Category: Recipe

On the Table: Mexico Cooks! Dines Out and Dines at Home

A whole frog, battered, deep fried and served with chiles toreados (chile serrano, rolled in oil and grilled or sautéed until soft), cebolla blanca (white onion, in this case caramelized), and limón to squeeze all over it. Deep fried frogs are a specialty of Queréndaro, Michoacán. It's a truly graphic presentation, but you only eat the legs–unless you care to nibble on other parts.

A Sunday afternoon on the trajineras (boats) in Xochimilco requires a refueling stop at a 'restaurant' trajinera. In this case, our midday meal was juicy carne asada (grilled meat) and quesadillas cooked to order, guacamole and tortilla chips, rice, beans, and hot-off-the griddle tortillas. Delicious!

Mexico Cooks! discovered Panadería Manduca at Av. Nuevo León #125-B during the November Col. Condesa bakery crawl and hasn't stopped buying their marvelous made-on-site pretzel bread. The bread is dense, extremely flavorful, and just the way we like it.

Still on the bread theme, here's the pan de romero (rosemary bread) from Rosetta, a lovely Italian restaurant at Calle Colima 166, Col. Roma Sur, Mexico City. Next time we eat there, I promise you a report on London-trained chef Elena Reygada's wonderful food.

Home cooking: Mexico Cooks! prepared the hot, fennel-y Italian sausage and then created sausage, peppers, and onion sandwiches for a recent meal at home.

Another home-cooked meal: eggplant parmagiana. Peter Francis Battaglia, an Italian-American friend in New Jersey, keeps me inspired to try his recipes. Once you've read his web page and seen his photos, you'll be equally inspired.

Once every six weeks or so, Azul/Condesa or Azul/Histórico call out to us. It's difficult for me to resist the pechuga de pollo en mole negro (chicken breast in black mole). For me, Chef Ricardo Muñoz Zurita's mole negro recipe continues to be the gold standard for this dish.

To end on a sweet note: these buñuelos–foot-in-diameter deep-fried flour pastry, finished with a dash of granulated sugar and cinnamon, broken onto a plate or into a bowl and bathed with syrup made of piloncillo–were on the fonda table (small family food booth or restaurant) next to me the last time I was in Morelia, Michoacán. Could you resist? I couldn't.

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20 de July de 2013
Albóndigas de Jalisco, Estilo Diana Kennedy::Jalisco-Style Meatballs, Adapted from Diana Kennedy

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 cool during the day here in Mexico City for the couple of
months since the rainy season finally got itself underway. Summer in
Mexico's Central Highlands is my favorite time of year: cool-to-warm
partly sunny days are nearly always followed by downright chilly rainy
nights.

For those of you who live in the USA or Canada, it's hard to realize
that at more than 7500 feet above sea level, Mexico City has weather
completely unlike what many think of as Mexico's desert or even beach
temperatures. In the last few days, the afternoon high temperatures
have hovered just under 70° Fahrenheit. 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 traditional 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 small zucchini squash (about 6 ounces)
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 Roma 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
5 cups rich meat or chicken broth, homemade if possible
Salt to taste

For serving
2 or 3 carrots, cut into cubes or sticks
2 medium white potatoes, 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. Trim the ends from the zucchini and discard. Chop the squash
very finely and add to the meat mixture.

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/squash 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 more
sauce; we prefer to eat them 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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13 de July de 2013
Mexico’s Dichos de la Cocina: Kitchen Sayings, Part Two

A beautiful pink and golden Mexican chicken, ready for the soup pot.

What, you might wonder, the title of this article says it is part two? Where is part one? As Mexico Cooks! spent some time this week reviewing old articles, we suddenly realized that way, way back in March 2009 we promised a second article about kitchen sayings 'later this year'–and suddenly it's four years later! Can we blame our lack of follow-through on one of my favorite sayings, "Life is what happens while you're making other plans"? Or maybe let's just leave it at 'más vale tarde que nunca'–better late than never!

Chile relleno con frijoles negros de la olla (stuffed poblano chile served with freshly cooked black beans). Photo courtesy Conde Pétatl.

Mexico's dichos de la cocina (kitchen sayings) number in the hundreds, if not the thousands. Just like sayings and proverbs in any language, Mexican dichos usually have a double meaning: what the words of the saying are, and then how they are interpreted. In English, the phrase "the early bird catches the worm" make sense just as you read it, but it has a secondary import: if you start your endeavor sooner rather than later, you have a much better chance of success. So it is with all of these!

Pig head, ready to buy and take home to make pozole.

Here are some of Mexico Cooks!' personal favorites:

Vale más pan con amor, que gallina con dolor. Bread eaten with love is worth more than chicken eaten with pain.
Se cambia mas fácilmente de religión que de café. It's easier to change your religion than to change your coffee.
Quien hambre tiene, en pan piensa. The hungry person thinks of bread.

