The Mija Chronicles

Mexican food and culture, on both sides of the border

Lesley Tellez

Tacos de canasta, literally, “basket tacos”

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It took me awhile to warm up to tacos de canasta. They’re the soft, steamed tacos sold on the street, and they’re usually stacked in cloth-covered basket.

Unlike at the regular street taco stands, where the vendors are furiously chopping meat or dunking flautas in a fryer, nothing really happens at a tacos de canasta stand. A man, or woman, stands under an umbrella next to a basket. The end.

I didn’t try them for months, because the idea of eating food that’s been sitting in a basket all day sounded kinda gross. But then one day Alice mentioned that they were her favorite. Her eyes rolled back in her head as she described this specific tacos de canasta stand near the Chapultepec Metro. (“Oh my god, they are so good.”) I tried them for the first time shortly afterward, at a stand in Tlalpan.

I’d chosen an potato and rajas taco, and the vendor lifted up a section of the cloth and handed me an oily taco that looked nearly translucent in the middle. I was momentarily disappointed (is this going to taste like a mouthful of grease?) but then I bit into it. The potatoes and rajas had been stewed into this soft mixture that you barely had to chew. It was the taco equivalent of baby food. I loved it, because it was comforting and simple, and sometimes you need a break from all that chopped meat on the street.

I’ve eaten tacos de canasta a few more times since then. Last week, I finally visited La Abuela, a crowded tacos de canasta stand in my neighborhood. The vendor is an old man who wears a newsboy cap, and he stands underneath a red umbrella. He has this weathered, kind face, like the stereotypical grandfather character in the movies. Every time I walk by, I steal a glance at him and think: he’s so cute.

He’s not smiling here, but I promise, when he does, it’s kind of adorable.

La Abuela has a pretty extensive variety for a street stand. Crayton and I chose the frijol, papa, tinga, chicken with mole, and cochinita pibil.

All of them had been cooked in the way that I remembered: oily tortilla, stuffed with a soft, stewed filling.

The cochinita and the potato were the best — the former with just a slight whisper of spices, and the potatoes, mashed to smithereens so that they slid down your throat with this kind of slick earthiness. They reminded me of the potatoes my great-grandmother used to make. She would slice them and fry them in lard, and then let them drain on paper towels for hours and hours, until they were so soft you could practically mash them with a fork.

I would highly recommend La Abuela if you’re in the neighborhood. The stand is located at the corner of Rio Rhin and Rio Lerma in Col. Cuauhtémoc, and it’s open from 6 a.m. to 3 p.m. daily. La Abuela also has other branches around the city, and they offer home delivery, if you’re having a party.

If you’re interested in making your own tacos de canasta, this site has pretty extensive instructions, including recipes for various fillings and how to properly line your basket to keep the warmth in.

From the mamey files: licuado de mamey

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Two Sundays ago, one of the tianguis vendors suckered me into buying three mameys. I only wanted one. But he looked at me with these hangdog eyes and said, “Take two amiga. Por favor.”

Buying two was only five pesos more. It was like buying popcorn and a soda at the movies — supersize your combo for just a quarter extra. So I said fine: I’ll take two. He threw in a third for the same price.

A few days ago, I realized that I ever ate the darn things. I unearthed them from the refrigerator, and two had gone bad. But the other one was edible. I had been working at my computer since the morning and was in desperate need a pick-me-up, so I decided to make a licuado. Hard to believe I’ve never had a mamey licuado before, but it’s true. I hadn’t.

It ended up being the best mid-afternoon snack I’ve had in weeks. Thick and sweet like a milkshake, but without any ice cream at all. Just fruit and milk. The recipe is below. (If you want to call it that.)

I have to get back to work, but now my mind’s humming with all the other mamey possibilities. Mamey pudding… dairy-free mamey pudding… mamey mousse…

Mamey Licuado
Makes 1 serving

4.5 ounces of mamey, or about 1/2 cup
1 cup milk

Blend together until sufficiently pureed. Pour into a glass and serve.

Old-school fine dining in DF: Les Moustaches

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Crayton and I happen to live really close to Les Moustaches, a French restaurant that’s generally thought of as among the best in the city.

The menu harkens back to a time when butter-laden, meat heavy dishes defined elegance. It’s sprinkled with items that Roger Sterling would have loved — oysters rockefeller, beef bourguignon, beef wellington.

Chandeliers glitter inside, and a roaming violinist serenades the tables. This music is also piped outdoors through a set of speakers, so passersby can get a feel for the place. The street name is even written on the building in French: “Rue de Seine” instead of Rio Sena.

To Crayton and I, the whole upscale faux-French elegance thing seems a bit absurd. So instead of eating there, we usually joked about going.

