EatMx: Real Mexican food, at home and on the road

Getting Scared at a Church

Diablito (little devil) is a spicy, devilish variation on the raspado, the Mexican snow cone.

The one in the photograph below contains diced cucumber and finely cut mango, with hard-packed shaved ice at top and bottom. It's been sprinkled with salt, then finished off with a big pour of tamarind sauce. And it was delicious--very fresh, slightly tinged with chile and sweetened only with natural fruit flavors. 

It's shown on the trunk of somebody's car deep in south Los Angeles, because that was the only way I could get the photo. 

I had been excited about going to a festival at a Latino church, tasting genuine homestyle cooking and mingling with friendly parishioners. One of them had told me about it.

I've had wonderful times at church festivals, but this one didn't turn out as expected. It was like blundering into one of those isolated Oaxacan villages where strangers are not welcome.

As I photographed the makings of a torta (sandwich), I was accosted by a woman who must have been commissioned to investigate. She began to interrogate me and quietly threaten. The photos in my camera would have to be deleted, she said. I put the camera away, but that wasn't enough. She continued to move in on me.

As the situation became increasingly ugly, someone stepped in to stop it. And I got away, with camera intact.

How weird, to have one's good will questioned in a church, of all places, and to leave in fear from what is supposed to be a center of brotherly love and support. 

But I didn't leave without that diablito. And the devil in me made me take its photo--well outside the church grounds.

 

Put Chilorio in Your Tacos

Northern Mexico's chilorio is great taco meat. It's pork seasoned with chiles (the "chil" in chilorio) but also with vinegar, which probably helps to preserve it in the intense heat of the northern deserts.

The following chilorio recipe is from a book called "Chiles" by  Patricia Quintana, an accomplished chef who has the restaurant Izote in Mexico City. 

The book is part of a series on various aspects of Mexican cuisine called "La Cocina de Patricia Quintana." Other topics include meats, fish, poultry, soups, vegetarian dishes, natural foods and desserts. The publisher is Editorial Océano, and the books are in Spanish only.

Look for them at bookstores in Mexico, but you may also find them in supermarkets. I saw several on racks at a Soriana market in the city of Monterrey.

Books in English by Patricia Quintana are available through Amazon. 

But back to chilorio. Making your own is a good idea. I once had a can of chilorio from Mexico, and the fat content was so high I was afraid to eat it. In this recipe Quintana offers oil as an alternative to lard, and you can use less, if you prefer, but the oil also helps to preserve the meat and to keep it moist.

Quintana suggests pounding the meat in a molcajete (I put it in a pan and pounded it with the pestle from my molcajete).  This gives an interesting shreddy consistency, but you can also tear the meat apart with two forks or with your hands. Don't eat it the day you make it. It's much better if it seasons for a day or two in the refrigerator.

CHILORIO
From "Chiles" by Patricia Quintana

2 pounds pork cushion meat or shoulder
Water
Salt
Oil
5 dried ancho chiles
2/3 cup cider vinegar or white vinegar
6 cloves garlic
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1/2 teaspoon  cumin seeds
1/2 teaspoon coriander seeds
10 black peppercorns, freshly ground

Cut the meat in 2/3-inch chunks (it's easier to cut if slightly frozen). Place the meat in a large saucepan. Add water to cover and salt to taste. Bring to a boil over high heat. Then lower the heat and cook, uncovered, until all the liquid has evaporated. Stir occasionally to keep the meat from sticking to the pan.

Sprinkle the meat with 3 to 4 tablespoons oil and cook and stir a few minutes longer.

Place the meat in batches in a large mortar (or saucepan) and pound with a pestle until shredded. Or shred with two forks or by hand. Set aside.

Cut the chiles in half and remove the seeds and veins, then wash them and drain well.

On a hot griddle, roast the chiles for 2 to 3 minutes, turning and flattening with the back of a spoon or a spatula. Remove from heat, place in a bowl and cover with hot water. Let stand 15 minutes, until softened.

Drain the chiles and place them in a blender container. Add 3/4 to 1 cup hot water, the vinegar, garlic, oregano, coriander and cumin seeds and ground pepper. Blend thoroughly.

Heat 2 to 3 tablespoons oil in the saucepan in which the meat was cooked. Add the sauce, mix with the oil and cook briefly. Add the meat and cook over medium heat about 40 minutes, uncovered, or until the sauce is thick. If it becomes too thick, add a little water or the soaking liquid from the chiles. Taste and add more salt if needed.

Eat with hot corn or flour tortillas.

Makes 8 servings.

Mexico Shows Off Its Best: Part 3

8. Freshwater langostinos - These are a specialty of the town of El Fuerte in Sinaloa, where they're called cauque. Prepared with garlic and butter, as in the photo above, the langostinos are delicious and not as expensive as anything this special would be in the United States.