Café con leche (coffe with milk) served with a basket of pan dulce ( sweet Mexican breads).

El que parte y comparte, se queda con la mejor parte. The one who portions and shares, gets the best part.
Al hablar, como al guisar, su granito de sal. In speaking and cooking, a grain of salt.
Frutos y amores, los primeros son los mejores. Fruits and loves–the first are the best.

A street vendor's fresh fruit in Paracho, Michoacán. He sells seasonal fruits, including papaya, sandía (watermelon), and mango. Enlarge any photo for better detail–in this photo, you'll see the bees.

Guajolote que se sale del corral, termina en mole. The turkey that gets out of the yard ends up in mole.
La vida es como una cebolla, uno la pela llorando. Life is like an onion, you cry while you peel it.
Mata el pollo y pon la mesa. Kill the chicken and set the table.

Frijol peruano ('Peruvian' beans), ready to cook in a clay pot filled with water.

Mentir y comer pescado quieren cuidado. Be careful when lying and eating fish.
Nunca falta un negrito en el arroz. There is always a black speck in the rice.
Al hambre de siete días, no hay pan duro. To a week's hunger, there is no such thing as hard bread.

Champurrado (chocolate atole) at Restaurant Flor de Lis, Mexico City.

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15 de June de 2013
Mexico’s Home-Made Hash: Delicious Picadillo (pee-cah-DEE-yo)

Elisabeth Lambert Ortiz (1915-2003), a proper British woman married to Mexican diplomat César Ortiz Tinoco, learned Mexican cuisine in Mexico City, her husband's home town. She published her wonderful The Complete Book of Mexican Cooking in 1967, which introduced the English-speaking world to some of the regional cuisines of Mexico. I've cooked from this ever more raggedy, taped-together, yellowing, food-stained, still-magical paperback edition since the middle 1970s, starting years before I moved to Mexico. The first truly Mexican recipe I ever prepared was picadillo, from Elisabeth Lambert Ortiz's book. It's Mexico's traditional home-style hash.

The ingredients for picadillo are available in almost any supermarket. Starting with the bowl of ground pork at lower left in the photograph and moving clockwise, you see the raw meat, Mexican cinnamon sticks, bright orange carrots all but hidden in the dish, chiles serrano, Roma tomatoes, white potatoes, a Red Delicious apple, raisins and dried cranberries, freshly dried hoja de laurel (bay leaves), a whole white onion, and, in the little dish in the right-center foreground, freshly dried Mexican oregano. I dried the bay leaves and the oregano myself, but you can make substitutions: use ground cinnamon rather than the cinnamon sticks, store-bought bay leaves, and the oregano you normally use instead of the Mexican type; the rest of the ingredients are commonplace.

Minced chile serrano and diced white onion.

Hash of all kinds is one of the most comfortable of comfort foods, and the hash called picadillo (the word means 'a little something chopped-up') is simply Mexico's slightly more rambunctious cousin. This picadillo recipe is always forgiving, always flexible. Prepare it with ground beef, ground pork, or a combination of the two meats. Use more potatoes, fewer carrots, an extra tomato (or two, if the ones you have are quite small). Don't care for olives? Leave them out. But by all means do try picadillo: it's a far cry from your mother's canned corned beef hash.

More ready-to-cook raw ingredients, left to right: diced tomatoes; peeled, diced apple; peeled, diced carrots. For size comparison's sake, the knife blade is 10.5" long.

Ingredients
1 kilo (2.2 lbs) ground pork, ground beef, or a combination of the two
3 large, ripe Roma tomatoes, diced
3 fresh chiles serrano, minced (Use less chile if your tolerance for picante (spiciness) is low.)
1 clove garlic, minced (I prefer to leave out the garlic.)
1 medium-large white onion, peeled and diced
4 medium carrots, peeled and diced
1 or 2 large Red Delicious apples OR 1 or 2 large, ripe Bartlett pears OR one of each, peeled and diced
4 medium white potatoes, peeled and diced
1 cup large green olives, with or without pimento, sliced
3/4 cup raisins, dried cranberries, or a combination of both
1 tsp dried oregano, Mexican if you have it
3 large bay leaves
2" piece of Mexican cinnamon stick OR big pinch of ground cinnamon
Freshly rendered pork lard OR vegetable oil, as needed
Sea salt to taste
Beef, chicken, or pork stock, or water, as needed

Sliced large green pimento-stuffed olives. Each of these olives measures a bit more than one inch long prior to slicing. Slice them in thirds or quarters.

Equipment
A large pot with a cover. I use a 4-quart enameled casserole.
Cutting board
Sharp knife
Large wooden spoon

Preparation
Heat 3 Tbsp lard or vegetable oil in your cooking pot until it shimmers. Add the onion and chile and sauté over medium fire until the onion is translucent. Add the ground meat and continue to sauté over medium fire until the meat is no longer pink. Break the meat into bite-size chunks as it sautés. Add the rest of the ingredients.

