Right Wing Nation

Unless you live in the southwest — and then your exposure will be mostly northern Mexican — or you cook your own or you know somebody who cooks Mexican, you probably have a whole new world to discover. I assume you like to cook, or you wouldn’t be reading this, so pick up any of Diana Kennedy’s or Rick Bayless’s cookbooks and try your hand.

But be forewarned: Mexican is a traditional cuisine, and much of it involves a great deal of work, compared to what most American cooks are used to. The results, however, are well worth the time and trouble. Also, this is Mexican, not Tex-Mex. Tex-Mex is a grand cuisine in itself, but it is distinctly different from Mexican. (If you’re looking for Tex-Mex, see here.)

About chiles

In North America, the agricultural triumverate was corn, beans, and squash. In Mexico, it was corn, beans, and chiles.

The chile was first cultivated in Mexico, and is the cornerstone of Mexican cuisine. Unlike any other national cuisine, Mexican food uses the chile for flavor, and not heat. This means you cannot change the types of chiles used, or use less for fear of burning your palate without essentially changing the dish.

Chiles are used both fresh and dried. Drying significantly alters the flavor of the chile and concentrates flavors. If you have a local Mexican grocery, go wonder at the large selection of different chiles; if you have more than one, chances are the owners are from different areas of Mexico and carry different types of chiles. No doubt just to be confusing, the same chile has different names when fresh or dried. For example, the poblano, a large, fleshy, semi-sweet chile is called the ancho when dried, or the mulatto when the chile is allowed to ripen before it is dried — and as if that weren’t confusing enough, different names are used for the same chiles in different parts of Mexico (in Oaxaca where the pasilla is smoked, the dried, non-smoked chile is called the pasilla negro, while the smoked chile is called the pasilla, or pasilla de oaxaca — and in order to avoid confusion, “pasilla” here will refer to the non-smoked pasilla negro).

Across Mexico, however, three chiles form the Holy Trinity: The ancho, the pasilla, and the guajillo.

The ancho is the dried poblano. The ancho has a complex, fruity flavor and is only mildly hot. The ancho is probably the easiest chile to find (odds are your local grocery carries anchos).

The pasilla is dark brown, wrinkled, narrow and around six inches long. The pasilla has a dark, earthy, almost mushroom-y flavor.

The guajillo is ranges from bright orange to dark red. It is broader than the pasilla, although it is also about six inches long, and it has a smooth, unwrinkled skin. The guajillo has a sweet, bright flavor reminiscent of tomato, and is fairly hot. The guajillo is a thick-skinned chile (more about this below).

The two chiles most commonly eaten fresh are the jalapeño and the serrano, both available in nearly any supermarket produce section. The poblano is also eaten fresh. The habanero is eaten primarily in Yucatan (though once you get past the incredible heat, it has a wonderful, flowery flavor).

Some chiles are also smoked until dried. The chipotle is the smoked jalpeño. The morita is the smoked serrano. In Oaxaca, the pasilla is also smoked, and is sold as the pasilla de oaxaca.

By the way, chiles are immensely nutritious, if you care about that sort of thing.

Other ingredients

Use plum tomatoes whenever possible.

Tomatillos are available in nearly every supermarket these days — and note that they are not tomatoes, and one cannot be substituted for the other.

Mexicans use true cinnamon, called canela in Spanish. What we call cinnamon is really the bark of the cassia tree, a close relative of the cinnamon tree. They are different, however. True cinnamon is much less “hot” and sweeter than cassia. These days, canela is pretty easy to find. Canela — true cinnamon — is much less hard than cassia — what we buy as cinnamon.

Mexican oregano is also different from what we buy, but is more difficult to find. For ingredients, I heartily recommend CMC Foods, the only place I know that carries the rare, anise-y chihuacle negro, the essential chile for Oaxacan black molé.

Vegetables are almost always roasted until black on a griddle, then peeled. Raw garlic is almost never used. Garlic is instead roasted on a hot griddle until blackened and soft, and the result is much like oven roasted garlic.

Nearly all Mexican cheeses are dry aged cheeses, like Parmagiano, and do not melt. There are soft cheese made in Mexico, but gooey cheesy is Tex-Mex, not Mexican.

And flour tortillas only exist in northern Mexico. They are unknown elsewhere. Here, tortilla refers exclusively to those made with corn.