Crayton: “Where do you want to eat dinner?”
Me: “Oh, didn’t I tell you? I made reservations at Les Moustaches. Beef Wellington, baby!”

Last week, Crayton was off work and he was sick of eating leftover bacalao. He proposed Les Moustaches for dinner, but serious this time. We did live around the corner from the place, and I liked the idea of a fancy date. So we went. I put on a blue-and-maroon striped dress I love, black heels and a fuchsia shawl. The walk took us less than five minutes.

We got a table easily, since the place was mostly empty. (More diners came later, after 8 p.m.) A waiter delivered the drink menu and the wine list, which was surprisingly reasonable. I’d expected the cheapest bottle to be around 900 pesos, or about $70. We ordered a 2006 Cotes Du Rhone for around 450 pesos, or about $35.

Waiters bustled around our table, whisking away the drink menus, dropping off the food menus, serving us bread. We chose the oysters, the wellington, and chicken kiev.

“I keep wanting to call you ‘Bets’,” Crayton said, referring to Betty Draper from Mad Men.

One of the waiters served the amuse-bouche, which was a sliced fig topped with what looked like a round ball of blue cheese.

“This is….?” I asked him.

“Fig,” the waiter said.

“Yes, I see it’s fig, but fig and… what else?”

“Cheese,” he said, and he rushed off.

Oo-kay.

The oysters arrived on a bed of rock salt and came with a tiny spoon, a tiny fork, and a flat, scalloped-edged spoon that I had no idea what to do with. Didn’t matter, because they were fantastic. Buttery and rich and topped in a thin crust of cheese. (Crayton later compared them to potato skins, but with oysters.) A waiter almost removed my plate before I was finished, but I stopped him with my hand. Must suck out every ounce of the buttery juices.

My chicken kiev and Crayton’s beef wellington arrived with stainless-steel, domed plate covers, just like you see in the movies. Two waiters removed them at the same time. I was waiting for someone to say “voilá” but no one did.

“Shall I cut your chicken?” the waiter asked me. “Because it’s filled with butter, they tend to explode if you cut them open too quickly.”

Of course, I told him.

My chicken…

Crayton’s beef. Apologies for the blurry iPhone photos.

The chicken was very good, soaked with buttery herb sauce. It wasn’t spectacular though, and I can’t point my finger on exactly why. It needed an extra zing. I wanted to swoon like Meryl Streep/Julia Child tasting the sole meuniere in Julie & Julia, but it didn’t happen.

Crayton’s beef wellington had been cooked to medium instead of medium rare; it tasted a wee bit too tough for his taste. The waiter hadn’t asked how he wanted it cooked, though, or mentioned that medium was the standard.

After such a rich meal, I wanted to skip dessert. But Crayton insisted on getting bananas foster.

“When are we ever going to get bananas foster again, in a place like this?”

“Never, and I’m okay with that,” I said.

I’m glad I gave in, because the presentation was cool. A waiter rolled over a cart draped in a white tablecloth, and lit the gas burner that had been placed on top. He added sugar and butter, then the liquor, and then the bananas. He served them over a scoop of vanilla ice cream, nestled in a martini glass.

Would I go back? Probably not. There are too many other restaurants to try in this city. The service could have been better, and the menu, to me, felt too old-fashioned for my taste.

If you’re in the mood to relive another era, though, it’s worth it. The prices aren’t outrageous for fine dining in Mexico City — my entree was under 200 pesos, and I don’t think Crayton’s was more than 250.

Les Moustaches
Rio Sena 88, Col. Cuauhtémoc
Located between Reforma and Rio Lerma
Phone: 55 33 33 90

New Year’s Eve traditions in Mexico

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On New Year’s Eve, our friends Carlos and Daniela invited us to spend the evening with Carlos’s Mexican grandmother.

She lives in a quiet colonia north of the city, and so we drove up and hung out with Carlos’s father, little brother, aunt, uncle and a few cousins. The grandmother, who I’m going to call Lila (I think that was her name but I don’t entirely remember), had prepared a big feast: spaghetti with tomato sauce and cheese, bacalao, pork loin in achiote sauce, creamy apple salad with pecans, and romeritos with mole.

We munched on strawberry ate and cheese and crackers, and sat down to eat around 9:30 or 10 p.m. We talked about the difference between New Year’s Eve in Mexico and in the U.S., and how in the latter, the night’s mostly built around partying with your friends.

At midnight, we each got a small plate of grapes.

“Make a wish for each one you eat,” Lila told me.

I did. Then we poured champagne, and Daniela took off her wedding ring and slipped it into her glass.

“For good luck,” she said. I did the same.