After sautéeing the onion, chile, and meat, add the rest of the solid ingredients to the pot and stir to incorporate them all. Then add stock or water; the liquid should come to about 1/3 of the way up from the bottom of the pot. Enlarge any photo for a bigger view; you'll be able to see that I used a combination of raisins and dried cranberries. I had about a quarter cup of dried cranberries on hand; a neighbor loaned me the raisins to make up the difference in measurement. The section at the bottom of the photo is blurred due to rising steam.

Cover the pot, leaving the cover just slightly ajar. Lower the heat to its lowest. Set your kitchen timer for 30 minutes and go do something else! When the timer rings, check the pot for liquid. If the picadillo has absorbed most of the original liquid, add the same amount again. With the cover ajar, continue to cook over a very low flame for another 30 minutes and correct for salt. Voilá! It's picadillo, ready to serve!

Picadillo, ready to serve after an hour's cooking. This amount of picadillo will serve 6 to 8 hungry people when served over steamed white rice or Mexican red rice. I like to prepare the picadillo recipe, serve it as our main meal, and save the rest to re-heat and serve the next day. If anything, it is even better after a night's rest–but then, aren't we all? After the second day, whatever picadillo is left freezes beautifully.

Delicious, spicy picadillo, served over rice. You and your family will love this traditional Mexican meal. By all means let me know how it goes over at your house. A huge thank you to Elisabeth Lambert Ortiz.

Provecho! (Good eating!)

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1 de June de 2013
Looking for Smut on the Internet?

Not that kind! What in the world do you think we're thinking!

Ustilago maydis, called corn smut, or huitlacoche.

Mexico Cooks! is rejoicing in a wealth of corn smut, known in Mexico as the delicacy huitlacoche (aka cuitlacoche) and known in the rest of the world as disgusting. The word cuitlacoche comes from the Nahuatl word cuitlatl (excrement) and cochi (sleeping). You wanted to know that, didn't you?

Ustilago
maydis (corn smut's biological name) is a fungal disease that most
often attacks corn before the ear forms. Spores enter corn stalks that
have been wounded by hail, insects, or cultivation cuts. The fungus
grows inside the corn kernel, distorting and discoloring it, leaving
only the husk of the kernel remaining. The fungus winters over in the
ground or in old corn stalks left to rot. Smut spores can blow long
distances, invading every cornfield in a region. No country is exempt
from its infection and losses to the fungus may be as high as 20% of a
corn crop. Most of the world's corn growers use every means possible to
stave off the infection, but here in Mexico, we love to see the fungus
come to market.

Here in Mexico City, the huitlacoche season just started. Some of the vegetable vendors at our Tuesday tianguis had piles of it for sale last week, in amongst the broccoli, chiles,
leeks, tomatoes, and the rest of the weekly array in their stands.
Twenty-five pesos (about $2.50 US) per half pound seemed like a fair
price, so we bought a bag of big juicy-looking fungus and brought it
home for comida, our main meal of the day.

The taste of huitlacoche
is deep, rich, earthy, and is frequently compared to truffles. The
texture is meaty, similar to a portabello mushroom. The color–well, we
don't eat many coal black foods, but it's quite elegant on the plate.

In Mexico, huitlacoche is sold either on the cob or loose, by the kilo. Once in a great while, fresh huitlacoche is available in a Latin market outside Mexico. It's said that the canned variety works as well as the fresh, although Mexico Cooks! hasn't used the canned product and makes no guarantees. Look for this variety:

Here's Mexico Cooks!' recipe for our comida muy de la temporada (very seasonal dinner).

Salsa de Huitlacoche con Espagueti y Pechuga de Pollo
(Cuitlacoche Sauce with Spaghetti and Chicken Breast)

Ingredients for the sauce:
1 large clove garlic, minced fine
2 tbsp white onion, minced fine
2 or 3 strips bacon, minced
3 chiles chilacas or 2 chiles poblanos
250 grams (1/2 lb) huitlacoche, roughly chopped
Sea salt to taste
Enough chicken broth to thin sauce to coat the back of a spoon
Bacon drippings plus 2 Tbsp vegetable oil

Utensils:
10-inch nonstick sauté pan
Wooden spoon
Measuring spoons
Blender

Procedure:
Roast the chiles on a dry (not oiled) comal (griddle) until the skins are blistered and nearly black. Put them in a plastic bag and twist it shut. "Sweat" the chiles for about 10 minutes. Remove the stems and seeds and peel the chiles. Roughly chop the prepared chiles and reserve for later use.

Sauté the minced bacon until nearly crisp. Remove from pan and reserve with the chiles. Keep the bacon drippings in the pan. Add the oil.

Sauté the garlic, onion, and huitlacoche in the drippings/oil until the cuitlacoche is soft, about 10-15 minutes. Be careful that the huitlacoche does not become mushy. It should retain some texture. The mixture in your sauté pan will be inky black.

