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

How to Get a Recipe: Ride the Bus

Some people get recipes from books and magazines, others from the Internet. But I got this one while riding on a bus, L.A. Metro's line 20, which runs along Wilshire Boulevard.

Heading toward Beverly Hills, I struck up a conversation with a Salvadoran woman. She started to tell me about her pollo guisado, a chicken dish so interesting that I wanted to make it at once.

Unfortunately, I had to get off before she could give me all the details. In our hurried exchange, she couldn't think of the actual name of an ingredient she called semilla blanca (white seed).  

Studying Salvadoran cookbooks, I figured this was sesame seed. We had already eliminated such possibilities as white peppercorns. 

I had to guess at quantities and procedures, but the chicken turned out very well. The flavor was extraordinary, unlike anything I have made before.

It's so like a Mexican mole that I am including it in EatMx.com. The best part is, you can make the sauce one day, cook the chicken the next and then combine them. What could be easier than that? 

POLLO GUISADO
From an Unknown Salvadoran Woman

The Sauce:

1 pound tomatoes
3 dried California chiles
2 cloves garlic
1 tablespoon raw pepitas
1/4 cup almonds, blanched
1 1/2 teaspoons coriander seeds
1 1/2 teaspoons sesame seeds
1 teaspoon powdered chicken stock base
1/2 teaspoon curry powder
1/4 teaspoon anise seeds

On a griddle lightly sprayed with nonstick spray, roast the tomatoes, chiles and garlic. Remove the chiles as soon as they are softened and fragrant, about 1 1/2 minutes. Continue roasting the tomatoes and garlic until spotted with black. Separately, roast the pepitas in a covered skillet until lightly browned.

Remove the stems and rinse out the seeds from the chiles. Tear them into pieces and place in a small saucepan. Add water to cover and bring to a boil. Turn off the heat and let the chiles stand until softened.

Remove the loose peel and stems or stem ends from the tomatoes. Cut them in halves or quarters if large. In a blender container, combine the tomatoes, drained chiles, garlic, pepitas, almonds, coriander seeds, sesame seeds, chicken stock base, curry powder and anise seeds. Blend 2 minutes, stopping and starting the blender several times. 

Remove the sauce to a container with a lid.  Rinse out the blender with a small amount of water, or use some of the broth, if you are cooking the chicken the same day. If preparing the sauce in advance, cover the container and refrigerate it overnight. Makes 2 cups sauce.

The Chicken:

2 pounds boneless chicken pieces
3 cups water 
1 wedge onion
1 clove garlic
Salt

Place the chicken in a Dutch oven. Add the water, onion, garlic and salt to taste. Bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer, loosely covered, 30 minutes for breast meat, a little longer for dark meat. Turn off the heat and let stand in the broth until cooled. Drain off the broth and reserve. Set aside the chicken.

Place the sauce in the pan in which the chicken was cooked. Bring just to a boil. Add the chicken pieces. Simmer, loosely covered, 15 minutes, or until heated through. If the sauce has become too thick, thin with some of the broth. Reserve any remaining broth for another use. 

Serve the chicken covered with the sauce. Accompany with rice.

Makes 4 servings. 

Getting Away With--Mole!

My mole paste almost didn't get through airport check-in when I left Ixtapa-Zihuatanejo. That would have been a shame. I had tasted mole rojo so delicious at a fonda in the Zihuatanejo market that I wanted to copy it at home.

No problem. A stall in the market (above) sold the mole rojo paste, which comes from the town of Teloloapan in the state of Guerrero, where Ixtapa-Zihuatanejo is located.

I bought half a kilo and put it in my carry-on. Big mistake. The guy who examined my bag wouldn't allow the mole to go through. When I protested, I was sent out of the check-in area to confer with airline officials. They couldn't help.

In a sneaky move, I checked back in at a different counter. This time, the mole paste survived.  No need to hide it. The inspector examined it and put it back in my bag. 

Heartbreak avoided, I could now think without regret of the delicious comida corrida I had eaten at Fonda Melania in the Zihuatanejo market. The 40-peso menu (about $3) included the mole rojo with chicken, beans, rice, handmade corn tortillas and a drink, agua de limón (limeade). The menu above shows the other options. 