After that, we walked out the front door and took turns tossing a cup of water into the front yard, to signify less tears in the New Year. We threw coins on the sidewalk, for financial stability. Then, Lila gave us each a tote bag, and we walked into the street.

“Córrele!” she said to me, smiling. Run!

Carlos, Daniela, Crayton and I ran down the street with our tote bags, all of us trailing behind Lila, who is very spry.

The longer we ran, the more exotic locations we’d travel to in 2010, or so the thinking went. Since Crayton and I are already planning to go to India, Carlos joked that we’d have to run 16 blocks. I made it maybe one and then came back.

Next New Year’s Eve, I’m wearing more comfortable shoes.

The year in Mexican food, 2009

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In honor of my first year in Mexico, I thought it might be fun to reflect back on some of my favorite food memories over the past 11 months.

Also: I wanted to thank you for reading and commenting over the past year. You’ve really made this year special, and I’m sending you each a virtual abrazo. (Although not a beso, because of swine flu concerns.) Please have a happy New Year, and felicidades!

My visual Mexican food journey starts below….
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More Mexican Christmas dinner tales: bacalao

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Bacalao is the Spanish word for a slab of boneless, skinless dried salt cod. The filets — long, snowy looking things — pop up in all the Mexico City grocery stores and markets during Christmastime.

I had eaten fried bacalao a few times in Spain, but I’d never tried it the Mexican way, which combines tomatoes, onions, green olives, chiles and garlic to make a kind of fishy stew.

The idea of cooking with salted fish intrigued me, in a Laura Ingalls Wilder kind of way. (Remember how her family used to eat salt pork?) So I picked out a rather large, one-and-a-half pound piece at Mercado de la Merced a few weeks ago, and asked the vendor for cooking instructions.

She gave me a detailed list, which I wrote down in my moleskine. You can see them below, at the bottom of the page.

To check the recipe’s veracity, I flipped through Diana Kennedy and Rick Bayless, who currently comprise the bulk of my Mexican cooking library. Luckily, “Rick Bayless’s Mexican Kitchen” had a recipe that mirrored the vendor’s instructions almost exactly. I decided I’d whip up a mixture of his dish and the market vendor’s.

Unfortunately, amid attending a friend’s posada and throwing my own tamalada, I didn’t plan very well. Bacalao must be de-salted before cooking, which means it has to sit in a dish of water for several hours. Once mine was sufficiently salt-free, I was up to my ears in cornhusks. I wasn’t ready to cook it, so I stuck it in the freezer for a few days and prayed.

Surprisingly, it turned out great. The fish was hearty and toothsome, but not tough. And the tomato-onion mixture was the perfect foil — light, spicy, and with a kick of saltiness from the olives. I added small red potatoes, too, although you can also serve it with rice. The dish looks complicated, but really, it’s not difficult at all. We’ve been eating the leftovers over the past few days and it only gets better with time.

I think this might be another new Christmas tradition, along with figgy pudding.

Recipe below.
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Oh, bring us some figgy pudding

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Crayton decided a few days ago that he wanted to make figgy pudding for Christmas this year.

He’d been humming “We Wish You a Merry Christmas” on Wednesday night when he suddenly asked, “What is figgy pudding, anyway?”

We looked it up on the Internet and discovered it was a cake filled with dried, boozy fruits. We found a recipe by Dorie Greenspan and it seemed easy enough: whip up a type of cake batter, add some spices, scrape it into a bundt pan. The cake did need to be steamed, which meant we’d cook it on the stove top in a water bath. But we could do that. I had a new tamale-steamer that could double as a stock pot.

So, on Christmas Eve, I shopped for figgy pudding ingredients while Crayton worked. Found everything quickly except for the dried figs, which took me two hours to find. Eventually scored them at the El Progreso spice shop near Mercado San Juan.

On Christmas Day, Crayton made the whole thing almost entirely by himself. I hovered nearby and washed the dishes, and chopped the apricots. I prayed he wouldn’t burn the house down. Lighting the cake on fire is a key part of figgy pudding presentation, and that’s all he kept talking about: “We’re going to make figgy pudding and light it on fire!”

Mixing the butter and eggs together

Folding together the eggs, sugar and fresh breadcrumbs, which Crayton pulsed in the food processor

Alcohol-soaked figs and raisins, softly burning in a very safe area of our kitchen

The thick batter, ready to be scraped into my cathedral bundt

The finished bundt, ready for steaming

The pudding finished cooking in about two hours. Crayton used a knife to loosen the pudding’s edges, just like the recipe said. (He’d printed out a copy and placed it on the kitchen table, for handy reference.)

When he was done loosening the cake, I started to advise him on how to invert it onto our wire cooling rack.

Before I could say more than two words, though, he simply picked up the pan and tipped it over. Plop. The pudding fell out in one big mass. I winced.

