Category: Mexican Tourism

A classic quick breakfast in the USA, circa 1950s: cold unsweetened cereal–probably corn flakes–with a banana, milk, and sugar.

Several times a month, Mexico Cooks! receives vacation-time queries from folks in the United States about mealtimes and what's eaten at breakfast, lunch, and dinner when one is in Mexico.  It can be challenging to plan a trip to any country, including Mexico, where mealtimes are different from what you might think of as 'normal'.  This week and for the next two weeks here at Mexico Cooks!, you'll learn more about meals and mealtimes.  

In Mexico, a huge variety of pan dulce (sweet bread) is available for breakfast.  These are conchas (shells), so-called because of the shell-like design impressed into their sugared tops. Have your pan dulce with either hot chocolate, coffee, or a steaming cup of atole (a corn-based hot beverage).

It can be even more challenging for anyone raised in one frame of reference to understand that breakfast isn't always about what you have  thought of as your first meal of the day, since you were a child.  Many years ago, when I was first living in Mexico, the light bulb came on for me: breakfast food is whatever you happen to eat for breakfast, not necessarily cold or hot cereal or bacon and eggs.  You know how leftover pizza straight from the refrigerator is a guilty breakfast for a lot of people in the States?  A slice is really a perfectly adequate breakfast.  Lots of Mexican breakfasts are just like that: whatever food is available at the moment.

The corunda is a regional tamal from Michoacán.  This corunda, filled with cream cheese and topped with Mexican table cream and a sauce made of chile perón (a deliciously spicy yellow chile), makes a great desayuno when accompanied by a cup of hot atole made with a seasonal fresh fruit.

People in Mexico frequently eat two morning meals. The first is desayuno, which comes from the root word ayunar, to fast.  Desayuno literally means "I un-fast" and is ordinarily eaten first thing in the morning, maybe before work while you are standing in the pre-dawn kitchen thinking about the coming day on the job or gobbled while you are hurrying the kids into their school uniforms.  This breakfast consists of something quick and simple or a smear of yesterday's frijolitos refritos on a leftover tortilla, washed down with a glass of fresh orange juice; a pan dulce still hot from the corner bakery, accompanied by a glass of chocomil (Mexico's ubiquitous instant chocolate milk powder).  It's just enough to help your brain kick into gear.

This Mexico Cooks! desayuno includes home-made calabaza en tacha bathed in hot milk plus a slice of pan relleno con chilacayote (bread filled with sweetened chilacayote squash paste), served with fresh juice or coffee.

At home, Mexico Cooks! occasionally prepares molletes, an old-time family favorite.  I grill a bolillo (a dense-textured and crusty white bread roll), add a thick smear of chile-spiced refried beans, and top them with huevos volteados (over-easy fried eggs).  Add salsa al gusto–to your taste.  With a fresh fruit accompaniment, this almuerzo is really stick-to-your-ribs.

Around 10:30 or eleven o'clock in the morning, when the stomach starts to require something more substantial to keep the body going, many people take a break for almuerzo.  There really is no adequate word in English for this meal.  It's not breakfast and it's not a snack.  Almuerzo is typically a larger meal than desayuno.  Workers on a construction job, for example, often stop work, build a little fire, and heat up yesterday's leftovers that they've brought along in a 'tuper'–the generic word for a covered plastic container.  Warmed-up leftovers, a stack of tortillas, and a fresh-made pot of coffee keep the girders going up. 

Another really hearty almuerzo: a plateful of enchiladas verdes con pollo deshebrado (enchiladas with shredded chicken in green sauce) topped with finely grated white cheese and minced onion, accompanied by a guarnición (side) of refried beans.

Here's another typical almuerzo in Mexico: chilaquiles verdes (fried tortilla strips simmered in green sauce), topped with grated white cheese and thinly sliced white onions, then crowned with huevos a gusto (eggs however you like them).  Add a side of frijolitos refritos, a plate of ripe papaya, a warm-from-the-oven bolillo, either salsa or butter for the bread, and a great cappuchino, all served on a sunny terrace.  Heaven…

Next week, next meal!  We'll save your place at the table. 

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These and just a few other ingredients for albóndigas de Jalisco (Jalisco-style meatballs) combine to become a simple but delicious meal.

