A variation on “Sopa de Lima”, a Yucatecan recipe from my battered copy of “The Cuisines of Mexico”, by Diana Kennedy. (I added avocados and used coconut oil instead of lard, which gave the soup a pleasant tinge of the Caribbean.) In addition to fried tortillas, the bowl is loaded with fortifying ingredients: chicken, chiles, onion, and ten cloves of roasted garlic, all floating in a clear and spicy chicken broth. Top it with lime juice and you have a […]
A Mexican dish without chile is as sad as mashed potatoes without butter. But the fun stops if you handle chiles and then accidentally touch your eye. As you may have noticed, the oil in a chile that makes it taste hot can also induce a chemical burn to the toughest skin on your hands. Even the mildest chile has had me running for a faucet, and the hotter ones dredged up expletives I hadn’t used in years. WHAT’S THE BIG […]
If you’re still on the fence about a trip to Mexico, you’ll tip to the southern side when you read Javier Cabral’s excellent article on exploring the culinary treasures of his family’s ancestral home in Zacatecas. If you still can’t quite spring for a trip, the article’s home site, Saveur Magazine, offers excellent strategies for bringing Mexico to your kitchen, including Javier’s aunt’s recipe for Gorditas Zacatecanas.
Editor’s note: If Steve were still with us, no doubt this list would be longer…much longer. As it was, we had to rely on our panel of bickering in-house experts: Carl Franz, El Codo, and me, Churpa. Lorena was not available for comment and will no doubt be horrified by the preponderance of meat dishes. You may live in Portland or Seattle or New York, and your local Mexican joint may be a bistro that serves ‘authentic moles, farm to […]
Just had a great visit with our friends Mark and Jazmin, who live on the coast of Guerrero, about an hour outside of Zijuatanejo. They report that things seem to be cooling off in their area. Last year they made do with a decrepit, rusty truck because they were worried about car jackings. This year, crime seems low enough that they feel comfortable bringing a better vehicle down. I’ll keep you posted. In addition to filling us in on the […]
Steve Rogers, late co-editor of The People’s Guide to Mexico, was a serious student of Mexican customs and cuisine. Sometime back through the mists of time, I remember a Mexican woman teaching Lorena and me how to make Chile Rellenos. I remember the recipe which I have used over the years much better than the circumstances at the time, but I believe we were camped north of Mazatlán in an area of hotels, stores and condos now known as the […]