Tag: Mexican Food

February 13, 2025 – Like Water For Chocolate

February 13, 2025 /

Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquivel is the February 2024 Left Coast Culinary Book Club selection. This is the first Mexican themed book we have done in a long time. It is also one that has been around a while. I saw the movie in the mid 1990s. I will be honest, I don’t remember anything about it. My wife read the book in Spanish in 1994 when she was studying in Mexico. This is my first go around reading the book.

The story takes place in revolutionary Mexico (1910-1920) somewhere along the border. I surmise this because it references swimming in the Rio Grande at one point. The premise of the story is about a young women Tita who is in love with a boy but because of a family tradition of the youngest daughter has responsibility to take care of the parents until they die is denied marriage from her widowed mother. As a result, the boy marries her sister and the emotional tension between him being around throws Tita into cooking elaborate meals.

There is of course much more to the story but I am not going to spoil it. What surprised me about the book is that there are 11 recipes in it. The text of the book are the steps on how to make each dish. By my experience, they look like the real deal with the right ingredients and flavors. This is exactly the kind of fiction that we are oriented to read.

Being that this is February, a romance is the perfect selection for the month as well. As you probably guessed, I am not much of a romantic. I found some of the plot a little too out there for me. But the one thing that I can say is that the mysticism that is woven into the culture is right on. These come out with the home remedies that are used throughout the book.

Again, not much of a Romance reader I found the story bearable. If you like that sort of thing, then you might find this book even tame. It was edgy without being explicit would be my description. For that reason, I can say that it is a book that can be read in a setting like ours.

I enjoyed the story to a point. The farm life, the food, the history and the politics were all enjoyable to me. As an example, the storage mechanisms for eggs in a pre-electric era was pretty cool. The shower, the self reliance with keeping and eating animals raised on the farm were also enjoyable. I suppose that the story without the sexual tension wouldn’t have been a story at all. For those reasons, I would say that if you were going to read a romance, this would be the one for me.

For the dinner, I am bringing Mole. Not the recipe in the book but I have already made this and it is in the freezer. It is quite a bit of work which is why I cherish the leftovers but this is the perfect occasion to break it out. This is a group that will appreciate it and if they have only had it in the restaurant it is going to blow their minds.

The art of Mole is almost lost. Most people make it with a starter base commercially available. One person I spoke with years ago said that nobody has five hours to make this when they can just use the starter. I don’t like the sweet, bland, gelatinous blob at all. That being said, there are literally hundreds of variations of the sauce hailing from Oaxaca. Not having a particular ingredient shouldn’t be an excuse to not find a Mole that you can make.

I would be interested in trying some of the other recipes in the book. The very first one was called Christmas Rolls which is chorizo and sardines on a hard roll like a sandwich. I love chorizo and I am intrigued. There is also a recipe for chorizo in the book. I have never made it but I have made the pre-cursors and I think it would be fun. There are several others, but you read the book.

End Your Programming Routine: What I really like about the book is the passion in the story is translated to passion in the food. That is something that I can connect with. The truth is that did not translate when I watched the move all those years ago. But, maybe I will watch it again to see if I really missed that. One thing for sure is that you are not going to get the ingredients in the movie. For that reason, the book is better but maybe this is one to que up for Valentines Day between you and your special someone.

April 6, 2020 – Enchiladas Michoacán Style

April 6, 2020 /

Sunday is a sacred cooking day. I often save the best or most complicated meals for Sunday. It goes back to my days in the 9-5 grind where preparing and eating a really nice meal was a distraction from the rapidly upcoming Monday.

My journey into Mexican food started when we lived in South Carolina. We were far removed from the familiar tastes and flavors of family and Mexican food, even though there were several Mexican markets in our small town. Sunday was dedicated to cooking out of Rick Bayless’s “Mexican Kitchen“. I would spend as much as six hours preparing Sunday dinner. My book is literally falling apart from use.

My wife recently started getting connected with different online sources of Mexican cooking, I think to stave off quarantine madness. She has started working on mastering some of the basics. We were watching this old woman cooking classic recipes in this rustic kitchen, so that is what I decided to make yesterday.

Part 1: Making the broth

I take a whole chicken, one onion, carrot bits, celery stalk, a couple bay leaves, three garlic cloves, peppercorns and some salt an put it into a pot. then I fill the pot up with water. I boiled the chicken about an hour and a half (on low). Another note on stock, you don’t need to peel or trim any of the vegetables, just make sure they are clean.

I took the chicken out and let the broth cool about two hours to make working with the parts a little easier.

Part 2: Making the Salsa

In this recipe, I used Guajillo and a few Arbol chiles. I really didn’t count the Guajillos, but I would say about thirty, but the pile next to the skillet in the picture was what I used. I used five Arbols, they are spicy, very near the cayenne range, so go easy on them.

To make the salsa, destem and remove the seeds in the chiles. Fry the chiles in oil and soak them in about four cups of broth for about thirty minutes. When done with the chiles, blacken some tomatoes for depth. Put the chiles, tomatoes, 1/4 of an onion, 3 tablespoons of oregano and salt into the blender. Add the soaking broth into the blender for liquid and blend the mixture. Put the salsa back onto the stove to reduce the liquid.

Part 3: The Filling

To make the filling, I diced carrots and potatoes. Those were fried in oil and seasoned to taste. In a separate preparation I roughly chopped one onion and combined with queso fresco (I would guess 1/2 pound?). Those were set aside when I started working on assembly.

Part 4: Assembly

Things were starting to happen fast, so I didn’t get as many pictures in this phase. Heat up a skillet of oil and the oven to 350 degF. Take a corn tortilla, dip it into the salsa. Immediately move it to the skillet and fry about 20 seconds a side. I prepare about six at a time because that is what my tray holds.

Add the carrot/potato filling and add about half of that in cheese/onion mix. Roll the enchiladas and repeat until you run out of ingredient or tray space or time or tortillas or whatever is your limitation. I dumped probably one cup of salsa over the top of the rolled enchiladas and put the tray into the oven while I finished the dish.

Part 5: Finishing

I broke down the chicken into the eight basic parts, wings, breast, drumsticks and thighs. Then I put those into the skillet to heat up and crisp. On top of chicken I added about half a cup of salsa while cooking. Once that was done, I took the enchiladas out of the oven and plated.

Three enchiladas, some shredded lettuce, topped with sour crème and pickled serranos is the basic plating. The chicken is served to the side.

This was a bit of work, but excellent flavor. I hope that you will try this as well.