Mexican chocolate is not conched like American and European chocolate, so it is comparatively grainy. It also contains cinnamon. Mexican chocolate is widely available, and comes in disks.

And finally . . .

Back in Indiana, I taught a number of classes at the local cooking school on Mexican food. I got two questions that I will here address: Is Mexican food hot, since it’s based on chiles? and What if I’m sensitive to hot food?

No, Mexican food is not invariably hot. Mexican food is often slow cooked for long periods of time, and the long, slow cooking takes some of the heat out. Also, even the same type of chile can vary a great deal in heat (while anchos are not particularly hot usually, I have had a few that were exceedingly picante). Mexican food is, however, nearly always spicy to some extent, which leads us to the second question: What if I’m sensitive to hot food?

Desensitizing your palate is actually pretty quick and simple. We’ve desensitized quite a few people, all within a week. Just eat spicy food. As you eat it, your palate adjusts, and move one notch spicier. It helps to know that water or beer is useless. If your mouth is on fire, you want a mouthful of beans, rice, or tortilla (which absorb the oil instead of just washing it around in your mouth). You even get to the point you enjoy the endorphin rush that accompanies the fiery throat and beads of sweat on your forehead. Really.

A molé is a category, and not a particular dish. Molés are highly complex sauces cooked for hours over very low heat. They do not always or even usually contain chocolate, and when they do, they do not taste of chocolate (it should be noted that the Mexicans, from whom we get chocolate, did not use chocolate as a sweet; that was a European innovation).

In the 16th century when the Mexican and Spanish cultures collided, two aesthetically similar cultures melded: the baroque Spanish and the equally baroque Mexicans. The Spanish brought their own to the cuisine: cooking in fat, pork, cheese and dairy, East Indian spices, and enriched an already complex cuisine. As a result, the Mexicans prefer complex to simple. As you eat a molé, the initial overall flavor breaks down and you can taste shadows of the components: the chiles, the plantain, the nuts, all parts of the whole — not unlike Szechuan food.

Finally, all Mexican meals are served with tortillas. Even if there are tortillas in the dishes, heated tortillas are served on the side. Try making your own tortillas sometime; they’re delicious, and much different from store-bought tortillas.

One more thing. I don’t usually advocate brands, but Goya pretty much sucks all the way around. And when it comes to chipotles in adobo, San Marcos is hands-down the best.

An informal dinner party

Mexico gives us the very best food for an informal dinner party, where you can throw everything together and spend time with your guests.

Tacos.

No, I don’t mean those godawful U-boats. No shredded iceberg lettuce, no phony American cheese, no sour cream. Tacos. The real thing. Corn tortillas rolled around fillings. Soft tacos. Real tacos.

Tacos are the ideal party food. You can make the fillings ahead, and nuke them when you need more. That, and from time to time heating tortillas is the only reason you’ll need to duck into the kitchen. And all your guests have to do is grab a tortilla, spoon on filling, roll it up and eat it.

I don’t drink the “authentic == better” kool-aid. Sometimes it is, sometimes it isn’t. Here, it definitely is. You can be as elaborate or simple as you like: If you have some molé in the freezer, thaw it. If you don’t, you can make some (if you have the time) or not.

The only place authenticity becomes a problem is if you have vegetarians coming over. Mexican food is not very vegetarian-friendly. But I have a couple of things for them here, so go ahead and invite them.

Guacamole

You want to make this last, not first, but great guacamole is the easiest thing in the world to make — and one of the most yummy. Do not put any lemon or lime juice in it — I have yet to see guacamole that lasts long enough to turn brown, and when you add the citrus, you throw off the flavor. Since this is so quick and easy to make, do it in the quantity described here and when you start to run out, duck into the kitchen to make another batch. You do need — or should have — a mortar and pestle; nothing is worse than smooth, textureless guacamole (save for guacamole with lime or lemon juice in it).

1/2 white onion, diced
2 serrano or jalapeno chiles, diced
1/2 t. salt
1 tomato, diced
3 ripe avocados
cilantro

Work the onion, chiles and salt in the pestle until the onion turns transparent and it all gets juicy. Add the avocados and mush up, but you want lumps. Lumps are good. Just not huge lumps. Stir in tomato and cilantro. Eat!

