bus was super pokey and it took forever to get downtown.
I signed up, paid my money and put on a name tag and joined the group. The class was already getting started and there were 10 of us today. I thought that this might be a hands on course but instead it is a demonstration by Angelina and her employee Carlos.
That’s Frank on the left and a lady from Thunder Bay, Ont. on the right right.
I did notice Angelina’s shelf of cookbooks. She did say that she had to bring the cookbooks home from the restaurant as the termites were getting into them….apparently they eat everything here.
First order of business was the dessert which needed to be cooled so it would be ready for lunch. A mixture of cream cheese, media crema and evaporated milk with lime was poured over layers of “Maria’s biscuits…arrowroot type” and canned peaches.
Desert is finished and ready for the fridge where it will firm up. I thought it probably should have gone into the freezer and in the end I was right as it was soupy (but still very good.) Angelina remarked that she should have put it in the freezer!
We are discussing the very large shrimp that will be in the shrimp pate appetizer. She said she uses a toothpick to extract the dark vein that runs along the back of of the shrimp and then doesn’t have to cut them. In this case it wouldn’t have mattered as they were chopped in the blender anyway. It wasn’t clear whether she poached them with the shell on or off.
This is Angelina’s daughter who was helping out and who also works in the restaurant. If you look at my post of the restaurant you will see her lifting her long dress so I could take a picture of her running shoes. Very bi-lingual and sweet gal!
So…at this point Carlos has combined light cream cheese, mayonaise, sour cream, chopped shrimp, a small can of red bell peppers, sauted garlic with an arbol chili, a little salt, pepper, lime juice and paprika and is now blending it together. Very good.
Tostadas and shrimp pate.
Now for the Mexican rice. The recipe called for red Mexican rice but as we were having chicken mole Angelina decided the non tomato recipe would fit better. Here Carlos is toasting the rice (long grain Valle Verde brand) in olive oil and butter for flavor with garlic, onions and fresh diced carrots. As in an Italian rice pilaf the rice is always toasted until it is a bit transluscent. As you can see Carlos is toasting over an open flame in a Mexican glazed clay casserole dish. I was surprised and asked about it’s ability to withstand an open flame. Angelina said that if you immerse the pot in water when you purchase it and leave for (15 or 50 minutes …couldn’t get which one it was) it would be fine on the heat after that. She said you don’t need to soak it again…just once. At this point a mixture of frozen peas, carrots and corn was added to the rice mixture along with a generous amount of chicken broth. The broth was the poaching liquid from the precooked chicken. I asked what was in it and she said it would have had onion , celery, carrot etc. for flavor but was now strained and clear. The rice was cooked on the burner and after about ten minutes Carlos covered the top of rice with plastic wrap to keep it moist. This was his little invention and it worked very well.
Carlos is starting on the mole which will have dried guajillo and ancho chili peppers in it. He is removing the seeds and ribs from the peppers even though these are not hot peppers. Angelina said they could use the seeds in some other dish.
A cast iron pan (not teflon) is heated with a little oil. In it he will put the peppers, garlic, onion and fresh tomato along with 3 cloves, 1 stick of cinnamon(broken up), sesame seeds and nuts.
In go the peppers.
While the pepper mixture toasts Angelina and Carlos put the plastic wrap on the rice.
Cover it completely!
Yes that is how fast his tongs were moving!
While this was all taking place there was a call to the bar for fresh margaritas. Not for me at this time in the morning. My stomach has been off for the last few days and I can’t drink margarita’s at the best of times. Too much acid.
The mixture has been transferred to a wok like pan and the nuts are being added. I think I’ll try this whole process in my steel wok when I get home. As we travel in an RV I can bring dried chilies and some of the other ingredients home with me. I had always wanted to see someone prepare the dried chilies and now I’ll try it.
Rice is cooking nicely.
And now for the chocolate along with some of the chicken broth and some biscuits to thicken it up. Angelina said you could use pieces of corn tortilla or even left over bread instead of the biscuits. The chocolate that is being used is a type of Mexican chocolate that has sugar and cinnamon in it.
Nestle’s abuelita (grandmother’s) chocolate that is used for hot chocolate here in Mexico.
Now raisons along with a pinch or two of pickling salt are added to the mixture and the chocolate is melting nicely.
While the mole was finishing I wandered out into Angelina’s very pretty courtyard at the back of the house.
The vine circles around the walls of the courtyard.
Carlos is now chopping up the cooked chicken will the mole finishes cooking.
Now it can go into the blender. This is a high quality VitaMix blender which can take the hot mixture and will pulverize it to a consistency that does not have to be strained. I have an old VitaMix at home which I will bring with me next year now that I see so many uses for it.
I asked about this unique cutting board with the cutting mat inserts and Angelina said she thinks she got it from Target! Too funny! I did look it up later on the net and you can buy it from Amazon for about $25. The mats store inside the cutting board and are dishwasher safe. Good when you are cutting peppers, garlic, onions, chicken etc. and don’t want cross contamination.
I think I’ll have to order one of those when I get home.
Allrighty…the mole has been poured over the chicken and it has been heated. We are ready to eat.
The dishes and food are lined up outside on the side board in the courtyard.
Angelina’s kitchen is newly renovated and it looks like this outside oven is new too. It has a metal chimney that goes out the back to take away the wood smoke.
A lovely relaxing place to sit and eat lunch. People are dishing up. Some people are only here for a short time, some have lived here for a number of years year round, some are new residents and some like us are only here for the winter. A mix of people from all over the United States and Canada.
Many people seemed to know eachother and happily chatted while they finished their drinks.
There are stairs at the far left end of the courtyard that go up to another level.
Mexican rice with chicken mole. Did I like it? Yes but I must say that mole (because of the chocolate) is not my first choice. I think I’ll try it without the chocolate and then it will be an enchilada sauce!
Lots of tropical plants and a very restful water fountain. There was lots of chat going on but I was happy to sit by myself and just enjoy the ambiance.
Inside to the left by the bar you can see a metal spiral staircase that goes up to a level that looked like an office.
The ceilings are very high in this old home and there are wood beams. Whether they are for structure or look I don’t know. Note the very modern ceiling fan that probably moves alot of air.
Carlos and the rest of the staff enjoyed the meal along with us. Here Angelina is removing the dessert from the fridge.
Beautiful.
The house is on a corner and this door opens onto the other street. The metal grating doors have a lock on them so the main door can be open while the outside grating door is locked. This is very common here in Mexico.
Most Mexican chairs have a straight back and are very uncomfortable to sit in….not so these leather backed rocking chairs. Very comfortable.
By this time it was 1pm and although people were still chatting I was ready to move on. I thanked Angelina for her time and said I enjoyed the class. I had given her daughter the address to my blog so she could see this post and I signed up for the next class on March 8th when she will cook fish. I asked if she could show preparation of tomatillos and she said she’d incorperate them into the meal.
Very enjoyable and informative.
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