A Historical Chile Roasting Feat
Roasting chiles does more than bring out their fresh, mild flavor. Roasting is an important step in opening, seeding and skinning chiles in preparation for cooking. For this important task, Ortega uses 30 mammoth, circular roasters to roast more than one hundred million chiles every year.
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Rice: Heart of the Midday Meal
Rice, which was introduced to Mexico by the Spaniards, has become a standard of the comida - the traditional midday meal. The comida's five courses comprise a New World interpretation of European eating patterns.
For the comida, the first dish is a bowl of soup, most often made with a chicken broth. That is followed by a rice dish (called a "dry soup" because of it's flavoring), a meat dish, a bowl of beans and a desert.
Morisqueta refers to plain boiled rice seasoned only with a pinch of sea salt. In Mexico, morisqueta is considered comfort food for sick days, rainy days or any day.
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The Spanish Influence
The landing of Spanish explorer Hernando Cortez in 1519 in the colonial port of Veracruz yielded one good consequence: From Mediterranean Spain cam the olives and capers for Mexico's most famous seafood dish, snapper Veracruz.
A typical repast in Veracruz begins with sopa de camaron (shrimp soup) followed by Veracruz-style red snapper and picada - tortillas smothered with spicy red sauce and topped with chopped onions or beans and cheese.
The meal is finished with a steaming café con leche (coffee with milk). ~ back to "Did you know?"
The Golden Egg
Huevos rancheros or "eggs, ranch-style" refers to the embellishment of cooked eggs with a chunky, rustic salsa. It's extremely popular in Mexico, as is the ubiquitous egg in its nearly countless forms.
Throughout Mexico, at any time of the day, people dine heartily on eggs. They might eat scrambled eggs in tomato sauce; scrambled eggs with black beans, chorizo, Serrano peppers, tomatoes and onions, all rolled into a freshly made tortilla; omelets in red-chile sauce; baked eggs with oysters and shrimp; or scrambled eggs with shredded beef and a slight chile sauce or salsa.
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The Original Fajita
Fajitas are a quick-seared Tex-Mex interpretation of Mexican carne asada - very thin strips of beef cooked over charcoal, then wrapped in fresh tortillas.
The word "fajita" refers to the cut of beef - usually called skirt steak - from which the strips are sliced. The cut looks like a fajo, or belt. Skirt steak is the cut of beef just above the tenderloin.
Fajitas were popularized in the 1970's by Texans, and soon fajitas were sizzling on grills and in frying pans across the country.
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Full of Beans
Along with rice, chiles and corn, beans are a fundamental presence in Mexican cookery. Most frequently found on the Mexican table are chickpeas (garbanzo beans) and red kidney, pinto and black beans. In the North, beans take on many forms: frijoles charros (cowboy beans), boiled over an open fire with peppers, herbs and sometimes bits of meat; frijoles borrachos (drunken beans), beans cooked with beer; and frijoles maneados, beans embellished with cheese and ancho chiles.
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More on Mole
The legend of the origin of mole is almost as rich as the distinctive sauce itself. As the story goes, one Lenten Sunday in the 18th century, the bishop of Puebla invited the Spanish viceroy to dine at the convent of Santa Rosa, renowned for its fine cuisine. The cook, Sor Andrea de la Asuncion, was asked to make a meal like no other. She set about combining anise, clove, cinnamon, black pepper and several varieties of chiles: ancho, mulatto, pasilla and chipotle. She added fried garlic, piquant green tomatillos, tortillas, sesame seeds, ground almonds, peanuts, and as a final touch, a bit of bitter chocolate. As the thick sauce bubbled on the stove, the exotic flavors blended until they were melded to perfection. Sor Andrea then ladled her creation over corn-fed, chestnut stuffed turkey.
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The Making of Posole
Traditionally, this hearty pork and hominy stew was made with a pig's had. Pork hocks are decidedly easier! Each region has its own version of posole. It comes, in fact, in the colors of the Mexican flag - red, white and green, depending on the kinds of chiles that are used to season it.
In certain parts of Mexico, one day a week is designated as "posole day." Shops close early, work comes to a stop and people retire to posole" restaurants" - which are temporary arrangements of tables and chairs - so everyone may partake of the rich stew served steaming in earthenware bowls.
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Enchiladas
In Spanish, to "enchilar" something is to get chiles all over it. Hence, the name for the much-beloved enchilada. Traditional preparation of enchiladas calls for corn tortillas to be quick-fried, then dipped in a chile sauce (a plain red-chile sauce, mole or tomatillo-chile sauce), filled and rolled.
Mexico is home to a variety of enchiladas - from hearty beef or bean -filled versions to the lighter street-food types that are stuffed with fried potato, carrot and cheese.