The big, rustic tortillas were made to order, and I could have as many as I wanted. 

Soon, a roving vendor (above) sat down at the counter, parked his candied apples and ordered the same mole. 

Teloloapan is famous for mole, and people make their own paste at home, so there must be many variations. The one I bought is spicy and not sweet. The mole at the fonda was sweeter, so perhaps the cook had seasoned it to her own taste. 

I've seen Teloloapan red mole paste in Mexican markets in Los Angeles, sold either in bulk or in containers that don't indicate what company makes it or where it is actually made. 

If you want the real thing, you can get it from Rivas Food Company in Santa Ana, which is run by a family from Teloloapan. Their paste comes in tubs of various sizes. If it's too spicy for you, Julian Rivas (above) suggests adding a little sugar.

Here is my version of the mole rojo from Zihuatanejo. It isn't sweet, but you can add sugar until it tastes the way you like it.  

POLLO EN MOLE ROJO DE TELALOAPAN
Chicken in Red Mole from Telaloapan

2 pounds chicken thighs or drumsticks, skinned and fat removed
4 cups water
1 slice onion
2 cloves garlic
2 bay leaves
10 peppercorns
Salt to taste
1 tablespoon oil
1/2 cup Teloloapan red mole paste
2 cups broth 

Place the chicken in a Dutch oven. Add the water, onion, garlic, bay leaves, peppercorns and salt to taste. Bring to a boil. Reduce the heat and simmer 45 minutes, loosely covered. Turn off the heat and let the chicken cool in the broth.

When ready to serve, drain the chicken, reserving the broth. Set aside 2 cups broth for the mole. Save the remainder for another use such as to cook rice.

Clean the Dutch oven. Add the oil and heat.  Stir in the mole paste until smooth, then slowly add 2 cups chicken broth, stirring until smooth.  

Bring the sauce to a boil, reduce the heat and simmer, uncovered, 10 minutes, or until slightly thickened. Taste the sauce. If you prefer sweeter mole, add sugar. 

Add the drained chicken pieces and reheat in the sauce.

Serve the chicken and mole sauce with rice, beans if desired and hot tortillas. 

Makes 4 servings. 

Getting a Recipe in Yucatán

Before the Internet, women used to exchange recipes over the back fence.

That still happens, even without the back fence. At Cenote Xocempich in Yucatán, I took part in an outdoor exchange around a hot comal where Mayan women were making tortillas.

As they worked, they handed me fresh tortillas so hot that I could hardly hold them, the pure corn flavor and aroma so potent that I couldn't stop eating them. A few minutes later, they wouldn't taste the same. 

And so I lingered at the comal, set over a wood fire on the ground. Soon the conversation turned to what the women cook at home, dishes like achiote-seasoned chicken steamed in banana leaves, tortillas spread with pepitas (squash seeds) mixed with beans and baked and pollo (chicken) mechado.

When I asked about that last dish, María del Socorro Alcocer (at left in the photo at the top) gave me her recipe. She told me to marinate the chicken with sour orange juice and recado blanco, grilll it, then simmer it with grilled chile xcatik, onions and garlic, as in the photo above.

So simple, except at home I can't get sour oranges or recado blanco, a Yucatecan spice blend.

I solved that by going to the market in Mérida, where I bought the recado in two versions, a paste and a powder. Then I recreated the powdered mix with the ingredients that María had described, tasting my blend side by side with the real thing.

Chile xcatik wasn't a problem. It's like our pale yellow güero chiles. Sour orange juice was more difficult. I hear that people from Yucatán grow sour oranges in Los Angeles, but I haven't seen them in markets.

For the small amount that I needed, I blended orange juice with Meyer lemon juice, which is less sharply acidic than the juice of other lemons. 

Here is the recipe, with thanks to María. Taste the yellow chiles before you use them. Sometimes they are mild, but those I bought turned my pollo into one very fiery bird.   

