Making Mexican at home

[C. sapidus]

Calabaza guisada al chipotle: Browned cubes of pork shoulder and fried onions braised with cubed pumpkin, roasted tomatoes, chicken stock, and roasted tomatillo-chipotle salsa. We used pumpkin wedges from the Latino market. Served with arroz blanco and our usual sliced cucumbers.

I’m a big fan of pork and pumpkin. Recipe from Rick Bayless’ Mexican Kitchen. Not sure why my pictures are showing up so small.

[janeer]

Calabaza guisada al chipotle: Browned cubes of pork shoulder and fried onions braised with cubed pumpkin, roasted tomatoes, chicken stock, and roasted tomatillo-chipotle salsa. We used pumpkin wedges from the Latino market. Served with arroz blanco and our usual sliced cucumbers.

I’m a big fan of pork and pumpkin. Recipe from Rick Bayless’ Mexican Kitchen. Not sure why my pictures are showing up so small.

I suppose I could get up and look in my bayless, but I'll just ask. Tomatillos? that looks like tomatoes (jitomate) in the sauce. Whatever it is, looks fabulous.

[C. sapidus]

I suppose I could get up and look in my bayless, but I'll just ask. Tomatillos? that looks like tomatoes (jitomate) in the sauce. Whatever it is, looks fabulous.

Janeer, thank you! The sauce had tomatillos and tomatoes, but the tomatoes were in chunks so they were easier to see. The tomatillos were roasted and blended into a salsa with chipotle chiles and roasted garlic.

[Darienne]

I suppose I could get up and look in my bayless, but I'll just ask. Tomatillos? that looks like tomatoes (jitomate) in the sauce. Whatever it is, looks fabulous.

Janeer, thank you! The sauce had tomatillos and tomatoes, but the tomatoes were in chunks so they were easier to see. The tomatillos were roasted and blended into a salsa with chipotle chiles and roasted garlic.

Well, it looks very delicious and I do have the Bayless book. Thanks, Sapidus.

[Jaymes]

DH and I visited the latest Mexican restaurant to open in our nearby city and talked to the owner. He's quite discouraged. Business is nowhere and he can't use pork at all. Only beef and chicken. And not much more sells than burritos. I wonder who told him Peterborough was a good place to open a Mexican spot. One closed only last year or so.

It's very tempting when one lives in a certain locale to think to oneself, "There are no good, authentic (fill in the blank with whatever) restaurants here, so I'll open one."

Sometimes, it's true, you're the first to fill a need and you're wildly successful. But oftentimes, there is no good, authentic (fill in the blank with whatever) restaurant there, because the people are not familiar with that cuisine, and have no interest in it.

When I lived in Springfield MO, I had a devil of a time finding good Mexican cuisine. Oh, there were plenty of supposedly "good Mexican" restaurants that were recommended to me, but the food had been decidedly dumbed down for local tastes and preferences. After a while I found a really great little restaurant that had just opened, serving authentic Mexican food like rajas, moles, even chiles en nogada. I spoke with the owners, who told me that they thought an authentic Mexican restaurant would be a good idea, "because there isn't one."

I knew they were doomed, so I went as often as I could.

Sure enough, after a year, they closed.

But by then, I had managed to find a few Mexican markets, and some taquerias, etc., that catered to the Mexican workers that have flooded southwestern Missouri to work in all the chicken processing plants.

I know you're in a suburb of Toronto. Seems like a large enough city that there would be some pretty good Mexican markets, and perhaps even a taqueria or two. Or perhaps you could schedule an occasional shopping weekend a little farther south, in Buffalo NY, say, or even Detroit. I'm sure you could find sources there for Mexican products and perhaps a good meal or two.

But whatever, I've enjoyed following your journey and admire your tenacity. Buen provecho.

Edited February 22, 2011 by Jaymes (log)

[Darienne]

Lost my long and extremely witty reply to your post. Rats.

We do NOT live in a suburb of Toronto. Driving distance is 1 1/2 hours on a good day of which there are mostly none and it usually takes 2 1/2 hours to get there. Nuff said.

[C. sapidus]

Another meal from Rick Bayless’ Mexican Kitchen.