It's been downright chilly both day and night here in Mexico City for the couple of months since the end of November.  Winter, with lows around 30ºF don't sound too bad compared to what winter is like in northern climes, but at our altitude of nearly 8000 feet above sea level and with no central heating, it's time to think about staying warm.  In Mexico Cooks!' household, cool days always mean something warming and delicious for our comida (midday meal).  Subtly-flavored albóndigas–especially as prepared from this recipe, adapted from Diana Kennedy's book The Cuisines of Mexico–are the perfect comfort food.

You only need to blend eggs and a few herbs and spices to give a most wonderful Mexican touch to the meat mixture for these albóndigas (meatballs).

This is a dandy recipe for cooks of any level: if you're a beginner, you'll love the simplicity and authenticity of the flavors of the end product.  If you're a more advanced cook, the people at your table will believe that you worked for hours to prepare this traditional Mexican meal. 

All the ingredients you need are undoubtedly easy for you to get even if you live outside Mexico.  Here's the list, both for the meatballs and their sauce:

Ingredients
Albóndigas
1.5 Tbsp long-grain white rice
Boiling water to cover
3/4 lb ground pork
3/4 lb ground beef
2 eggs
1/4 scant teaspoon dried oregano
4 good-sized sprigs fresh mint (preferably) OR 1 tsp dried mint
1 chile serrano, roughly chopped
3/4 tsp salt
1/4 scant teaspoon cumin seeds OR ground cumin
1/3 medium white onion, roughly chopped

Add the liquified eggs, onions, chile, herbs, and spices to the ground meats and mix well with your hands.

Sauce
3 medium tomatoes (about 1 lb)
1 chile serrano, roughly chopped (optional if you do not care for a mildly spicy sauce)
Boiling water to cover
3 Tbsp lard, vegetable oil, peanut oil, or safflower oil (I prefer lard, for its flavor)
1 medium white onion, roughly chopped
8 cups rich meat or chicken broth, homemade if possible
Salt to taste

For serving
2 or 3 carrots, cut into cubes or sticks
2 good-size white potatoes, peeled and cut into cubes or sticks

Utensils
A small bowl
A large bowl
A blender
A saucepan
A fork
A large flameproof pot with cover

Preparing the meatballs
Put the rice in a small bowl and cover with boiling water.  Allow to soak for about 45 minutes.  I use the glass custard cup that you see lying on its side in the initial photo–it's just the right size.

While the rice is soaking, put both kinds of meat into the large bowl.  

Put the eggs, onion, and all herbs and spices–in that order–in the blender jar.  Blend until all is liquified.  Add to the meat mixture and, using your hands, mix well until the liquid is thoroughly incorporated.

Rinse out the blender jar for its next use in this recipe.

Drain the rice and add it to the meat mixture.  Form 24 meatballs, about 1.5" in diameter, and set aside.

Preparing the sauce


Bring about 2 cups of water to a full rolling boil.  Add the whole tomatoes and allow to cook for about five minutes, until the skins split.  Watch the pot, though: this procedure might take a bit less or a bit more time. 

When the tomato skins split, take the tomatoes one by one out of the water and peel them.  If you've never tried it, believe me: this is miraculously easy–the skins are not too hot to handle and they slip off the tomatoes like little gloves.  You can see that I have stuck a fork into the stem end of the tomato for ease of handling.

Skin the tomatoes and put them in the blender jar.  Add the roughly-chopped onion and chile serrano.  Blend until thoroughly puréed.

Freshly rendered manteca (lard) for frying the sauce.  If all you can get in your store is a hard brick of stark white, hydrogenated lard, don't bother.  It has no flavor and absolutely no redeeming value.  If you want to use lard, ask a butcher at a Latin market if he sells freshly rendered lard.  If none is available, use the oil of your choice.

In the flameproof cooking pot, heat the lard or oil and add the tomato purée.  Bring it to a boil and let it cook fast for about three minutes.  Splatter alert here!

Turn down the flame and add the broth to the tomato sauce.  Bring it to a simmer.  Add the meatballs, cover the pot, and let them simmer in the liquid for about an hour.

After the first hour of cooking, add the carrots and the potatoes to the tomato broth and meatballs.  Cover and cook for an additional half hour.  When I made the albóndigas this time, I cubed the vegetables.  I think the finished dish is more attractive with the vegetables cut into sticks.

The rich fragrance of the cooking albóndigas and their broth penetrates every corner of our home.  By the time they're ready to eat, we are more than eager!

