Mexico City Cooking Class

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We signed up for a cooking class in Mexico City. Gary (my cousin on my Mom’s side) and his wife Jennie joined us. I booked the class through Viator.There were two different classes advertised, I chose the class walking distance from our condo. There are four friends who are vacationing together and the four of us. After introductions we walk to Mercado Medellin. The large indoor market has individually owned booths that sell produce, raw meat, seafood and flowers. There are also restaurants and vendors who sell fresh juice. The freshly squeezed orange juice that is sold in markets, from street vendors and at restaurants is so good. I order orange juice multiple times while in Mexico City, I never do that at home. Before we enter the market we stop and try some street food made with blue corn tortillas, it was good. We get a tour of the market with fruits and vegetables that I am not familiar with. We are shown the many different kinds of peppers. Insects were part of the diets of Mexicans before the Spanish arrived. They can be eaten dried or cooked with food like tacos. They were selling a variety of insects and we got to try them. The insects that are on the menu were grasshoppers, worms, scorpions, stink bugs and ant larvae.They sell a lot of flowers at this market and we were each given a flower. There was one booth that made fresh tortillas of various sizes and they sold them by the dozen. It would be great to be able to buy freshly made tortillas.
When Brad and Christopher were with us visited other markets in the city and some sell clothes, jewelry, soap and household items. All the markets have restaurants and we ate lunch at two markets, We had tortas (a grilled sandwich) with Christopher and Brad.
After our tour of the market we went back to the cooking school to begin our class. We were all given different jobs. We did learn that when making salsa how spicy the salsa is depends on which part of the chili you use. It was fun learning how to made the following.

Scopes - an appetizer made out of small tortillas filled with beans, lettuce, cheese and salsa

Molcajete Red Salsa

Salsa Verde - Green Salsa

Mextlapiques - Corn husks filled with black beans, cherry tomatoes, cactus, onions, serrano chili and spearmint sauc

Mole Blanco - Chicken cooked in white mole sauce (no chocolate). The sauce has the following ingredients chicken broth, guero chilies, onion, garlic, almonds, peanuts, white sesame seeds, white raisins, white bread, anise sees, salt and pepper.



Cornbread - this was desert, it is soft in the middle not like cornbread I make. The ingredients were corn kernels. 5 eggs, butter, creama, rice flower, baking powder, amaranth and salt

I had never had scopes before but I am going to make them at home. I bought a tortilla press and masa from Amazon. I recommend taking a cooking class when on vacation. We took a cooking class in Argentina and one in Peru and I enjoyed them both. Even Mark who does not cook enjoyed the class. I have included the recipes in the photo section.

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