One place you can have them is the Restaurant Paseo de Las Aves, where they're grilled, cooked with garlic or prepared a la Menier (Meunière).

Cauque is just one of the attractions of this historic town with its quiet, romantic streets, pastel-painted buildings, museum and large, peaceful plaza. 

Restaurant Paseo de Las Aves, El Fuerte, Sinaloa. No address available, but the phone is (687) 860-18-61.

9. Pajaritos - These little birds--that's the literal meaning of pajaritos--aren't birds at all but flying fish. They're in season from May to July in Mazatlán. They may not look appetizing, but fried, they're crisp as a chip and delicious to eat with salsa.

 
10. La Gota de Miel - Pancho Villa was assasinated at Hidalgo del Parral, Chihuahua, and you can visit a museum that shows what happened that day. But the town has a sweeter side, especially the candies at La Gota de Miel (drop of honey).

In business since 1932, this famous shop produces handmade candies without preservatives or artificial flavorings.

Dainty little confections of soft milk fudge are topped with nuts, raisins, like those in the photo above, and with coconut, pineapple and other goodies that make them too tempting to resist.

There are cocadas (coconut candies) too and crisp nut candies like those in the photo with the sign. Nuez de la India means Indian nuts, in other words, cashews. 

La Gota de Miel candy shop, Av. 20 de Noviembre 51 and Av. Independencia 85, Hidalgo del Parral,  Chihuahua. (627) 522-1217 and  523-3520.

 

Mexico Shows Off Its Best: Part 2

5. Costillas de res al ataúd. Costillas are beef ribs, and an ataúd is a coffin. That sounds grisly, but in this case the ataúd was an oven, and it did a heavenly job of cooking the ribs.

The key to the flavor was the seasoning, an adobo created by José Viejo Garza, who has a meat shop in the town of Sabinas Hidalgo, Nuevo León.

José cooked chicken in the same adobo--it's next to the ribs on the grill--at an outdoor lunch for visitors and townspeople in a shady park called Ojo de Agua.

6. Coyame Sotol. Made from a wild desert plant called Dasylirion wheeleri, sotol is the liquor of choice in the state of Chihuahua.  It's so popular it's even sung about in the famous "Corrido de Chihuahua."

I tasted several brands, but Coyame was the one I would have put in my suitcase, if there had been room. It had lots of character and the intriguing smoky taste of a good mezcal.  Unfortunately, I only saw it once, at a tasting in Chihuahua city.

The golden reposado is in the photo. There is also a colorless tradicional and a nut-flavored reposado.

The name comes from Coyame del Sotol, a municipality in Chihuahua state.

7. Mennonite baked goods. There are 40,000 Mennonites in Chihuahua state, and you can learn their history and get an idea of their lifestyle if you visit the Menonite museum (the building in the photo at the bottom), which is located near Ciudad Cuauhtémoc.

Exhibits include a model kitchen, bedroom, dining table, old wood-burning stove and more, and you can buy potholders and other handicrafts in the shop.

But what has made the Mennonites famous in Mexico is their cheese. Their home cooking is also very good, judging from a tasting for my tour group at the museum. 

We tried Mennonite sausages and ate cookies (right) that were extraordinary, as if the gentle philosphy of the bakers had permeated the dough. 

The buns that were set out for sandwiches (above) were light and airy, with a touch of whole wheat and such good flavor that you wanted to eat them plain in order to enjoy the taste.

Museo y Centro Cultural Menonita, Km. 10, Carretera Cuauhtémoc to Alvaro Obregon, Ciudad Cuauhtémoc, Chihuahua. (625) 593-1895.

Mexico Shows Off Its Best: Part 1

We've looked at  L.A. style Mexican food. Now let's see the real thing--in Mexico.

This top 10 comes from northern Mexican states that were on the itinerary of Aromas y Sabores, a tour that brought together chefs, food people and writers from Mexico, Spain, Portugal, South America and the United States. The tour was organized by Patricia Quintana, Mexico City celebrity chef and cookbook author.

We roamed the country by bus, dropped into small towns, chatted with local cooks, ate their food at stalls set up for receptions and lunches, dined  in a dizzyingly high  mountain grotto, in historic buildings and in restaurants old and recently opened.

Everything was good enough to stand out, so this limited list, which is divided into three parts, is only a small sample of what we liked.

1. Believe it or not, purple tamales do exist. Those at the top are from El Mesón de Los Laureanos in El Quelite, a town not far from Mazatlán in the state of Sinaloa.  The husks get their color from  water boiled with palo de brasil (Brazil wood), which gives off a deep and startling pink.

Made with beef fat rather than the usual  pork lard, these tamales had no filling. Oddly,  they tasted rather like hardboiled eggs, which is appropriate given their Easter egg coloring. 

