My cooking class in Guadalajara

My cooking class

For my birthday we had the hotel arrange a private cooking class with a local chef.  We met Chef Jose Vazquez Aquino, at the hotel at 10 AM and he proceeded to take us on a guided tour of one of the local markets Mercado Abastos.  I never would have found this place.  Locals only, we were the only tourist that we saw the entire time. Felt like I had a big "Gringo" sign on my back.   We walked around the market with the chef selecting things for our meal today. First the fish from Mazatlan.  I'm pretty sure it was red snapper.  We shopped for many things for our class but it was great fun to go to this kind of a market with a local.  I have been astonished at the breath of fruit available and consumed in Mexico.  I consider myself to be pretty savvy when it comes to weird fruits and vegetables but there were lots of thing that I had never seen or even heard of before, and chef patiently explained all of the to me.  Telling me when they were in season and when they were not.  One thing that is very different about the markets in the US is the amount and variety of cooked food that is available.  It also surprised me how many people were eating in the markets.  We were that at 10:30 in the AM but many of the counters were full of eaters,

 Hoja Santa - an herb that covered the fish and had a somewhat anise flavor

Fire roasting the banana leaves to make them more plyable

 Wrappeing the fish in banana leaves

 Nopales salad before adding lettuce

 Finished salad

The finished fish dish served in the banana leaf

 The finished Torta de Requeson with Rasberry Colis

I'll spare you the details of the class.  Suffice to say that we made the following dishes, many of which I think will be very repeatable for dinner parties since much of the items on the menu could be prepared ahead of time.

Guacamole and a salsa called Salsa de Uña.  

Salad with Nopales (prickly pear leaves) and fava beans

Our red snapper cooked in a banana leave a wrapped in Hoja Santa, a big leaf that gave the fish a slight anise flavor.  also in the banana leaf was garlic, red, green, and yellow peppers, carrots and some olive oil.

for dessert was

Torta de Requeson, It was similar to cheesecake but make with a pastry crust, and panela cheese, Requeson cheese (very similar to ricotta), sweetened condensed milk and eggs.  It was topped with a raspberry sauce.

Everything was great.  For starters he took these small tostada's, like doritos, but they were and put a little guacamole on the chip and then put the Salsa de Uña on it.  They were great.  Chips and salsa is one of my kryptonite foods and by this time I was hungry.  It took a lot of restraint to not gorge, but I knew there was a lot of food coming so I had to control myself, but it was difficult.

Next the Salad with Nopales.  I've had nopales before and was not crazy about them.  I kind of thought they taste like lawn clippings, or at the farmer's market when they make you alfalfa sprout smoothies, awful.   When were were at the market chef picked out the small ones.  He said these were the best.  To prep them  he boiled them softly for about 20 minutes with a quarter of an onion.  He boiled them until all the bright green was gone and it was only sort of an army green.  Shocked them in ice water to stop the cooking,  To prep the salad he put in the nopales along with the fava beans, onions and radishes.  He let this marinade for at least an hour before placing on a bed of lettuce just before serving.  I was surprise at how good the nopales were, slightly vegetal with a nice crunch.  Really quite good.  Future guests beware.

Fans of low fat cooking are going to like this fish dish.  Basically steamed fish and vegetables.  Nice flavoring from the Hojo Santa.  Simply prepared and makes a nice presentation in the banana leave.  Can be prepared in advance and seemed to hold for quite a will but was still delicious.  He also served it was some sauted mushrooms and fried potatoes  

Dessert- Very much like a cheesecake and I asked him if this was typical of the Guadalajara cuisine and chef said that it was  Not sure if the raspberry coulis on top was but it was delicious.  Chef was hoping to get something he called "capuline" (a wild cherry), but it was not available in the market so we went for the raspberries. Chef describe the capuline and a special type of small cherry with a bright red color and delicious flavor,  The raspberries were a good substitute.

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Even though I think this class will be very useful for dinner parties by far my favorite part of the class was eating, not for satiation but for socialization.  Because we had prepared more food than Linda and I could possibly eat, we invite the hotel staff to join us for different parts of the meal.  The staff at Villa Ganz has been exceptional.  Starting with Manuel at the front desk who was extremely helpful with great english skills to Armando also at the front desk to Muncy who cooked us breakfast every day to the housekeeping staff to Boba the cat who would sit at the breakfast table with us.  We had a couple of bottle of wine and were able to feed everyone and be able to sit around the table to eat, drink and talk.  It was the best.  We even were able to share the dessert with the oldest staff member there, and I regret not getting her name.  She was able to sit down with us and thank us, in her best english, which was still better than my spanish for visiting her city.  She even gave us both a hug.  A very touching moment for both Linda and I.  One of the highlights of the trip.  A great birthday present.