How to cook Mexican food at home
Sampling cuisine beyond avocados and tortilla chips
The Aeromexico plane is being buffeted as if it were a toy, the windows illuminated every so often by lightning. “Padre nuestro que estás en los cielos,” the woman behind me prays in whispers. I feel guilty that my dominant emotion is exhilaration.
Thirty minutes later we’re running across the tarmac as our clothes get drenched by rain. My carry-on luggage — a cardboard box that houses a gaudy papier-mâché candelabrum picked up at the start of the trip (it’s in the shape of a tree, tendrils of mad flowers clutching its trunk) — is so wet that it’s falling apart.
At 1am I swing through the doors of my hotel in Mérida to find a band playing La Bamba and a bar serving antojitos (little snacks) of prawn fritters, chilli peanuts and pickled broad beans. There’s a mescal menu taped to the wall. Mexico: it’s a hipswinging, toe-tapping head rush.
That was my first visit to the country, defiantly undertaken after being dumped. It’s a good place to mend a broken heart. I knew nothing about Mexican cooking — though I expected guacamole — and wasn’t prepared for the extremes or the intricacies of the food. Some plates were citrus-fresh and simple: there was ceviche — slivers of pearlescent fish, their edges opaque from being ‘cooked’ in lime juice, served with raw onion, chilli and avocado.
Other dishes were deep and layered: moles, the sauces for which Mexico is famous, slow braises, meat cooked in pits. You could see the colours — and the emotion — of the country’s most famous painters, Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo, on your table.
To me, the great complex cuisines had been French and Chinese, but now I thought you couldn’t call yourself a cook if you hadn’t mastered Mexican sauces, their flavours built bit by bit.
Chillies weren’t about heat but tone. The dried ones have a masculinity — they make you think of wood, tobacco, ripe autumnal fruit, chocolate, leather — and provide a vast array of notes. I came to crave the sweet vanilla smell of corn, the scent I most associate with Mexico.
For years after this trip, every time I had a beer I would simultaneously smell the blistered cobs sold on street carts and the corn boiled with lime and ground to make masa harina (the body and soul of tortillas).
Mexicans are modest. They’ve never shouted about their food, but high-profile Mexican chefs — such as Enrique Olvera — have smashed the idea that theirs is a diet of avoca- dos and tortilla chips. It’s also about crimson hibiscus flowers, Mexican oregano, roses, cinnamon and allspice.
And the corn and beer, the lime and smoky chipotles that patched my heart that summer.
Tinga poblana de pollo
I’ve been making this stew-style dish with pork for many years. A chicken version cooks much more quickly and feels right for a smoky summer-evening supper. In Mexican cooking, the chicken is taken off the bone and shredded so that it can go into tacos, but I prefer it like this. SERVES 6 INGREDIENTS 4 chipotle chillies 1½ tbsp oil (groundnut or olive, whichever you prefer) 12 chicken thighs, skin on or off, as you like 2 onions, sliced 1kg tomatoes, skinned and chopped ½ tbsp soft dark-brown sugar 2 tsp ground cumin 6 garlic cloves, finely chopped 250g chorizo, chopped 1 tsp dried oregano (preferably Mexican) 3 bay leaves 150ml chicken stock To serve fresh coriander leaves 200ml sour cream 100g cheese such as Lancashire, Wensleydale or feta (a bit saltier), grated or crumbled 2 ripe avocados, chopped lime wedges METHOD Pour just enough boiling water over the chipotle chillies to cover them, and leave to soak for an hour. Heat the oil in a large casserole and brown the chicken thighs on both sides. Do this in batches so that you don’t crowd the pan, and season as you go. Transfer the browned thighs to a dish. Add the onion to the fat in the pan and sauté it over a medium heat, until it becomes soft. Add the tomato and fry, stirring frequently, until it is really soft and becoming a little scorched. Add the sugar, cumin and garlic with seasoning. Keep stirring and cooking until the mixture is completely soft. Drain the chipotles. Remove the stems, chop the chillies finely and add them to the tomato mixture. Cook the chorizo in a separate frying pan, using the oil that seeps out of it as it cooks. You just want to get a bit of colour on the outside. Add the chorizo to the tomato mixture along with the chicken, oregano, bay leaves and stock. Bring the mixture up to a boil then immediately turn down the heat. Cover and cook for 40 minutes, or until the chicken is cooked through. The sauce, by the end, should be quite thick, so you may need to remove the lid in the last 10 minutes or so. Season. Scatter with coriander. Serve with sour cream, cheese, avocado and lime, with rice or tortilla chips on the side.
Ceviche de sierra
SERVES 6 INGREDIENTS 4 fillets extremely fresh mackerel, bream or sea bass, skin removed 3 limes 1 shallot, very finely sliced 1 large, ripe avocado 4 tbsp avocado or extra-virgin olive oil 1 red and 1 green chilli, halved, deseeded and finely chopped 10g bunch coriander, leaves only, roughly chopped 3-4 tbsp pomegranate seeds
METHOD
Slice the fish fillets into broad strips. Put them into a dish with the juice of two limes and the shallot. Halve the avocado, remove the stone and slice the flesh. Peel the skin from each slice, then put them into a shallow serving bowl or on a plate. Season and toss in the juice of another lime. Add the fish and shallot, oil, chilli and coriander. Toss gently together. Sprinkle on the pomegranate seeds and serve.
Elote con crema
If you try only one new recipe this summer, make it this one. It’s incredibly simple. Please use fresh corn if you can — the flavour is just not the same in frozen or tinned. This is fabulous with roast or fried chicken, rice and a salad of avocado and coriander. SERVES 6 INGREDIENTS 4 ears of corn (or 400g frozen corn, defrosted) 35g unsalted butter 1 onion, roughly chopped 1 large red pepper, halved, deseeded, flesh cut into cubes 2 chillies, halved, deseeded and chopped 2 garlic cloves, grated to a purée 70g cheese such as Lancashire, Wensleydale or feta (a bit saltier), grated or crumbled 150ml sour cream 10g coriander, chopped (optional) METHOD To take the corn off each cob, stand the cob on one end in a large bowl and slice downward all the way round, removing the kernels in strips. They will separate immediately. Melt 20-25g of the butter in a large pan and sauté the onion and pepper until nice and soft. Add the corn with the rest of the butter and turn the heat up. You will see that the corn starts to become scorched and toasted. When this happens, add the chilli and garlic and cook for another 2 minutes. Season and add about 150ml water. Let this start to bubble, then turn down the heat and leave to cook for 15 minutes. Stir in the cheese (or just scatter it over the top if you prefer). Transfer to a warm serving dish and put the sour cream on top. Scatter with coriander (if using) and serve.