Put the huitlacoche mixture, the reserved chiles
and the bacon in the blender. Add 1/2 cup chicken stock and purée.
The mix should thickly coat the back of a spoon. Add more chicken stock
if needed and blend again. Add sea salt to taste and blend briefly.
Again, the sauce will be black.

Chicken breasts:
Cut
two boneless, skinless chicken breast halves into 1/2" wide strips as
long as each breast. Put 2 Tbsp flour and 1/2 tsp sea salt in a plastic
bag and shake to mix. Add the chicken breast strips and shake to flour
thoroughly. Shake off excess flour. Sauté breast strips in olive oil
until they are golden brown. Be careful not to overcook the breast
strips. Remove and reserve.

Spaghetti:
I used 1/2 lb fettucine and cooked following package directions.

Plating:
Serves two generously.

Put half the spaghetti on each plate. Divide the cuitlacoche
sauce between the two servings of spaghetti. Divide the chicken breast
strips between the two plates, laying them across the spaghetti and
sauce. Drizzle more sauce across the chicken breast strips.

We all but licked our plates.

So…we've got rough stuff (the chopping), breasts (the chicken), and licking (the plates). I guess this really is smut on the Internet!

Provecho!

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25 de May de 2013
Restaurante Nicos, Mexico City Treasure: Traditional Mexican Cuisine, Family Comfort and Warmth

Chef Gerardo Vázquez Lugo, consummately professional executive chef at Restaurante Nicos in Mexico City. Chef Gerardo's right-hand man at Nicos (and head of La Nicolasa, their organic food shops in Azcapotzalco and in Col. La Condesa) is César Galván Arciniega.

Freshly baked, still-warm bolillo (crusty white bread roll) served from a dried guaje (gourd) and accompanied by three salsas and a wee dish of sea salt.

Mexico City's gourmands–the many of us who are heartily fond of good food and drink–often travel substantially north of the Centro Histórico (downtown) to have a marvelous meal. The magnet that pulls us to Delegación Azcapotzalco? Restaurante Nicos, a Mexico City institution since 1957. Started by María Elena Lugo Zermeño (chef Gerardo's mother) and run by the Vázquez Lugo family for the last 56 years, the restaurant offers a warmly charming atmosphere, excellent service, and simply fantastic food.

It always makes me happy to see that Nicos makes its guacamole exactly
the way I've been doing it at home for 30 years. You can see that the avocado is left in silky
chunks; it's not mashed. Add a little olive oil, some sea salt, small-diced white onion, small-diced tomato, chopped cilantro, and as much minced chile serrano as your palate can handle. No limón (Key lime) is necessary.

Prepared at tableside with perfectly ripe, perfectly fresh ingredients, this guacamole brims over in its molcajete (volcanic stone mortar) and is a plentiful appetizer for four diners. It's served with freshly-fried salty totopos (tortilla chips).

This oasis of great eating has never pretended to be more than a family restaurant serving home-style Mexican cooking. Traditional recipes prepared and served in the spirit of Slow Food are the basis of Nicos' kitchen, and attentive, non-obtrusive, closely-supervised staff continue to ensure that the customer is king. Really, what more can we want?

Another appetizer, this time doblada de tinga (delectable stewed, spiced, and shredded chicken stuffed into a folded, hot-off-the-comal (griddle) tortilla). These dobladas are offered three to an order, but our server generously provided our table of four diners with an extra doblada.

Nick Zukin, a Mexican food enthusiast and restaurant owner visiting from Oregon, recently invited me, Ben Herrera Beristain, and Jon Seymour to accompany him for comida (main meal of Mexico's day) at Nicos. An eager sí, cómo no!, and Mexico Cooks! joined Nick's group of friends at table. Faced with the truly difficult choices among Nicos' marvelous appetizers, soups, salads, and main dishes, we of course ordered far too much food, and of course we polished it all off with delight.

Our third entrada (appetizer) was this beautiful plate of trancas—taquitos (small rolled and fried tacos) stuffed with chicken and served with farm-fresh crema de mesa (Mexican table cream, similar to creme fraiche), grated queso fresco (soft white cheese), lettuce, and tomato–plus a small bowl of guacamole.

We ordered two sopas to share. This is what Mexico knows as a sopa seca (dry soup). In this case, it's the very special sopa seca de natas; a 19th century recipe from the convent of the Capuchinas (nuns) in Guadalajara. It's made of crepes, layered with shredded chicken and a sauce made of natas (unpasteurized cream from raw milk), tomatoes, and finely sliced chile poblano. Once the ingredients are layered in a baking dish, they're baked for about an hour and a half.

A soup plate arrives at table already piled with accompaniments for sopa de frijoles, the sopa aguada (liquid soup) we ordered. The shallow bowl holds strips of thinly sliced, fried tortillas, queso Pijijiapan (a white crumbly cheese from the state of Chiapas), lightly fried chile de árbol, and crema de rancho (farm-style cream). Note the name Pijijiapan: it's the only place name in Mexico with five dotted letters in a row! You can count on Mexico Cooks! for this sort of fascinating trivia.