El Mesón de Los Laureanos, Callejón Dr. Fco. Bernal No.1, El Quelite, Sinaloa. (669) 965-4143.

2. And then there were the extraordinary tamales de requesón at Restaurante QuinMart in Culiacán, Sinaloa. Requesón, a cheese  similar to fine ricotta, was blended with the masa rather than spooned in like a filling.  After steaming, the tamales were bathed with a creamy poblano chile sauce, topped with Chihuahua cheese and broiled to melt the cheese. They were heavenly.

Restaurante QuinMart, Riva Palacio 450 NTE, between Hidalgo and A. Flores, Culiacán, Sinaloa.  (667) 713-8142.

3. I've eaten all kinds of paletas (popsicles) in Mexico, some little more than fresh fruit frozen onto a stick. But I've never seen biznaga paletas, made from the barrel cactus.  These were brought to an outdoor reception at the town of Salinas de Hidalgo in San Luis Potosí on a day so hot and dry that offering them  was an act of mercy. As you can see, the heat was so overwhelming that I couldn't wait for the photograph to take a bite.  

4. The flaky breads called campechanas take great skill to make. Too often they are tough and chewy in the center rather than flaky all the way through. The best I have ever eaten came from the kitchens of Casa Madero, Mexico's oldest winery, which is near Parras in the state of Coahuila. They were small, divinely crisp, crunchy with sugar and stole the show from everything else at breakfast there.

Casa Madero, Parras de la Fuente, Coahuila.  01(800) 623-3702. In Parras, 52 (84) 2422-0055.

Welcome to Mexico, LA Style: Part 3

Homegirl Cafe, located on a corner just east of Chinatown, serves good Mexican food but has a larger mission than that. It's a training facility for former gang members and other at-risk young people. They're learning the ropes so they can go out into the restaurant  business on their own. 

Among their dishes are tostadas, reduced to appetizer size here and topped with beef tinga, which is shredded beef in a red chile sauce. 

Homegirl Cafe, 130 Bruno St., corner Alameda, Los Angeles, CA 90012. (323) 268-9353. 

Sofiy isn't a restaurant. It's a place you call to order antojitos (little dishes for snacking) typical of the Mexican state of Michoacán. Or to schedule a catering job.

Here are two of their offerings, a sweet corn tamal with green salsa--there's no filling in order to play up the natural taste of the corn. The other is a little tostada of raw beef ceviche.

Sofiy, (323) 671-8485. 

And for the morning after, there's nothing nicer than pan dulce, Mexican sweet bread.  The most popular breads are conchas (shells), with a sugary topping that resembles a shell.

These conchas were made by Carnitas Uruapan Deli & Bakery. They come both large and small and with plain or chocolate-flavored topping. They're so light, you could easily eat a dozen.

Carnitas Uruapan Deli & Bakery, 2102 E. Cesar Chavez Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90032. (323) 265-2474.

Welcome to Mexico, LA Style: Part 2

 
You can have Oaxaca's famous black mole at the Casa Oaxaca in Santa Ana, along with red and yellow moles, Zapotec style grilled cactus, pizza-like tlayudas, squash flower empanadas and many other regional dishes.

But nothing could be more spectacular than this display of typical sweets. The pastry barquillos at the top ooze sweet thickened milk. Below them are turrones, delicate shells that hold meringue as fluffy, pale and light as a cloud.

Casa Oaxaca, 3317 W. 1st St., Santa Ana, CA 92703. (714) 554-0905.

A place called La Sandía, which means the watermelon, would have to have a signature watermelon dish, right?  It's the salad on the pick at the right, watermelon chunks threaded with panela cheese and arugula. On the left is adobo shrimp.  

If you can tear yourself away from the food, La Sandía has tequila ambassadors, who pour flights and conduct tastings at your table.

La Sandía Mexican Kitchen & Tequila Bar, 395 Santa Monica Place, Santa Monica, CA 90401. (310) 393-3300.  

Sopes are little masa cakes, and this one is filled with chicken in Oaxacan green mole. James Shaw of Lotería Grill modeled his mole on a recipe by the beloved Mexican cooking authority. Diana Kennedy. The fresh mixture includes chard, chiles and squash seeds.  

Lotería Grill has locations in Los Angeles and Studio City. The original is at the Farmer's Market, 6333 W. 3rd St., Los Angeles 90036. (323) 930-2211.

 

Guisados in East Los Angeles specializes in homestyle cooking but keeps up to date with such things as duck tacos, the meat cooked carnitas style in lard and oil. 

Here are a few shreds of that duck tucked along with tomatillo salsa into a soft flour tortilla for a snack on the run.

Guisados, 2100 E. Cesar Chavez Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90033. (323) 264-7201.