Mexican Cooking School - Part One

Kaarina

When I booked a condo in Akumal, Mexico, for a 12-day break from winter, I sought my Epitour pals’ help with the culinary research. I asked each to make a Mexican dish of their choice for our January Epitourist lunch. My personal mission was to learn what to do with some of the ingredients  - vegetables, herbs, cheeses - that I’ve seen at markets in México. I laid claim to tomatillos and poblano peppers, Mexican cheeses and Crema.

I laid claim to tomatillos and poblano peppers

Laura went the extra mile, ordering a tortilla press so we’d have home-made tortillas for her pork Carnitas. Caroline came up with the most elegant of all comfort foods - beef ribs and beans, which is short for Costillas de Res Guisadas con Chile de Árbol, Alubias, Hingis y Cerveza! Diane won the beauty contest with her roasted squash with kale and a mango platter.
I had chosen Mely Martínez as my culinary tour guide. Her blog offers exactly the kind of guidance I was looking for: Good basic home cooking with ingredients that would be readily available even in a tourist zone, straightforward recipes which do not require special equipment and are reasonably quick. Who wants to spend hours in the kitchen when there’s a reef and a lagoon full of damsel, angel and parrotfish waiting to be explored?

Queso Fresco with Salsa Verde, scooped up with corn tortilla chips, fit the bill perfectly - quick, fresh, delicious, nutritious and filling. The crisp raw tomatillos contrast nicely with the creaminess of the fresh cheese. Equally good in the afternoon with a cold Dos Equis or a white Albariño from northwestern Spain. (Pinot Grigio or Sauvignon Blanc will do in a pinch.)

Queso Fresco con Salsa Verde

Roasted Tomatillo and Chicken soup launched my obsession with tomatillos, which look like little green tomatoes wrapped in a papery husk. Roasted and puréed into home-made chicken stock along with onions, garlic, jalapeño and cilantro gets the tastebuds jumping. As comfort foods go, its bright crisp flavours can’t be beat on a cold winter day. Mexican Crema is a lovely finishing touch for this soup. Its unique tang makes it worth searching out, even more so for other dishes such as the poblano peppers with cream. I found crema at Perola’s Latin supermarket in Toronto’s Kensington Market, along with tomatillos (fresh and canned), Poblano peppers and Mexican cheeses.

I was less successful with my Poblano pepper experiments. I suppose I was put off by a super hot patch I came across despite Poblanos’ benign reputation on the heat scale. I also found that everything I put the dark green peppers into turned out looking like sludge. I opted for Poblano rajas with cream for our Epitourist lunch and added corn just to cheer things up a bit.  We served it on tortillas with grated Mexican Cotija cheese. All in all not that exciting. I much prefer rajas served as a side dish with meat or chicken.

Laura

I had always been looking for an excuse to buy a tortilla press, so when Kaarina proposed a Mexican theme, there was my excuse. After a little online research, I decided to go with the Victoria tortilla press made in Columbia. It is heavy as heck, but apparently is preferable to the lightweight aluminum presses that are quite flimsy and necessitate a lot more muscle power to operate.

We took turns pressing tortillas!

 The recipe for tortillas is on the package of the Maseca brand masa harina (corn flour) that I purchased. It’s as simple as mixing the masa with water and the ratio seems to be the same for all recipes I found. Masa harina is quite easy to find in any good-sized supermarket or Latin-American grocery store. But if you’re really up for a challenge, you could follow this recipe and tutorial that Kaarina found. Here is the method for using this particular  press https://www.seriouseats.com/2010/06/how-to-make-tortillas-slideshow.html. It was really quite fun pressing the little balls of dough. We all took turns pressing tortillas in the kitchen before our feast.

I purchased a half-pig share from a local farmer and I’m always happy to cook up some pork. So I chose to make Double-Pork Carnitas.
The addition of pork belly really added to the flavour. And I’m sure the heritage-breed, pasture-raised pork made a big difference as well. Sometimes good quality ingredients prepared simply are the best.

