Mexican cooking lesson was held on June 4th, Saturday. Mexican cuisine had been added to UNESCO’s Intangible Cultural Heritage list in 2010. On that day we invited Silvia Tanaka as our cooking instructor who is from Mexico city, and she came to Japan two years ago.

Menu: Fajita/ Guacamole/Arroz con leche

At the beginning, Silvia gave us a general explanation about Mexican food culture and menu that was arranged on that day.

 

 

After we got started cooking fajitas with chicken and vegetables. She showed us how to cut the vegetables, and the way these were cut is totally different to the Japanese way.

 

 

 

 

 

We made guacamole with avocado and tomatoes. Everybody did a great jog! Silvia recommended that ceramics or plastic bowls are better than metal ones because metal oxidize the avocado and turn brownish. That is an important point.

 

 

 

 

 

The fajitas became a very large after putting vegetables into the pan! This will go well with white rice.

 

 

 

 

We were also making tortillas. In Mexico everyone has a “press machine”(blue one in the picture) at home. If we do not have it, we can roll out the dough using the cutting board or the reverse side of a plate instead.

 

 

 

 

 

Everybody tried to make tortillas.

When we roll out the dough, it is important not to tear it. On the other hand, if the dough is too thick, it is very hard to bake it well.

 

 

 

At the end, we made “arroz con leche”. We cooked rice in milk and later added some condensed milk. Then we cooled it in the refrigerator. Finally we added some raisins and cinnamon on the top of that.

Every dish tasted wonderful!!

～The Voice of participants～
・I don’t have many opportunities to take Mexican cooking lessons so it was a great time for me! Instructor was so cute and friendly.

・I really enjoyed delicious Mexican food which I can not have many opportunities to eat in Japan.

・It was great that I was able to get to know a lots of things in a short time period.

 

～From the International Center～

At the beginning we were worried about that 2 hours was not enough to complete 3 different dishes, but Silvia and the participants cooperated together effectively in order to finish the cooking lesson on time. Through this experience, we hope that everybody can try cooking Mexican food at home. We are really looking forward to seeing you again in our future events! Thank you!

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