Arrachera con chipotle y ajo: Seared skirt steak, roasted garlic, white onion, cumin, black pepper, beef broth, and the rest of the roasted tomatillo-chipotle sauce. Skirt steak was pretty chewy – I think next time I would slice it across the grain between searing and warming in the sauce.

Roasted Poblano and red bell pepper rajas, with white onion, garlic, thyme, and Mexican oregano. Quite delicious.

Not pictured – salad with grape tomatoes and jicama.

[Darienne]

You're only about 14 hours by car. We could come for supper. Looks beautiful!!!

[C. sapidus]

You're only about 14 hours by car. We could come for supper. Looks beautiful!!!

Thank you, Darienne. Sure, stop on by.

[Jaymes]

For dinner tonight, I'm making another "homey" Mexican dish - cheese-stuffed potato patties.

My "Mexican mommy" friends make this with leftover mashed potatoes. We've got some from last night, so we'll eat them up this way. I know of no exact "recipe" for this, and no right or wrong way. Everybody seems to do it differently, according to their family's preferences. Some folks add various seasonings - garlic, onion, chiles, cilantro, etc. You can either add them to the filling, or the potates. One friend says that when she has leftover corn, she likes to mix that in with the mashed potatoes. I'm not sure I've ever seen this in a cookbook, although admittedly, I've never looked.

You take your leftover mashed potatoes (you can use sweet potatoes, if you'd rather), and form a ball. Depending upon how big you want them, you can make them anywhere from the size of a golf ball up to the size of a peach, or even larger. It sort of depends upon how you're going to be serving them - vegetarian main dish; side dish; appetizer. Take your finger and poke a deep hole into the ball. Now, stuff it with cheese. You can use any kind of cheese that you like. I usually use queso fresco or cotija, but if you don't have access to fresh Mexican cheeses, use a mild Cheddar or jack. My dad particularly likes this made with "jalapeno jack," but you can use anything - whatever you like or have on hand. Seal the hole and carefully, so as not to expose the cheese, flatten the ball into a patty. Dust the patty lightly with flour. You can season the flour, or you can sprinkle the patty with salt and pepper or paprika, or whatever else you like. Fry the patties in hot oil until crispy on the outside. Serve immediately with garnishes such as salsa, sour cream, guac, etc.

Edited February 23, 2011 by Jaymes (log)

[rancho_gordo]

It's very tempting when one lives in a certain locale to think to oneself, "There are no good, authentic (fill in the blank with whatever) restaurants here, so I'll open one."

Even here in Napa, which has a huge Mexican population and once was a part of Mexico, most of the food is crap.

It's hard to do real Mexican.

[Darienne]

Even here in Napa, which has a huge Mexican population and once was a part of Mexico, most of the food is crap.

It's hard to do real Mexican.

Not that I am an 'expert' in Mexican cooking, but the regular Mexican restaurants are not what I like. The one restaurant, almost a hole in the wall, which caters to the Mexican and Latino laborers at lunch, has authentic food from a number of different Mexican states, no doubt reflecting the origins of the men who line up to take out lunch every day. (Maybe dinner too...I was never there at dinner time.)

I fear that when the bridge is rebuilt and the widened highway finished, the restaurant will be gone with the laborers.

[Jaymes]

Even here in Napa, which has a huge Mexican population and once was a part of Mexico, most of the food is crap.

It's hard to do real Mexican.

Not that I am an 'expert' in Mexican cooking, but the regular Mexican restaurants are not what I like. The one restaurant, almost a hole in the wall, which caters to the Mexican and Latino laborers at lunch, has authentic food from a number of different Mexican states, no doubt reflecting the origins of the men who line up to take out lunch every day. (Maybe dinner too...I was never there at dinner time.)

I fear that when the bridge is rebuilt and the widened highway finished, the restaurant will be gone with the laborers.

It's been my experience, in Springfield as I stated, but also elsewhere, that just as you say, a food outlet that caters to laborers has to charge very low prices. As soon as you build a nice restaurant, with higher overhead, your prices go up. Hence the "holes in the wall" and the taquerias and taco trucks.