Albóndigas de Jalisco served with steamed white rice (you might also like to try them with Mexican red rice), sliced avocado, and fresh, hot tortillas.  This flat soup plate filled with albóndigas and vegetables needs another ladle full of sauce; we prefer to eat these meatballs when they're very soupy.  A serving of rice topped with three meatballs plus vegetables and sauce is plenty. 

Albóndigas freeze really well, so I often double the recipe; I use a flat styrofoam meat tray from the supermarket to freeze the uncooked meatballs individually, then prepare the sauce, thaw the meatballs, and cook them as described.

The single recipe serves eight.

Provecho!

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First published about six years ago, this is by far the most popular of Mexico Cooks!' nearly 600 archived articles.  There's just something wonderful about comfort food, no matter what culture prepares it!

Seasoning ingredients for preparing the caldo (broth) for Mexican caldo de pollo (chicken soup).  Clockwise from top right in the photo: unpeeled carrots, white onions, chiles serrano, garlic, fresh bay leaves, cilantro, and thyme.  I also added a big sprig of fresh hierbabuena (mint) and a smaller sprig of fresh epazote (wormseed).  If you can't find fresh epazote, leave it out.  The dried variety adds no flavor to any of your recipes.

There are few meals more undeniably Mexican than delicious, home-made caldo de pollo (Mexico's marvelous chicken soup, with fresh vegetables).  During the winter, when the temperature is chilly even in Mexico, what better to warm us from the inside out than Mexico's traditional, rich, delicious caldo de pollo (chicken soup)?  You who live in even colder countries will love it as much as we do.  Nothing could be simpler to prepare.  The ingredients are easy to obtain, the broth all but cooks itself, and the final preparations are simple and fast.

This beautiful chicken weighed approximately 5.5 pounds before cooking.

Mexico's chickens are perfectly suited to caldo de pollo.  Yellow skin and pink flesh create a fragrantly savory stock.  If you've traveled to Mexico and visited our markets, you may have wondered why our recently sacrificed raw chickens look so…so chicken-y, so golden and inviting.  They're fed ground marigold petals along with their feed!  The bright golden color of the flowers is transmitted not only to their skin and flesh, but also to the yolks of their eggs, which sit up high and sunny in your breakfast skillet.  Several years ago, a shall-remain-nameless neighboring country to the north imported some of its frozen chicken to our supermarkets: grey, pitiful whole chickens and lumps of breast and leg meat lay in freezer compartments waiting to be purchased.  Mexican housewives, used to fresh, plump chicken, looked at these icy products and recoiled.  Few of these ugly corpses sold and I currently notice that no imported frozen chicken is available in any of the supermarkets I visit from time to time.

Mexico Cooks! prefers to remove as much fat as possible from the chicken before cooking, leaving only a little to give body and flavor to the broth.  The skin stays on, both for color and flavor.

In the pot: the chicken back and legs, along with the seasoning ingredients and water, ready to cook.

Caldo de Pollo (Mexican Chicken Soup)

For the broth
1 whole chicken, approximately 5-6 pounds
1 1/2 white onions, peeled
2 large cloves garlic, peeled
2 large carrots, peeled and cut in half
2 chiles serrano, sliced from tip to stem end
2 bay leaves
6 stems cilantro
Large sprig fresh hierbabuena (mint)
Small sprig fresh epazote (wormseed), optional.  If you can't get it fresh, leave it out.
Large pinch of thyme
Sea salt to taste
Water to cover all broth ingredients
14-quart stock pot

If you can buy chicken feet where you are, put several in the cooking pot to give color and depth of flavor to the broth.  You'll thank me, honest you will.

Procedure
Remove as much fat as possible from the raw chicken.  Remove the bag of menudencias (heart, gizzard, liver, etc).  Mexico Cooks! prefers to separate the entire breast and wings from the back and legs, using the back and legs for preparing the broth and reserving the breast and wings for later use.

Put the skin-on chicken back, legs and all seasoning ingredients except the salt into the stock pot.  Add cold water to cover the ingredients.  Bring to a boil, lower to simmer.  Skim the broth once with a wire skimmer.  Simmer, partially covered, for approximately 1.5 hours.  Cool slightly and add sea salt to taste.  Remove all vegetables, herbs, and the chicken back and legs from the pot.  Chill the broth overnight and peel off any congealed fat.

Because I prefer to eat breast meat, I often shred the cooked leg and back meat to be used in other recipes.  However, when I made this batch of caldo de pollo, I took large chunks of the dark meat and added them to the broth.

