New: Oaxacan Flavors cooking class coming on October 2

Last December, we spent the Christmas holiday season in Oaxaca City and thoroughly enjoyed all their local holiday traditions of fiestas, parades, marching bands, and even a radish carving festival. Oaxaca is the southernmost state in Mexico, and their cuisine is celebrated worldwide and heavily promoted by celebrity chefs like Rick Bayless. Moles (sauces made with peppers, nuts, and chocolate) are often featured in Oaxacan cuisine. While I was there, I was lucky to be able to take a private cooking class with Roxana Hernandez, a local artist and home cook extraordinaire who taught me how to make an authentic Oaxacan chicken stew with a red mole as a key ingredient.

The cooking lesson took place in her upstairs outdoor home kitchen with traditional wood-fired stoves and clay pots. The stew itself is pretty standard, except for the broth. The combination of exotic spices and the addition of a homemade mole made this dish special and uniquely Oaxacan. Here's her full recipe adapted with American home cooks in mind. We will be making this dish at our next hands-on cooking class along with a full menu of Oaxacan specialties, which will include:

• Oaxacan Scallops Ceviche
• Estofado de Pollo (Oaxacan Chicken Stew)
• Tlayudas with Chapulines (fried grasshoppers)
• Oaxacan hot chocolate

This class is part of our PRINCIPLES OF ETHNIC COOKING series. Full menu and details for the entire series is here: www.cooking-with-paul.com/upd-2025-fall.html

Want to see more pictures from my trip to Oaxaca? Check out this photo gallery.

More information about my cooking classes and pop-up events can always be found on my website, where you'll also find over 200 recipes from my classes (no ads!). You can also subscribe to my email newsletter or follow me on Instagram or Facebook and like my posts. Bon appétit!