POLLO MECHADO
From María del Socorro Alcocer 

2 pounds chicken pieces, such as thighs,  weighed after they are trimmed and the skin removed
Sour Orange Juice
Recado Blanco 
Salt
1 onion, unpeeled, quartered
4 cloves garlic, unpeeled
1 or 2 xcatik (yellow) chiles
1/2 cup chicken broth

Place the washed chicken pieces in a casserole. Add the Sour Orange Juice, the Recado and 1/2 teaspoon salt. Mix well. Cover and marinate in the refrigerator at least 2 hours, turning a couple of times.

Spray a large grill pan with non-stick spray and heat over medium high heat.  When hot, add the chicken pieces. Do not crowd. If necessary, grill in 2 batches. Grill for 10 minutes, turning once.

Remove the chicken pieces and place in a Dutch oven. Prepare the onion and garlic. Check to see if the chiles are hot by cutting off a small piece and tasting. If they are mild, use both. If hot, use one, or less.

Place the onion quarters, garlic and chiles on the grill pan and grill until spotted with brown.

The garlic will be done first. Remove from the pan, slip off the skins and place in the Dutch oven.

When the chile or chiles are lightly browned, place whole in the Dutch oven.

When the onion quarters are browned, slip off the skins, cut off the stem ends and place in the Dutch oven.

Add the chicken broth and 1/2 teaspoon salt, or to taste. Cover and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat and cook at a gentle simmer 40 minutes.

Serve the chicken, onions and garlic with rice, spooning some of the juices onto each serving. Discard the chiles. Or if mild, add some to each serving. 

Makes 4 servings.

Sour Orange Juice

1 tablespoon Meyer lemon juice
Orange juice

Place the lemon juice in a measuring cup. Add orange juice to make 1/3 cup.

Recado Blanco

1 1/2 teaspoons ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1/2 teaspoon finely crumbled dried oregano
1/4 teaspoon finely ground black pepper

Combine the cumin, garlic powder, oregano and black pepper in a small cup. If necessary, pound the oregano in mortar so that it is pulverized.

 

Nuevo León's Pollo a la Ramos

"I don't like Mexican food," a friend said the other day. What she meant is the sort of food you get in the United States--cheesy dishes, nachos, refried beans, enchiladas loaded with red sauce, ground beef tacos in fried shells, guacamole from a store container and so on.

If she were only able to travel to Mexico, she would see wonderful food, fresh, interesting and flavored with centuries of tradition.

Take pollo a la ramos. I had never heard of this chicken dish until I went to Allende in the state of Nuevo León, where it was served at a lunch.

There's nothing identifiably Mexican about it, at least to an American--no hot peppers, red chile sauce, cheese, cilantro, tortillas or beans.  Instead, it tastes a lot like chicken cacciatore.

The name Ramos refers to a river in Nuevo León, not a person.

You can cook the chicken in a skillet on top of the stove or bake it, María Luisa Barrón Guerra told me as she wrote the recipe in my notebook (right), complete with a diagram.  María Luisa is from Monterrey, where pollo a la ramos is also popular, she said.

The oven version includes potatoes but the stove top does not, probably because the potatoes wouldn't cook as well in an open skillet.

A variation made with beef is called cortadillo norteño.  But this is only cooked on top of the stove, never in an oven.


María Luisa insisted that I not turn the chicken pieces over as they bake, but I did this anyway in order to mix the sauce ingredients more evenly. The dish may look dry as you place it in the oven, but it will form delicious juices as it cooks.

POLLO A LA RAMOS
Ramos Style Chicken, Baked Version

1 1/2 pounds chicken thighs
2 russet potatoes, about 3/4 pound
1 green bell pepper, sliced, white membrane removed
1 medium onion, thinly sliced
1 (8-ounce) can tomato sauce
Salt, pepper

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Skin the chicken, if desired, and remove excess fat.

Peel the potatoes. Cut in thirds lengthwise, cut each third in half lengthwise, then cut crosswise into chunks.

Place the chicken in a 12x8-inch glass baking dish. Arrange the potatoes, green pepper and onion around it.

Top with the tomato sauce and season with salt and pepper to taste.

Cover the dish with foil and bake 1 hour. After 40 minutes, turn the pieces over to blend the sauce. Recover and continue to cook until done.

Serve with rice and a salad or vegetable.

Makes 4 servings.