Taco filling: Picadillo

1 #2 1/2 can crushed tomatoes
3 canned chipotles in adobo
1 white onion, diced
3 cloves garlic, diced finely
1 1/2 pounds pork
3/4 t. black peppercorns
2 inches cinnamon
4 cloves
1/3 c. raisins
1 T. vinegar
1/3 c. slivered almonds
salt to taste

Put the pork in a pressure cooker with water to cover, and pressure for 30 minutes, or until falling apart. Drain and pull into shreds. Puree tomatoes with the chipotles (I always toss in a spoonful of the adobo for extra flavor). Grind together the spices. Toast the almonds until fragrant. Saute the onion and garlic in a tablespoon of oil until soft over medium-low heat. Add the shredded pork, and raise the heat to medium high. Stir until the pork is browned. Add the tomato-chipotle puree, spices, raising and vinegar and turn the heat up high, until it begins to boil. Reduce the heat and simmer about 30 minutes, until thick. Stir in the almonds, salt to taste, and serve.

Taco filling: Chicken in Guajillo Sauce

The guajillo is one of my favorite chiles. Its flavor is bright and sweet, almost tomato-ey. However, the guajillo is a thick-skinned chile, and unlike, say, the ancho, you must strain the puree.

The recipe here will make enough sauce for 4-6 chicken breasts (poach them, then remove the meat and chop finely, then mix with the sauce and nuke it).

4 ounces guajillo chiles
5 cloves garlic, unpeeled
1 t. each: cumin seeds, oregano
1/2 t. black peppercorns
2 1/2 c. chicken stock
2 T. oil
Salt to taste.

Very briefly toast chiles in a skillet over high heat, just until the color lightens a bit and you can smell them. Do NOT overdo this! Toast garlic cloves until soft and skin is charred. Remove and peel. Cover chiles with boiling water and soak for 20 minutes. Drain. Stem chiles and drain excess water from them. Process with the garlic and about 1/2 - 3/4 c. of the chicken stock into a smooth puree. Strain through a food mill (easiest) or a strainer (a pain). Heat oil in the skillet until quite hot. Add puree, and stir constantly over medium-high heat until the puree thickens and darkens. Add the remaining stock, and simmer until the consistency of cream.

Taco filling: Pasilla Black Beans

The earthy, almost mushroomy flavor of the pasillas go perfectly with black beans. These are also excellent as a side dish.

2 large cans black beans (sure, you can soak and cook your own, but why bother?)

4 ounces pasilla chiles
5 cloves garlic, unpeeled
1 t. each: cumin seeds, oregano
1/2 t. black peppercorns
2 1/2 c. chicken stock
2 T. oil
Salt to taste.

Heat the beans in a large sauce pan. Make the sauce, following the directions in the recipe above (you do not have to strain the pasillas). If you have vegetarians, use vegetable instead of chicken stock. Add the pasilla sauce to the black beans and simmer for an hour, until the beans have thickened.

Taco filling: Ancho Rice

Like the black beans, this is also an excellent side dish.

2 c. long-grain rice
4 ounces ancho chiles
5 cloves garlic, unpeeled
1 t. each: cumin seeds, oregano
1/2 t. black peppercorns
4 c. chicken or vegetable stock
4 T. oil
Salt to taste.

Make the ancho sauce using the recipe(s) above, with 2 cups of the stock. Rinse and clean the pan, then heat oil in pan. Add rice, and stir until all the grains are coated. Add the ancho sauce and the remaining 2 cups of stock. Cover tightly and bake for 20 minutes in a 350-degree oven.

Soften tortillas about fifteen at a time. Put them in a plastic bag, and nuke it for 1 minute at high heat. Toss them on the table! If you have molé, poach and chop chicken and moisten for another great filling. Make sure to have plenty of napkins — tacos can be a mess.

Sit down dinner party

The guacamole, beans, and rice (above) are excellent choices for a sit down dinner party. You can do tacos and add a Sopa Azteca (recipe below). Or you can go full out, and spend the whole day the day before cooking a Oaxacan Black Molé (recipe below). Or you can compromise, and add Tamales (recipe below).

Sopa Azteca

This central Mexican recipe is widely known, and fun to eat. The soup is basically a pasilla-chicken stock, served with a variety of ingredients. Guests put the ingredients into their bowls with tortilla strips, then add the soup. Unlike most dried chiles, pasillas lose enough moisture when dried that they can be ground into a powder. This results in a very different flavor from pasillas made into a paste, and one I prefer in this soup.