As with most Mexican dishes, there are distinct regional variations of enchiladas. There are also related dishes that are not technically enchiladas because they're not dipped in chile sauce, but they use the same technique of frying, dipping in sauce and rolling.
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The Cooking of El Norte
The burrito epitomizes the cooking of what Mexicans call El Norte (The North), an 1,800-mile stretch of land that runs from the Pacific coast of Baja California to the lowlands of the Gulf of Mexico. This ranch-style food is hearty and simple and showcases the region's flavorful beef. It is the cooking of El Norte that is most familiar to Americans. Wheat-flour tortillas are a northern twist on the corn tortilla burrito wrapper.
Noretenos like to wrap one of their distinctive flour tortillas around their famous beef, spiced with their favorite Ortega chiles.
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Tostadas
Tostadas fall into a genre of Mexican cuisine called antojitos or appetizers. Their ingredients are highly adaptable, and their composition is limited only by the cook's imagination.
In Mexico, tostadas can be anything from 4-inch miniatures topped with a spicy mixture for an appetizer, to larger tostadas piled higher for a quick, light, main meal.
Most Mexicans eat their tostadas outdoors and on the run. Tostadas are among the most popular street foods in Mexico, because of their nearly endless variety. It also helps that the tostada shell serves as an easy-to-hold edible plate. ~ back to "Did you know?"
Comfort Food
Chilaquiles was created by thrifty cooks looking for a creative way to use leftovers. Its ingredients and method may vary from region to region, as well as from cupboard to cupboard. Although chilaquiles was once referred to as a "poor man's dish," today it is eagerly enjoyed by everyone.
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Chiles
The cultivation and consumption of chiles in Mexico go back to the ancient Aztecs and Mayans, who not only appreciated chiles for their unique flavor, but also because they thought chiles had nutritive and medicinal value.
The sharp flavor of chiles is captured by their original Indian name, "tzir" - which means, "to pierce". ~ back to "Did you know?"
Cornmeal and Corn Flour
Corn in all of its guises is central to Mexican cookery - particularly cornmeal and the dried-corn flour called masa harina, which is used to make tortillas.
White or yellow cornmeal and masa harina are both made from dried field corn rather than sweet corn, but the similarities end there. Cornmeal is simply ground, dried corn. To make masa, however, dried corn is boiled with pickling or mason's lime to dissolve the outer hulls of the kernels. The corn is then rinsed thoroughly, and stone-ground into a paste (finely ground for tortillas and coarsely ground for tamales).
Traditionally, the fresh masa was hand-patted (for the most tender tortillas) and griddle-baked into the fragrant flatbreads.
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Christmas in Mexico
Mexicans have a long rich tradition of celebrating Christmas with gusto. Homes are decorated with white lilies, Spanish moss, evergreens and paper lanterns called luminaries. Instead of decorating a Christmas tree, Mexicans break a piñata each of the nine nights before Christmas. Every child is blindfolded and gets three chances to break the piñata with a heavy stick. The fragile clay or papier-mâché shape, covered in brightly colored tissue paper and tinsel, is filled with nuts, candies and small toys for the children - and the young at heart - to scramble after when the piñata breaks.
And what would Christmas be without its traditional foods? The best known are tamales, made in abundance all over Mexico.
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Mexican Holidays
Everyday is one to celebrate in sunny Mexico, but certain days are held especially dear.
One of the most enthusiastically observed holidays is All Soul's Day (November2), when families pay respect to their deceased relatives by bringing food offerings to their graves. They bake a special bread, called pan de muerto (bread for the dead), rich with eggs and flavored with orange peel and orange extract.
A few weeks later, the Christmas celebration starts and doesn't truly end until January 6, also known as Epiphany or Three King's Day, the day the Christ Child was revealed to the Magi. On the night before Three King's Day, children put their shoes in the window to be filled with presents.
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Cinco de Mayo
Cinco de Mayo commemorates the unlikely victory by a group of Mexican soldiers against the professional troops of French Emperor Napoleon III on May 5, 1862, at the city of Puebla. Napoleon had invaded Mexico during a civil war to capitalize on its instability. The Mexican soldiers not only held Puebla, they forced Napoleon's troops to retreat.
In the United States, it is often assumed that Cinco de Mayo (the fifth of May) is, like our Fourth of July, an Independence Day. In truth, the Mexican Independence Day is celebrated on September 16, but Cinco de Mayo gets as much fanfare.
Cinco de Mayo is a patriotic holiday celebrated with mariachi music, dancing, military parades, speeches, piñatas, and great food.
In particular, foods featuring the colors of the Mexican flag are favored. For a cuisine awash in red and green chiles, tomatoes, rice and white cheeses, that is not a difficult feat to accomplish.
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