I’ve commented several times about how many gourmet restaurants exist within a couple blocks of our condo.  Today a new variation appeared — a gourmet cooking school!  And yes, it is two blocks from our condo.  Today was La Warmi’s first such class, but they promise to soon start doing such a class every day, with a different meal being taught each day.  Unfortunately, their website is not yet up, so I can’t give a live link to it, but check out “www.lawarmi.com” in the future and with luck, it will start to show up soon.  They promise to post upcoming meal classes once the site it live.

Today we were taught how to make garlic shrimp, Ecuadorian style, as a main course.  We were then taught how to make plantains.

There were two chefs doing the cooking. One spoke only Spanish, but the other did most of the direct teaching, as all nine students were gringos with limited Spanish vocabulary, and she spoke perfect English.  The end results were absolutely delicious — even the plantain, which I must admit I am not generally a fan of.

Besides the basic recipies and general teaching of cooking, there were numerous hints and suggestions tossed out during the class.  A few of the things I learned (other than the direct recipe) included:

• To tell if shrimp is fresh at the mercado, smell it.  if it smells like the sea, it is fresh.
• Some vendors place the shrimp in a mild chlorine wash to make it more white.  If you smell chlorine, skip the vendor.  It isn’t dangerous, but ruins the taste.
• Put olive oil on your hands before cutting chili.  It prevents the chili oil from permeating your skin and later causing eye irritation.
• There are several varieties of chili in Ecuador. In general, the smaller the chili the hotter the taste. The small round ones that look like bell peppers are the hottest.
• When making soup, suspend a single chili in the soup for the last 5 to 10 minutes of cooking, then throw away the chili. Adds a nice spicy flavor to the soup.
• Tree tomatoes only come from Cuenca. They look like elongated tomatoes, though they are not really related to the “ground tomato.”  They are a fruit that is sweet and tastes like a cross between a normal tomato and a cantaloupe.
• For a good aji sauce, combine two tree tomatoes to one chili (aji)
• When boiling tree tomatoes, remove them from the water before their skin splits, or they will be bitter
• When buying plantain, get the Dominique variety. They are bigger and thinner, and taste much better. They must be green to be ripe.