1 quart rich chicken stock
2 chicken breasts
6 pasillas, ground
1 small package frozen corn
salt

Ingredients:
chopped chipotles in adobo
additional ground pasillas
shredded fresh spinach
Mexican cheese
use your imagination

Tortilla strips

tortillas
oil or lard

First, poach the chicken breasts in the stock until done, about twenty-five minutes. Remove the breasts and cool, then shred. You’ll serve the chicken as one of the ingredients for guests to add to their soup. Add the pasillas to the stock and simmer while you prepare the tortilla strips and remaining ingredients. Add the corn about fifteen minutes before you’re ready to serve.

Heat a half inch of oil until very hot in a heavy pan. First slice the tortillas in half, then slice each half crosswise into strips. Toss the strips to separate. A handful at a time, add the tortilla strips and fry in the hot oil. Fry them until the start to brown (you’ll need to taste one to make sure all the moisture has evaporated and they’re no longer chewy). Drain on paper towels and repeat until all the strips have been fried.

Put the strips, the chicken, and each of the other ingredients in its own bowl and put them on the table. Taste the stock and salt if necessary. Serve the soup, letting guests add what they want to their own bowls.

Oaxacan Black Molé

I’m including this recipe only because at all those classes I taught, everybody begged for the recipe. Let me say this: Making a molé is a huge pain in the *ss. It’s work-intensive, time-consuming, and if you’re smart, you’ll do it at least a day before your guests arrive. Since molé is stew-like, it benefits from sitting and is much better the day after you cook it when reheated.

Molés do not always or even usually contain chocolate, but the chocolate is imperceptible. Chocolate is indigenous to Mexico, and it was used primarly as a savory ingredient. The sweetened chocolate we know was a European invention.

Molé is a suspension, and ground nuts are the thickener. Molé burns very easily, and burned molé is hideous and cannot be saved (in Mexico, they are cooked in large clay pots, which are very poor conductors of heat). I start molé in a heavy, non-stick pot and transfer it to my slow cooker. But even in a slow cooker, it must be stirred or it will burn. It is also highly complex, and the list of ingredients is long. Make a double or even triple recipe and freeze most of it for future use.

The molé that is best known is Molé Poblano, the celebrated dish of Mexico City. It is an “invented” dish, and not an authentic molé. Oaxaca has the most complex, best molés in Mexico, and is known as the Land of Seven Molés, each differentiated by color.

2 oz. chihuacle negro chiles (order from CMC Foods), or mulattos (easier to find, but you don’t get that anise-y flavor)
5 1/2 oz. mullato chiles
2 oz. pasilla chiles
1 pasilla de oaxaca chile, or chipotle meco (not canned in adobo)
2 tortillas, torn up
1/2 small onion, peeled and cut into thick slices
4 unpeeled garlic cloves
oil or lard
1/2 c. sesame seeds
1/4 c. each: sunflower seeds, peanuts, almonds
3 quarts rich chicken stock
8 plum tomatoes, chopped
4 oz. tomatillos, husked, rinsed, and chopped
2 slices bread, toasted
2 cloves
1 stick canela
1 t. oregano (preferably Mexican)
1/2 t. dried thyme
1 ripe banana
3 oz. Mexican chocolate
salt, sugar

First, stem the chiles, then tear them open and separate the seeds and reserve them. Heat a pan over high heat, and add the seeds and tortilla (turn on your exhuast fan and open a window). When they’re quite black, dump them in a strainer and rinse under running water for a minute. Transfer to your blender and clean, rinse, and dry the pan.

Put the pan on high heat, and add the onion slices and garlic cloves. Roast until soft, and remove to a bowl. Squish the garlic out of the peels and discard the peels.

Roast the nuts in a 350 degree oven until fragrant and remove. Heat the pan over high heat and add a half-inch of oil or lard. Be. Very. Careful. Here. Fry the chiles a couple at a time. They will get fragrant, and when they begin to lighten, remove them. Be careful not to burn the chiles — and you still have the exhaust fan on and the window open, right? Remove them as they are done to a paper town and drain. Put them in a large bowl, cover with boiling water, and let them soak for thirty minutes. Drain.

Reserve about 1/4 cup of the toasted sesame seeds for garnish, and put the remaining seeds and nuts into the blender. Add about 2 c. of the stock, and purée until smooth. Remove to a bowl. (There is no need to rinse the blender until you’re completely done with it.)