It's not that the Mexicans and Latinos wouldn't go to a "regular Mexican restaurant" if they could. It's just that by and large, they can't afford it. Generally they're working in very low-paid, blue collar jobs. And even if their salary were high enough to be able to afford an occasional evening out in a nice restaurant, they're usually sending most of their money back to their home country, where they're supporting mama and papa and a whole host of other relatives. A $20-30 meal would seem like a huge, and very self-indulgent and wasteful, expenditure.

The places that I have lived that support excellent "nice" Mexican restaurants (Southern California, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas) have a large Mexican-heritage middle and upper class, not to mention enough of a well-traveled and sophisticated populace in general to patronize such establishments.

Edited February 23, 2011 by Jaymes (log)

[EatNopales]

It's very tempting when one lives in a certain locale to think to oneself, "There are no good, authentic (fill in the blank with whatever) restaurants here, so I'll open one."

Even here in Napa, which has a huge Mexican population and once was a part of Mexico, most of the food is crap.

It's hard to do real Mexican.

Aloha amigo... I think I wrote about it on Chowhound... but Alex & I went hounding around the Mex barrios in Sonoma & Napa and I would engage people on their choice of restaurants, the authenticity of the food etc.,.. it was very clear that a common setup is for 20 or so guys to get together and pay a lady (often someone in the group's wife or relative) to shop & cook for them. In Sonoma County you have a number of solid Mex markets that carry huge bounties of Quelites, Calabacitas, Huazontle, Hoja Santa, Acorn Squash, Pepitas, 2 dozen types of dried Chiles, Avocado leaves, whole fish, octopus etc., etc., all the ingredients you would require to prepare seriously authentic Mexican dishes... of course none of the restaurants really carried any dishes with the aforementioned ingredients.. why?

As you mentioned.. it is challenging for a small mom & pop restaurant that needs the burrito / combination eating Mex-American & White College kid crowd to pay the bills.. also take the time to source specialty ingredients & prepare low volume, low margin authentic Mexican dishes.. there is just no money in that.

Plus... if you have 20 guys paying a lady $100 a day + ingredients to provide 2 to 3 meals per day of quality, home cooked, nourishing meals which might turn out to be $20 a day... there is no way the restaurants are going to compete with that.

[EatNopales]

And as long as we're talking about pre-mixed Mexican seasoning staples, here's another one:

Tajín

Pronounced "ta-HEEN," this is on the table in many Mexican homes, right beside the salt and pepper. And if not there, undoubtedly in the pantry spice cabinet. And if it isn't Tajín, it's another brand of essentially the same stuff (there are many), or if there isn't a commercial blend, the Mexican cooks in the family are blending their own.

But someway, somehow, they have a mixture of dried chile powder and salt, with or without lime (or limón) (personally, I much prefer with).

This is sprinkled on all manner of fruits and vegetables. Once you've had a mango or pineapple, for example, with a dusting of Tajín, it's hard to do without it. It's the go-to seasoning for appetizers of jicama, or sliced oranges, or cucumbers. And don't even think of trying to serve corn on the cob without it. Bartenders give a quick shake of it to Bloody Marys, and use it (sometimes with sugar) to rim glasses for a variety of exotic cocktails.

Basically anything that can use a little extra zip of chile, lime and salt benefits from this.

Another of this finishing condiments.. is Salsa Chamoy ( Apricot Brine... salty, sour, sweet & a tad spicy)... it is poured on fresh fruit, cukes, popsicles, sorbet etc.

My link

[Emily_R]

Two nights ago I made a red pork posole in the pressure cooker, and was amazed at how much depth of flavor got developed in what took 30 minutes start to finish, and only 8 or 9 minutes at high pressure! If anyone out there has a pressure cooker I'm happy to PM you the recipe..

[C. sapidus]

Fish tacos with cubed potatoes and creamy salsa verde, garnished with onion, queso fresco, cilantro, and radish matchsticks. We poached a cod fillet in salted water, and then simmered the potatoes in the resulting fish stock. For the sauce, we simmered creme fraiche with salsa verde (delicious!). These were supposed to be enchiladas, but turned into self-serve tacos when a friend stopped by at serving time.