Absolutely delicious sopa de frijoles (bean soup), based on an ayocote (white runner bean) broth flavored with fresh epazote (wormweed) is then ladled atop the soup accompaniments, and our waiter added a few drops of organic olive oil.

The first of our three platos fuertes (main dishes) was adobo de antaño con carne de cerdo con tamal de ejote tierno (pork cooked in an old-fashioned smooth, spicy adobo (sauce) and served with a fresh-corn tamal.

A tiny pot of frijoles negros (black beans), for just a spoonful each to go with our main dishes.

And another tiny pot of frijoles charros (cowboy-style beans with bacon, onion, and tomato). We couldn't have just one pot of beans, right?

Our second main dish: conejo al chile piquín (tender rabbit in a chile piquín sauce), served with ensalada de nopalitos (cactus paddle salad). Next time I am at Nicos, I'll order this dish just for myself. It was unquestionably my favorite–fall-off-the-bone tender rabbit cooked in a supremely delicious sauce. Just try and get me to give you a bite!

This dish of pollo en hoja de aguacate con pulque (boneless chicken with avocado leaf, orange juice, butter, and pulque) was, for me, a close runner-up to the rabbit. Beautifully presented and carrying the subtle flavor of anise-y avocado leaf and earthy pulque, the recipe was created by one of Mexico's foremost chefs and my friend, the great lady Alicia Gironella d'Angeli.

Can you tell that we were simply too stuffed to order dessert? We waddled out of the restaurant into the first downpour of Mexico City's 2013 rainy season, happy to have spent several hours enjoying one another's company and a superb meal. Next time you're in Mexico City, Restaurante Nicos will be a truly memorable experience for you.

Restaurante Nicos
Av. Cuitláhuac 3102, corner of Clavería
Col. Clavería
Del. Azcapotzalco
Mexico City 02080
Tel: 55.5396.7090 (reservations suggested for hours of comida, 2.30-4:00PM)
Hours: Monday through Friday 7.30AM to 7:30PM

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4 de May de 2013
Rajas con Crema :: Chile Poblano Strips with Cream, a Mexican Classic Recipe

The chile poblano is one of the most commonly used fresh chiles in Mexico's kitchen. A very large, fleshy chile, it can measure as much as seven or eight inches long. The stem end is much wider than the point, and the color ranges from dark green to almost black-green. Shopping tip: if you buy chiles poblano that are flat on all sides, they will roast more quickly than if they are lumpy. The flat sides will evenly touch the roasting surface.

The chile poblano is commonly used for preparing main dishes such as chiles rellenos, including the seasonal and festive chiles en nogada. It is also used for making rajas de chile poblano con crema (strips of chile poblano with cream), a marvelously flavorful vegetable side dish. All photos by Mexico Cooks! unless otherwise noted.

To prepare chiles poblano for use in any recipe, wash and roast them. Don't try to use them with the peel on; the peels will be as tough as trying to chew through plastic. Mexico Cooks! uses a cast iron comal (griddle) placed over a high flame to roast as many as four to six chiles at a time. Other cooks prefer to roast these chiles one at a time over an open flame, or on a broiler pan in a slightly open oven. No matter which roasting method you use, the roasted chiles should look like the ones in the above photo. Photo courtesy Maura Hernández.

Once the chiles are roasted, put them in a plastic bag, twist it shut, and allow the chiles to 'sweat' for 10 to 15 minutes. You'll easily be able to remove the blackened peels. It's best not to rinse them, as rinsing removes a good bit of the delicious chile poblano flavor.

After you have peeled your roasted chiles, they will look like this. If just a bit of toasted peel sticks to the chile, it will simply add another layer of flavor to your dish. Click on the photo to enlarge and better see the remaining blackened bits of peel.

Make a slit down the full length of each chile and cut off its stem end. Remove the seeds by brushing them into a trash receptacle.

Chiles poblano, roasted, peeled, and laid flat on a cutting board. The next step is to slice them into strips–rajas, in Spanish.

Rajas, ready to prepare and serve. For this meal, Mexico Cooks! used three large chiles to prepare a side dish for two people.

The ingredients include half a white onion, sliced very thin, and about one-third of a large sweet red pepper, diced. Sauté in hot oil until soft and translucent. Most Mexican cooks use fresh corn kernels in this recipe; I happened to have part of a sweet red pepper that needed to be cooked, so I used that instead.

Peppers and onions, ready for the addition of the chile strips!

Continue to sauté the vegetables until the chiles are soft. Because the chile strips are already roasted, the sauté process will not take long. You do not want your rajas to be over-cooked; they should still be bright green at the end of cooking.