Purée the tomatoes, tomatillos and about 1/2 c. of the stock until smooth. Remove to a bowl.

Grind the cloves and cinnamon to a powder. Add the spices to the blender with the onion and garlic, oregano, thyme, banana, and about 1/2 c. of the stock. Purée until smooth and remove to a bowl.

Purée the chiles in two batches, each with 2 c. of the stock. Now, you can wash the blender.

In a large, heavy, preferably non-stick pot, heat 3 T. of oil or lard over high heat until very hot. Add the tomato-tomatillo, and cook, stirring constantly, until very dark and thick. Add the seed/nut mixture, and repeat, stirring until again, very thick. Add the banana mix and repeat, again until very thick. Add the chile mix, turn the heat down to medium, and let it cook until very thick and dark, stirring every few minutes. Add the stock and chocolate, mix well, pour into a slow cooker and simmer slowly for three to four hours (you can do this on top of the stove, but be careful because the nuts fall to the bottom and tend to burn).

Add salt and sugar to taste (dried chiles contain a large amount of tannin, and you may need to add some sugar to offset the bitter tannin taste, though most of it should have cooked away). The Mexicans strain everything at every opportunity. It would be considered mandatory there to strain the molé when done. Don’t feel obligated.

Molé is a sauce. You can tuck a few chicken breasts in some of the molé (freeze the rest) and simmer them until done, then sprinkle them with sesame seeds. You can poach chicken breasts separately, shred the chicken, and moisten with molé as a taco or tamale filling.

Tamales

You can fill tamales with anything. Try molé and chicken, or the chicken in guajillo sauce given above as a taco filling. Just make sure your chicken is very finely diced.

Tamales aren’t nearly as much of a pain as most think, and they’re even fun to make. Once you get the hang of it, you can fly, and have the pot full of tamales in no time. Tamales are tender and delicious, always a people pleaser, and fun to eat. The most popular class I taught was the tamale party. Everybody had a great deal of fun first making them, then eating them.

You’ll need corn husks — Mexican groceries carry large ones, and they’re easier to work with, if you can find them. You’ll need a large pot, a rack to just fit inside, and a small bowl to sit the rack on, or a huge steamer, if you have one.

1/2 large package corn husks (you may need the whole package if all you can get are the small ones)
2/3 c. chilled lard (yes, I said lard, but if you must, you can use crisco — which makes you wet your pants more, animal fat or transfat, cause you have to use one or the other)
1 t. baking powder
1 3/4 c. dried masa harina for tamales (neither corn meal nor corn flour is a substitute!)
1 c. hot water
1 c. chicken stock, room temperature

First, cover the husks with boiling water, put a bowl on top to keep them submerged, and soak for an hour until soft. Drain.

If you don’t have a great big steamer, put the small bowl in the bottom of the stock pot. Add water till about a half-inch below the top of the bowl. Place the rack on top of the bowl, and line the rack with corn husks to keep the water from spattering the tamales.

Prepare the dough. Thoroughly mix the masa with the hot water and let it cool. Beat the lard and baking powder until fluffy. Add the cooled masa in fourths, beating each in thoroughly. Add 1/2 c. of the stock, and beat for a couple of mintes, then test. When you add a bit to a glass of water, it should float. If it doesn’t, beat a couple more minutes. Add enough additional stock so that it is the consistency of thick cake batter — it must hold its shape, but it also must be soft and moist. Salt to taste, then refrigerate for an hour. Beat again, adding enough additional stock to bring it to the correct consistency; this ensures the lightest tamales.

Make the tamales. Hold a large corn husk in your hand (you’ll need to overlap two, if you’re using the small ones). With a soup spoon, sling a couple of spoonfuls of the batter onto the husk. Smoosh it out to roughly a 3-4 inch square (you don’t have to be really anal about this). Put a spoonful of the filling on the center, then using both your hands, fold the sides of the husk around the tamale and roll. Fold up the near end and tie it off with a strip of corn husk, then put the tamale, tied end down, on the husk lined rack. Repeat until all the batter is gone.

Cover the tamales with the remaining husks, again to keep out any water, and cover. Bring to a boil, then steam for 1 1/2 hours over medium low heat. If you used molé as a filling, you can heat some and serve it along with the tamales, but tamales need no additional sauce.