Ingredients for the final preparation of the caldo de pollo, to cook in the broth just before serving.  Clockwise from top right: calabacitas (tender zucchini, about 3" long), peeled carrots, chicken breast, fresh green beans.  Potatoes, ready to be peeled, are in the foreground.

To finish the caldo de pollo:

Ingredients
1/2 pound fresh green beans, broken in thirds
4 carrots, peeled and cut into 1" lengths
4 to 6 calabacitas (tiny zucchini will do), cut into 2" lengths
2 or 3 large potatoes, cut into 16 pieces
1 chayote, peeled and cut into 16 pieces–use the tender, white seed, too, it's delicious (optional)
1 large ear of fresh corn, husked and cut into sections (across the ears) approximately 2" wide
2 or 3 half chicken breasts, cut into three pieces each
2 or 3 chicken wings, pointed end sections removed

About an hour before mealtime, remove the chicken backs, legs (and the feet, if you used them) from the pot and bring the broth to a simmer.  Add all of the above ingredients to the broth.  Simmer for half an hour, or until the chicken and vegetables are done.

During the half hour that the vegetables and chicken are cooking in the caldo de pollo, prepare a pot of traditional Mexican rice.  In a couple of tablespoons of vegetable oil, sauté the amount of rice you want (I usually use 1 or 2 cups of raw rice) until  the rice is uniformly golden brown.  Add 2 cups of tomato water for every cup of rice, bring to a boil, cover the pot and lower the heat to simmer until the rice is fluffy, about 20 minutes.

Tomato Water for Rice
3 raw Roma tomatoes, skinned
1/3 white onion, roughly chopped
1 small clove garlic, peeled
1 small chile serrano, stem removed but using the seeds, if you want a slightly spicy rice  (optional)
2.5 cups cold water
Sea salt to taste

Add all ingredients to your blender and whiz until smooth.  Strain through a fine colander and use the liquid for cooking rice.

Tip for Skinning Raw Tomatoes
Bring a small pot filled with water to a boil.  While the water comes to a boil, wash the tomatoes, then cut a 1/8" cross-mark in the stem end of each one.  Put the tomatoes into the boiling water and boil for a minute–literally a minute, until the tomato skin begins to split.  Set the timer or watch the pot to see when the tomatoes begin to split their skins.  Then use a fork, tines stuck into the stem end of the tomatoes, to lift them out of the water and hold each one while you peel it.  The tomatoes will be easy to peel.

To Prepare Mexican Red Rice
1.5 cups raw rice–use your preferred variety of long-grain raw rice (not pre-cooked): not Uncle Ben's, not instant rice, or other rice of that type).
2 Tbsp vegetable oil
3 cups tomato water
1 tsp salt or to taste
Heavy, lidded pot, wider than it is deep

Put the oil in the pot and over a medium flame, heat the oil until it shimmers.  Add the rice and let it fry, stirring often, until the rice is light golden brown.  Add all of the tomato water and the salt.  Bring the pot to a boil, cover leaving the cover slightly ajar, and lower the flame to its lowest point.  Allow the rice to simmer for approximately 20 minutes (use a timer!) or until all the tomato water is absorbed and the rice grains are tender.

The finished product, steaming and delicious any time of year.  

At meal time, have the following on the table for garnish and further seasoning: a large bunch of fresh cilantro, stems in a glass of water; a plate of halved limones or limes, a dish of sea salt; and a cooked (not raw) or bottled table salsa of your choice.  Plenty of hot-from-the-griddle corn tortillas round out your meal.

Mexico Cooks! favorite bottled salsa: Cosecha Purhépecha Salsa Casera de Chile Perón (Home-style sauce made of chile manzano, known as chile perón in Michoacán).  It's made in Chilchota, Michoacán, and I normally keep a big stash of it in my Mexico City pantry.

To serve your caldo de pollo, add a large spoonful or two of steaming hot rice to each diner's bowl.  Next, add chicken and a good amount of each of the vegetables.  Fill each bowl with hot, fragrant broth.  Every diner can then add a pinch of sea salt, some cilantro leaves, a squeeze or two of jugo de limón, and salsa to his or her own taste.

Makes four to six servings with a lot of rich broth left over for other uses.  I strain the broth and then freeze it in gallon ziplock freezer bags.

Provecho!

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