Add about half a cup of crema para la mesa (Mexican table cream or creme fraiche–NOT sour cream) to the vegetable mix. Stir until well incorporated.

The cream will become a thick sauce for the vegetables. Salt to taste. The chile poblano is generally quite mild and flavorful, but once in a while you will come across one that is surprisingly spicy. There's no way to tell by looking at them whether they are mild or hot!

Mexico Cooks! served the rajas de chile poblano con crema topped with strips of chicken breast, lightly dusted with salted flour and sautéed in olive oil seasoned with a smashed clove of garlic. One large chicken breast half made ten strips and was plenty for the two of us for our main meal of the day. The one-dish meal was easy and delicious.

Provecho! (Good eating!)

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27 de April de 2013
Food Fair in Uruapan, Michoacán: Una Muestra de Gastronomía

The Purhépecha woman in the foreground pats out tortillas while her companion sorts through a plate of golden, freshly cut flor de calabaza (squash blossoms).

The first two mornings of the huge annual artisans' crafts fair in Michoacán begin with a food fair: la Muestra de Gastronomía.
Fifteen or so outdoor kitchens, set up around a charming plaza just a
block from the crafts booths, offer cooking demonstrations and
inexpensive meals of representative Purhépecha dishes. The food, rustic
and rarely seen outside a Purhépecha home kitchen, is, in a word,
heavenly. The Mexico Cooks! group trooped
into the food fair just in time for Saturday breakfast. The crowd could have
known who we were by the way our mouths were watering with
anticipation.

Corn is the basis for the indigenous Mexican kitchen, and the
tortilla is the lowest common denominator. On the table in front of
this woman, you can see the metate (three-legged rectangular grinding stone) and the metapil (similar to a rolling pin) resting on it, along with the prepared masa from which tortillas are made. Both the metate and the metapil are hand-carved from volcanic rock.

To the left of the table is the clay comal (similar to a
griddle) that in this instance rests loosely on top of a metal drum in
which the wood cook fire is built. Prior to use, the comal is cured with cal (builders' lime). The cal serves two purposes: it gives the comal a non-stick surface and it adds nutrients to the masa as it toasts.

In the past, all of Mexico's women prepared dried corn for masa by soaking and simmering it in a solution of water and cal. The name of the prepared corn is nixtamal. Once it's processed, it's ready to be ground into masa for tortillas, tamales, and other corn-dough preparations. Some rural women still grind nixtamal-ized corn by hand using the metate and metapil. Some take the prepared corn to their neighborhood tortillería (tortilla vendor's shop) for grinding, and some prepare their masa
using commercial dried corn flour. In urban areas, the majority of
Mexican families buy tortillas hot off the tortilla baker at the tortillería and carry them home, wrapped in a special towel, just in time for a meal.

This woman prepares her stove, made of part of a metal drum with an
opening cut away for firewood. She's spreading a paste made of wood
ash and cal on and around the top of the the drum to hold the comal in place. The white streaks on the red clay comal are cal. The volcanic rock metate and mano are on the bench in the background. Her well-used clay cooking pot is visible to your left.

This joyous woman is patting out blue corn tortillas. The masa and metapil are on the metate in front of her. She's toasting the tortillas and roasting tomatoes and chiles on her clay comal. The comal is set into a clay stove fired by wood. The haze that you see is woodsmoke.

The Purhépecha kitchen repertoire includes numerous atápakuas (literally, a type of thick, soup-like salsa served plentifully over prepared food). The Purhépecha word atápakua has meaning deeper than its simple definition. Its connotation is food that is picante (spicy), nutritious, and life-sustaining in a spiritual sense. Mexican culinary historians agree that the preparation of atápakuas
dates from as long as 400 years before the Spanish Conquest, around
1100 AD, when the Purhépecha were strong rulers in the area of Mexico
that is now Michoacán.

An atápakua can be made from the ingredients that are easily
found in the region. The specialty of one tiny village of the Meseta
Purhépecha is atápakua del talpanal (wasp larvae). Another town's specialty is xururi atápakua, the principal ingredient of which is cotton seeds. More commonly, indigenous cooks prepare their atápakuas of seasonal and readily available vegetables along with a bit of meat, poultry, or fish.

We of Mexico Cooks! didn't eat wasp larvae or cotton seeds. We inhaled bowls of atápakua de flor de calabaza (thick, soupy salsa served over squash flowers, fresh corn kernels, and chunks of corundas de ceniza (unfilled tamales made with masa and wood ash).

In the closeup of the atápakua you can clearly see the corn kernels (closest to the bowl of the spoon), small pieces of calabacita (similar to zucchini), orange squash flowers, and a piece of white corunda. For flavor and color, chiles serrano and cilantro are blended into the cooking liquid. The thin, soupy salsa is then thickened by blending a small ball of masa into the hot liquid. This atápakua is deliciously spicy and tastes as fresh as the garden. I finished my portion and wanted another bowl.