Double-Pork Carnitas and Poblano Rajas with Cream

Caroline

My knowledge of Mexican cuisine is slight. I do know that it has nothing to do with Tex-Mex, an Americanized style frowned upon by people-in-the-know. I called up our friend Alex who has a broad knowledge of the cuisine, having lived in Mexico City and who's partner is Mexican. He claims that Mexican cuisine was developed in a culture where women were available for days to prepare a meal. He mentioned a couple of "authorities": 1. Diana Kennedy who is traditional and elaborate. 2. Rick Bayless, chef and owner of numerous Chicago eateries and bars, who is authentic but with a simplified approach. Well, as much as I like a challenge, I opted for the easy road and looked up Rick and discovered that he has a great website promoting all that he does: how-to videos from his Mexico - One Plate at a Time, recipes, links to his collection of restaurants and bars. ¡Ay, caramba! he's a busy man. I love anything slowly braised so I chose his recipe for Braised Short Ribs with Árbol Chiles, White Beans, Mushrooms and Beer.

A fine line-up of ingredients!

Of course, I tested the recipe on Jimmy first. We were blown away by the rich, earthy flavours of the beans. Plus what is not to like about fork tender meat falling off the bone? I have made this dish a total of four times in three weeks. It is absolute stick-to-your ribs, winter, comfort food.

What makes this dish? The perfect melding of ALL the ingredients. The árbol peppers fried in olive oil deliver a fragrant smokiness (I must confess that I was reluctant to use the 8 peppers that the recipe calls for as they rate 15,000 - 30,000 on the Scoville Index). Once fried, I set them aside and put only a few back in for the 2 1/2 hours of oven braising.

I was surprised that Chef Bayless used canned white beans, definitely a quick and easy thing to do. I pressure cooked navy beans and they were at the ready in less than 30 minutes with zero soaking time. I did find that the navy beans melted into the dish. This is why I chose to use Northern beans for our Epitourist lunch. They are of the same "white bean" family but are bigger and withstand the long braising period better than the navy bean. The recipe calls for a full-flavoured beer. I just happened to have a bottle of 17 Grande Réserve on hand from Chambly, Québec's Unibroue. It is brewed once a year in the style of a strong, dark Belgian beer. Perfect pairing. Guinness also works wonders in this stew.

Well, I must say, I am hooked and want to cook more of this fine cuisine. ¡Buen aproveche!

Beer, beef and beans!

Diane

I appreciated the Mexican theme on such a bleak, wintry January day. Since so much meat was already on the menu I thought of fruit, beautiful orange and succulent and juicy mango. When I visited Zihuataneho years ago there were vendors with mangoes on a stick, and the fruit was covered in a brown mole sauce. NOT very visually appealing and if I learned one thing on those trips it was not to eat fruit from strangers at fruit stands.

Mangoes may seem fairly straightforward, but I did research! Specifically, fancy fruit carving, and checked out several YouTube videos. Alas, the mango fish and cucumber carvings didn't make it to the afternoon fete, although I did entertain my family with my sculptures. It was actually kind of fun but not entirely in keeping with the Mexican theme, so for the Epitourist lunch I served up the mango with cilantro, chile, and cococut Saveur style.

Mango Saveur Style!

The January edition of Bon Appetit arrived in my mailbox a few days before the lunch. In it I found a Roasted Winter Squash with Kale Pipian recipe. Bright orange squash jumped off the page with more sunny colour for our winter table! I followed the recipe from Mexican chef Daniela Soto-Innes; however, instead of wilting the kale I roasted it to give a bit of crunch, so when it came time to serve I had to choose between bright orange or crispy green kale as the top layer. Crunch won out!

The coconut-horchata was actually a fair amount of preparation, having to soak rice overnight and try to find a cheesecloth to press the liquid in the morning. The problem was the mixture settled quite heavily and I should have used a blender to whizz it all up into a frenzy before serving. Rum probably would have helped, as well. Ni modo.

Pretty coconut-horchata

To finish, a tasting of Los Arango Tequila Reposado and Silver Patron Tequila.