Our First Day in Oaxaca: Cooking Class

Our first full day in Oaxaca Rachael and I took a cooking class through AirBnB experiences. It was our first cooking classes and our first AirBnB experience, and I’d highly recommend both. First we woke and walked down to the Zocalo, town square, in Oaxaca for a mole tamale and coffee. Then hailed a cab to the cooking class.

Cooking Class

The class was on the chef’s personal property. It has a small house and a large garden with sprawling grounds.

When we arrived, we were given coffee and we learned about our cooking class teacher’s background and what foods we would be making that day.

We sat at the table in the foreground on the left and drank coffee and discussed the recipes of the day

Visiting the Mercado

We were joined by another couple who also signed up for the class. The four of us, with our teacher walked to the nearby market to buy our ingredients.

Cooking Time

Then it was time to start cooking

Afternoon Snack

We made several salsas, and tortillas to enjoy for our afternoon snack before creating the main meal of adobo and mole with rice and pork.

Cat Collage

I should also mention there were several cute cats on the grounds.

The Main Event

With our afternoon snack behind us, it was time to start the main course: an adobo sauce with prok ribs and a mole sauce with rice.

The adobo sauce (left) is created from tomatoes, onions, dried peppers, herbs and spices. The mole sauce starts with roasting cacao beans (right).

Off to the Mill

After mixing and cooking our adobo sauce and roasting our cacao beans, it was time to go to the mill to blend our two sets of ingredients into a sauce. The mill was a few blocks up the road in a small orange building.

The Most Important Part: Dessert

The teacher, sensing my culinary prowess, put me in charge of the most important part of the meal, dessert. I cut, cooked, then mashed plantains. Then, mixed in some spices and formed them into balls around a cream cheese center.

Dinner Time

I meant to get more pictures of our lovely table and spread of food, but this photo was all I could manage to get before digging into our amazing meal.