Cooking School La Casa De Los Sabores in Oaxaca
If visitors to La Casa de los Sabores Oaxacan cooking school left with nothing but great recipes and gastronomic food rich in unique combinations of flavors accented with herbs and spices that are the hallmark of Oaxacan cuisine, they would leave completely. satisfied. But a visit to owner-chef extraordinaire Pilar Cabrera also inspires and satisfies travelers with an all-day sensual immersion in the sights, sounds, smells, and, yes, tastes and time-tested recipes of southern Mexico.
As always, a recent culinary odyssey with Pili, as she is known, began at La Casa de los Sabores first thing in the morning, at 9:30 a.m. Over the next few hours, she introduced me and the others to the class wisdom and experience from their great matriarchal culinary tradition. Pili learned the basics and subtleties, including the mysteries of the famous seven moles, from her grandmother, who learned from her grandmother before her. She is an Oaxacan-born teacher of southern Mexican cuisine as well as international epicurean trends, able to share the secrets of preparing the most varied food with beginners and experts alike, in English and Spanish.
Our day began with Pili’s informal chat about the menu and the foods she was going to present to us in one of Oaxaca’s colorful markets. The added attention to the key ingredients of Oaxacan cuisine kept us spellbound. “What we’re going to achieve today with the chiles,” he told us, “is spicy and tropical…with the Chile de agua, you’ll see that we use it not only for flavor but also for color, and I’ll show you how we keep this beautiful, bright green.”
Once equipped with these insights, we all embark on a shopping trip to the well-known market, Mercado de La Merced, armed with colorful bags – market bags – to carry the groceries – shopping. Pili had prepared a partial grocery list, but, he advised us, he always adds “surprises,” like fresh food that peasant women sometimes bring from the mountains.
“When you get a chance to find something really special or unusual, you buy it and incorporate it into your food,” he explained. “Today, for example, we are looking for mushrooms, because they grow very well in the rainy season. Also, we will see what kind of fresh fruit we can use for dessert.”
His knowledge of the unique shops and small factories enriched the short walk to the market. A rich bouquet lured us to a mill that was making chocolate from scratch. While Pilar was telling us the ingredients -cocoa, cinnamon, almonds and sugar- the owner welcomed us with “do you want to try?”
The lesson began in earnest when Pilar began to methodically search the interior and exterior parts of the market and exchange pesos for her plethora of fresh produce.
“Look at that lady setting there, what she’s got in those bowls,” she said. “She just brought those raspberries and blackberries from the Sierra Juárez. We can use them for dessert. Look how fresh and beautiful. The mushrooms on the side, look at the size, how big, and the bright orange color… this is the moment “. of the year, but not for our recipe today… We don’t buy the large green tomatillos here, I prefer the small ones that are grown locally because they are not acidic like the others and have much more flavor, perfect for the sauce we are preparing today” .
He encouraged us to smell the herbs as he explained their use in particular Oaxacan dishes. “Today we use this yerba santa for mole,” she said as she sifted through samples of the fragrant leaf until he found the freshest and best one to store in one of our bags. “But we also use it to wrap fish and make tamales.”
Andrea, who had been in Puerto Escondido on the Oaxaca coast for six months, voiced the wish of many, lamenting, “I wish I had been in this class at the beginning of our trip.”
Our enthusiasm and appetite grew once we returned to Doña Pili’s spacious and well-equipped kitchen. Its expansive counters, food prep island, and eight-burner gas cooktop that open to the lush patio dining area made this kitchen an ideal classroom.
As we went through the printout recipe sheets for the dishes we were about to make, she displayed our purchases in baskets filled with the components of each recipe to help us know why we bought what. We then spent the next two hours preparing a sumptuous four-course meal.
Mary, their sous-chef, did preparatory work like halving lemons, slicing chiles, and preparing chicken and poultry broth for the mole, freeing Pili to teach us the rituals and secrets of Oaxacan culinary seduction. The heart sparks of Pilar’s experience ignited even the most knowledgeable in the class as she pointed, touched, and passed each item we purchased, telling us how it would be incorporated into the meal.
Once the actual cooking began, he took advantage of his bilingualism, giving instructions and asking questions in one language, then repeating them in the other, as required by some of his visitors. “I need another helper for quesillo, I need another helper for cheese.” Pilar could well be a Spanish Teacher, a Spanish teacher to begin with.
Everyone learned each task and participated in the preparation of virtually every item on the menu. And as the group peeled, diced and sautéed, Pili’s gems of information kept flowing.
We learned much more than how to achieve flavor. Pilar taught us techniques to achieve the desired tones and textures: “A lot of people ask me about cleaning mushrooms,” she said at one point, demonstrating the correct technique. “Now look to see how we clean and seed this type of chili,” she pointed out as she prepared guajillo chili for the mole. “Once we start cooking these chiles de agua, we have to remember to always check and flip them constantly.”
“Look for the hot part of the comal… now is when you know when to flip it,” he said as he demonstrated the art and science of making tortillas.
From time to time a new recipe would roll off the tip of his tongue as we worked… other dishes we could prepare with this particular mole; different fillings for the quesadillas like potato, chorizo or huitlacoche, the exotic moldy corn… the texture we would want from the corn dough if we were making tamales instead of tortillas.
Soon, aprons off, we were ready for the feast. But first, “now before we sit down, do you remember at the market I told you there were two kinds of worm worm? Here they are, who wants to try?” she asked. “Now you know mezcal. Try this one Alvin brought over and tell us what you think. Here’s another kind. What do you think is different about this one?”
We sit at a table exquisitely set with local handmade linens, plates and glasses. They were already breathing bottles of Mexican and Chilean red wine. Fine music by Oaxacan singer-songwriter Lila Downs serenaded us in the background.
Pilar reminded us that her grandmother and other relatives usually prepare their meals with meat and all the vegetables mixed in the mole, a bowl of rice on the side, and a bowl of broth. But our food, like all the recipes she prepares with visitors to La Casa de los Sabores, would be her modern version of all the elements and flavor combinations of the best that contemporary Oaxacan cuisine has to offer.
It was a celebration of every ingredient. We started with a filling of mushroom, onion, tomato, chili and cheese in the mushroom quesadillas, complemented perfectly by a smoky roasted green sauce served in your molcajete. Then it was time to soothe our palates with bright yellow squash blossom cream, garnished with a drizzle of real cream, toasted pumpkin seeds, and indeed, fresh squash blossoms. The main course or entree was the yellow mole: tender slices of chicken breast on a sea of aromatic, deep saffron-colored mole, accompanied by a medley of steamed crispy fresh vegetables. To conclude, arroz con leche (rice pudding), skewered with a chunk of wild vanilla bean and topped with berries that had been picked only the day before.
I left convinced that the biggest chefs at Manhattan’s trendiest bean joints would be hard-pressed to compete with this little Oaxacan’s ability to marry the region’s complex cuisine with postmodern attention to color, texture, and sparkle. . For Pilar Cabrera, it is something natural. For the rest of us, she comes with a visit to her house.
La Casa de los Sabores Cooking School is located at Libre 205, in the center of Oaxaca. The maximum class size is 10, with private lessons available upon request. You can register for Pilar’s classes by calling (951) 516-5704 or by sending an email to: [email protected].