Mrs. C made a delicious corn salsa with chipotle and serrano chiles, tomato, onion, and lime juice.

[Pierogi]

Fish tacos with cubed potatoes and creamy salsa verde, garnished with onion, queso fresco, cilantro, and radish matchsticks. We poached a cod fillet in salted water, and then simmered the potatoes in the resulting fish stock. For the sauce, we simmered creme fraiche with salsa verde (delicious!). These were supposed to be enchiladas, but turned into self-serve tacos when a friend stopped by at serving time.

Mrs. C made a delicious corn salsa with chipotle and serrano chiles, tomato, onion, and lime juice.

Great minds, Bruce ! Over in The Pierogi Blog, I made fish tacos for dinner last night as well....

[EatNopales]

Tacos for dinner / main meal? Soooo... un Mexican

The proper way to eat a main meal is to roll up the tortilla in your left hand, and eat your guisado / stew & side dish with cutlery!

[C. sapidus]

Tacos for dinner / main meal? Soooo... un Mexican

No tacos for dinner tonight, but a delicious meal from Rick Bayless' Mexican Kitchen.

Ancho-marinated whole roast trout, Oaxaca-style (pescado adobado, estilo Oaxaqueno): Whole de-boned trout were marinated in a paste of ancho and chipotle chiles, roasted garlic, Mexican oregano, cumin, cloves, black pepper, cider vinegar, chicken stock, and a touch of sugar. While the trout were baking, I made the sauce - fried onion rings, ancho paste, chicken stock, and the juices from the baking dish. Garnished with radish slices and cilantro. Mrs. C is a tough fish critic, but declared the trout perfectly cooked.

Green Poblano rice (arroz verde al Poblano): Poblano chiles were chopped, simmered with chicken stock, and then blended togethr with a bunch of cilantro. Jasmine rice was fried with white onion and garlic, steamed with the green liquid, and then garnished with roasted chile Poblano rajas. Boys loved the rice, even though they claim to dislike cilantro. Busted!

Edited March 28, 2011 by C. sapidus (log)

[Dejah]

I'll take an order of that, Bruce!

I need to try my hand on some Mexican food. I bought one of Rick Bayless books. Just haven't gotten around to it yet. Maybe during my break in April...

[menuinprogress]

Ancho-marinated whole roast trout, Oaxaca-style

That trout looks amazing, and those flavors sound great!

[EatNopales]

Tacos for dinner / main meal? Soooo... un Mexican

No tacos for dinner tonight, but a delicious meal from Rick Bayless' Mexican Kitchen.

Ancho-marinated whole roast trout, Oaxaca-style (pescado adobado, estilo Oaxaqueno): Whole de-boned trout were marinated in a paste of ancho and chipotle chiles, roasted garlic, Mexican oregano, cumin, cloves, black pepper, cider vinegar, chicken stock, and a touch of sugar. While the trout were baking, I made the sauce - fried onion rings, ancho paste, chicken stock, and the juices from the baking dish. Garnished with radish slices and cilantro. Mrs. C is a tough fish critic, but declared the trout perfectly cooked.

Green Poblano rice (arroz verde al Poblano): Poblano chiles were chopped, simmered with chicken stock, and then blended togethr with a bunch of cilantro. Jasmine rice was fried with white onion and garlic, steamed with the green liquid, and then garnished with roasted chile Poblano rajas. Boys loved the rice, even though they claim to dislike cilantro. Busted!

Looks beautiful... well done. BTW, did you roll up a tortilla in your left hand to be used as a palette cleanser between strongly flavored bites?

[C. sapidus]

Dejah, menuinprogress, and EatNopales, thank you for the kind words!

Red chile-braised chicken with potatoes and greens (adobo de pollo de lujo), also from Rick Bayless' Mexican Kitchen. Browned chicken and white onion, braised with chicken stock, red potatoes, Swiss chard, cider vinegar, and the remaining ancho-chipotle paste. White onions for garnish. Family approved!

And, um, corn tortillas, rolled up in my left hand.

[EatNopales]

And, um, corn tortillas, rolled up in my left hand.

Awesome!