Photo by Steve Sando, www.ranchogordo.com

Churipo, shown above, is one of my favorite Purhépecha specialties. Churipo is a hearty soup, the delicious broth flavored by long cooking with beef, cabbage, calabacitas, xoconostle (the sour fruit of a specific nopal cactus), onion, chile, and other ingredients. Served with a squeeze of limón (Mexican lime), a sprinkle of coarse sea salt, tortillas hot off the comal and corundas de ceniza broken up in the bowl, it's a wonderful meal in one dish. If your palate will take the heat, eat some raw chiles serrano along with your bowl of churipo. Remember that the tip of any chile is less picante than the stem end, where most of the seeds are.

Late in the afternoon, after we'd investigated as many of the crafts
booths as we could, we were all in need of something very light and
fresh for our comida (middday meal). We ordered a fruit plate and a plate of guacamole with totopos (triangular fried tortilla chips) at a local restaurant.

For dessert we found limones, with the pulp scraped away, candied and stuffed with cocada (coconut candy). Half of one of these is plenty!

This was such a sweet finish to a fascinating day in Michoacán. If
you'd like to travel to this event in 2014, be sure to email Mexico Cooks! in time to save your place for adventure.

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13 de April de 2013
Chilaquiles Caseros con Huevo :: Home-Style Chilaquiles with Egg

The ingredients for home-style chilaquiles with egg are very simple. This easy-to-prepare, traditionally Mexican dish makes a perfect lunch or supper for a Lenten Friday, or for any day.

Many years ago, long before the Internet burst onto the world scene and long before Mexico Cooks! was even a glimmer in my eye, a close friend from Michoacán taught me to prepare several platillos mexicanos estilo casero (home-style Mexican dishes). I've written about my dear friend Sister Celia Gutiérrez Cortés before; more than 30 years ago, she introduced me to many of Mexico's joys that continue to reward me today.

Sister Celia Gutiérrez Cortés in 1982

Chilaquiles are one of Mexico's most comforting of comfort foods. A mere mention of the word in casual conversation with Mexican friends will bring forth memories, stories, and recipes for their favorite ways of preparing them. They can be como mi mamá los hacía (like my Mom used to make them), estilo el restaurante en donde almorzábamos en aquel entonces (the way the restaurant where we had brunch in the old days prepared them), or–like these–como me los enseñó mi querida amiga (like my dear friend taught me). Enjoy!

Chilaquiles Caseros con Huevo
(Home-Style Chilaquiles with Egg)

Ingredients
10-12 eggs
1/4 cup milk
Sea salt to taste
Bottled red salsa to taste (the salsa in the photo is Chapala brand, but you can use salsa Cholula, Tabasco or something similar)
2 fresh chiles serrano (use just one, if you prefer your food less picante (spicy)
1 medium white onion
16-20 stale tortillas, the staler the better.
Vegetable oil

Utensils
12" non-stick skillet
Mixing bowl
Wire whisk
Spatula

Procedure

Break eggs into your mixing bowl. Add milk, sea salt, and bottled salsa. (I give the bottle 6-8 thumps on the bottom.) Whisk thoroughly until all ingredients are completely mixed together.

Finely mince the chiles. Cut the onion into 1/2 inch dice.

In your skillet, heat oil until it shimmers. Add the diced onion and minced chiles and sauté until the onions are soft and translucent, but not browned.

While the vegetables are cooking, cut or rip the tortillas into 1.5" squares, into triangles, or into 2" X 3/4" rectangles. The shape doesn't matter and each tortilla piece does not have to be exactly the same as the other.

Once the vegetables are soft, add the tortilla pieces to the skillet and sauté until they are browned and moderately crunchy. The onions will caramelize during this step.

When the tortillas are moderately crunchy–and they don't need to be as hard as packaged chips, just nicely crisped–add the beaten egg mixture to the skillet.

Cook over medium heat until the eggs are well-set but not hard. You will notice that, as the eggs begin to cook, the surfaces of the tortillas will appear to be slick and shiny. That's the egg mixture. The tortillas will lose that shine; when it's gone, you'll know that they are done.

If there is half a chicken breast left over from a previous meal, you can cut it into strips and toss it into the chilaquiles.

Divide the chilaquiles onto four plates. Drizzle with Mexican crema para la mesa (table cream–NOT sour cream), if you can find it. Serve with refried beans, sliced ripe avocado, and a refreshing cold beverage.

Makes four generous servings. Provecho!

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16 de March de 2013
Fresh Blackberries Grown in Michoacán :: Rica Zarzamora Producto de Michoacán

Blackberries are one of the staples of the Mexico Cooks! kitchen. In season nearly year-round, Mexico's blackberries are primarily grown in the state of Michoacán. This bowlful of delicious blackberries is being crushed with Splenda® and a pinch of salt to add to breakfast yoghurt.

