Chicken and chocolate

Zapotec chef Abigail Mendoza recently visited SA to put us straight on how to make real Mexican food. So now you can bin the nachos

AS WE TUCKED into traditional mole of tender poached chicken in smoky, chilli chocolate sauce, Mexican restaurateur Abigail Mendoza shared some insights into authentic Mexican food.

My mother Doña Clara taught me

to cook when I was five. The first thing I learnt was to shuck and shell maize, since my parents grew it. I was taught to grind nixtamal dough, a traditional way of preparing maize that enhances its nutritional value and allows it to be cooked like dough. I learnt to pat the tortilla dough into perfect thin rounds and bake them on the wood-fired griddle. I started preparing mole for community celebrations with my aunt Zenaida when I was 12.

My favourite ingredients are maize, beans and squash and I enjoy cooking with a range of native Mexican ingredients like pumpkin seeds, black beans, chillies, tomatoes, chocolate, zapote [a fruit], cacti, and mezcal.

My metate goes wherever I go. It is a cooking tool of prehispanic origin, made from volcanic stone, that is used for grinding [similar to a pestle and mortar].

Authentic Mexican food is natural and fresh, combining many flavours and colours, and it features native ingredients. It is not nachos and yellow cheese. We need to change the concept of Mexican food by promoting more authentic traditional Mexican tastes, giving due importance to the right ingredients such as nixtamalised maize.

Nixtamalisation is a process whereby maize is treated with an alkali which improves the nutritional value by unlocking amino acids. It destroys any bacteria and makes the maize more malleable for use in tortillas and corn bread. This process is uniquely Mexican.

In my restaurant Tlamanalli in Teotitlán del Valle in the Oaxaca region, the most requested dishes are my squash-flower soup, moles and chocolate-atolli, which I like to call a Mexican cappuccino.

My country has given the world many ingredients including chocolate, vanilla, maize, squash, tomato, avocado and nopal. Most chilli varieties are originally from Mexico. — Hilary Biller

The Mexican Embassy brought Mendoza to South Africa as a gesture of friendship and to promote intercultural dialogue.