In 1994, the commercially cultivated blackberry first arrived in the area around Los Reyes, Michoacán. High in the mountains, Los Reyes offered a perfect climate for the Brazos variety of erect blackberries. Originally, the commercial growers planted only three hectáreas (about 6 acres) of berries. Developed at Texas A&M University and
introduced in 1959, 'Brazos' has been the Texas standard
for years and is still a great variety. The berries are
large and the plants produce heavily. In Michoacán, this variety starts ripening early in May.
The berries are a little acid and are better for cooking
and canning than fresh eating. This variety has more
thorny plants and larger seeded fruit than many of the
improved varieties. In fact, the blackberries offered in Mexico's markets are huge, about an inch long by half an inch in diameter–as big as the ball of my thumb.

Brazos blackberries 'on the hoof'.

Since those 1994 beginnings, local growers have learned a tremendous amount about the cultivation of blackberries. Today, the fruit fields cover more than 4,500 hectáreas in the area of Los Reyes, Tocumbo, and Peribán–almost all in the west-central highlands of Michoacán. The 2009 production reached a weight of 30,000 tons of blackberries–tons! Ninety percent of those were exported to the United States, the primary foreign market. The rest went to Europe and Japan. This quantity of blackberries represents 95% of those grown in Michoacán and 90% of those grown anywhere in Mexico. This rinconcito (tiny corner) of Mexico produces more blackberries than anywhere else in the world.

Shortly before Christmas, Mexico Cooks! was unable to find unsweetened, unflavored yoghurt in our neighborhood shops–and there was a liter of blackberries in the refrigerator that needed to be eaten immediately. They had been destined for breakfast, but one morning se me prendió el foco (the light bulb went on in my brain) and I thought: COBBLER! In the bowl is the entire liter of berries, mixed with sugar, the juice and some grated zest of a limón (key lime), and a bit of cornstarch.

Blackberry cobbler, as you might have guessed, is not in the Mexican food repetoire. However, when all of the ingredients are grown or made in Mexico, maybe it should be. In the photo are salt, baking powder, an egg, two limones, standard-grade sugar, milk, and freshly rendered pork lard. Lard, so shoot me!

Pre-heat the oven to 425ºF and butter a glass baking dish.

Scoop the blackberry mixture into the pan and gently even it out.

Measure the shortening (you can use solid vegetable shortening if you prefer not to use lard). I always use the displacement method to measure solid shortening: for this 1/4 cup of lard, I started with 1 3/4 cups of cold water in this clear measuring cup. I added lard until the water rose to the two-cup level, then emptied out the water. Bingo, 1/4 cup of lard and no mess.

The flour mixture that will become the dough for topping the cobbler. You see the lard on top of the flour mixture, ready to be worked into it.

The flour mixture should look like this when you finish working the lard into it.

Break an egg into the milk and beat with a fork till blended.

The cobbler, topped with raw dough and ready for the oven. Sprinkle the raw dough with sugar to give it a finished look after baking. The cornstarch that I mixed with the raw blackberries and sugar thickens the juices as the cobbler bakes.

Bake the cobbler for about half an hour, or until the dough is light golden brown. Your house will smell heavenly!

Here's the entire recipe:

Blackberry Cobbler
Ingredients
4-6 cups fresh blackberries
3/4 cup sugar, divided use
1 Tbsp lemon juice
zest of 1/2 lemon
1 Tbsp cornstarch

2 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 tsp salt
1 Tbsp baking powder
1/4 cup shortening–in this instance, lard
4 Tbsp butter
1 whole egg
1/2 cup milk

Preparation
Preheat your oven to 425ºF.

Butter the glass baking dish. Mix blackberries, 1/2 cup sugar, cornstarch, lemon juice, and lemon zest in a large mixing bowl. Reserve.

In a separate bowl, mix the flour, salt, baking powder, and 1 or 2 Tbsp sugar. Add the shortening and butter and work them into the flour with your fingers, until the mixture looks like coarse corn meal.

Measure 1/2 cup milk into a large measuring cup; break the egg into the milk. Beat with a fork until well blended. Pour the milk/egg mixture into the flour/shortening mixture and stir until smooth. The dough should not be sticky; if you need to add more flour, start with just an additional tablespoon. When the dough is smooth but still quite damp, it's ready.

Pour the blackberry mixture into the glass baking dish and gently even out the berries with your fingers. Put large spoonfuls of dough all over the berries, leaving some small spaces on top for the juice to bubble through. Flatten the dough a little–use your fingers, and don't worry about how it looks. Sprinkle the top of the dough with a tablespoon or two of sugar.

Bake until golden brown, about 30 minutes. A serving of your cobbler, topped with a scoop of vanilla ice cream, will look like this–truly a thing of beauty.

The finished product: blackberry cobbler, hot out of the oven and topped with rich real-cream vanilla ice cream.

What could be better on a chilly winter evening–a taste of Mexican blackberries, from a recipe straight out of your grandmother's kitchen!

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2 de March de 2013