But the cake looked fine. More than fine — it was pretty.

And it tasted fantastic: hearty, moist, and soaked in bits of alcohol-drenched fruit. I liked the apricots the best, but Crayton loved the raisins. “They’re little booze bombs,” he said.

No lie. We had wine with dinner and after one slice of cake for dessert, I felt my head swimming. Crayton asked if I wanted to see Avatar later on that evening, and I shook my head. “I’m drunk,” I said.

But three hours and many glasses of water later, I felt fine. We saw Avatar after all. It was good, if you disregarded the dialogue.

Oh, and Crayton did light the cake on fire, fulfilling his one Christmas wish. The flames only burned for a few seconds before they went out. Next time, I’ll pour the rum while he has the match ready. We’re making figgy pudding an annual Christmas tradition.

Recipe below.
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Not the most wonderful time of the year

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I loved all the colors and the pageantry of Día de los Muertos in Mexico. I expected I’d love Christmas here too.

Not so much. Traffic is now insane in my neighborhood, largely spurred by the presence of the World’s Largest Christmas Tree. It’s impossible to find a taxi. The markets are crowded and crazy, and for the first time in my 11-month marketing experience, some of the vendors I encountered were rude. One at Mercado de la Merced sighed and acted annoyed when I told him I only needed a half-kilo of tamale flour. Dude! Por favor.

In the Zona Rosa yesterday, the streets were nearly empty, hopefully because everyone was fleeing the city. Unfortunately, less people meant less crowds, which meant I was suddenly a walking target for folks selling things. One lady approached me and said, “Hola chica guapa!” and then asked if I wanted to buy some lotion. Another one approached with incense.

Usually if you say “no gracias,” they’ll leave you alone. But one guy started walking right next to me, matching my fast pace as I walked down the street. (As a sidenote: None of this has never happened to me in the Zona Rosa before. Usually there are so many people, you’re able to walk safely and anonymously.)

The guy was yammering on about religion, or something, and I said “no gracias.” He kept on walking and talking, staying close to my left side.

I started to feel uncomfortable, so I said no gracias again.

“Are you an angry person?” he asked me. “Are you sad about your life? God can help.”

He kept on talking, but I couldn’t tune him out. Finally I looked at him and barked: “Déjame en paz! Por favor. Gracias.”

He looked startled and walked away.

Lord. Seriously? Is this what it takes now? Puro yelling on the street to get people to leave you alone?

Right after that, various men walked by and murmured “hola chiquita” at me and made a lip-smacking sound. I HATE THE LIP SMACKING SOUND. Mexican men do it all the time. It’s like some carnal form of cat-calling. It’s disgusting.

Can’t wait for life to get back to normal around here again. Merry Christmas, yeah, great. But January cannot come quick enough.

*Photo of a Christmas piñata in front of Mercado Sonora, taken on Dec. 14, 2009

Anyone need a mattress?

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Spotted this pair this morning. The back dude was the yeller, shouting about mattresses for sale.

At least, this is what I think he said — I couldn’t understand him very well. Next time, perhaps they should go for a recorded message, like the tamale vendors do.

Dear clay bean pot: I love you

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Remember the bean pot I bought last week? Here it is.

My mom wanted me to make sure and tell you that it’s lead-free. Too much lead in one’s system can lead to neurological problems.

So. I used it on Saturday for the first time. Well, actually, on Friday, per the seller’s instructions, I filled it with water and simmered it on a low flame for four hours, to prep the pot for cooking. (I think this removes a layer of grit on the surface.)

On Saturday, Lola came over to help me get ready for the tamalada. We finished a few fillings, and she prepared the beans while I was at the gym. Into the pot the beans went, with a handful of epazote, onion and a little bit of canola oil.

About three hours later, we fished some out of the pot with a wooden spoon. The bean caldo had turned a rich, hot-cocoa brown color, with a sheen of greenish-brown on the surface. I was worried about the green color at first, but Lola reminded me that it was from the epazote.

I couldn’t get over how good they smelled. Of course I’d been around pots of beans cooking before, but they were never as fragrant as this. These were earthy and sweet, and clean. The bean starch, when you rubbed it between your fingers, felt creamy and soft. And the caldo — oh god, the caldo. It had this thickness to it, this heft, as if we had added flour or something. I wanted to bottle it, and save it, and slurp just a teensy bit every day for the rest of my life.

I’d bought these beans and the bean pot, by the way, through Xoxoc, a small family-owned business based in Hidalgo state.

“Mmmmmmmm,” I said loudly, after dipping my nose in the pot and inhaling deeply.

“Está enamorada de frijoles,” Lola announced. She’s in love with beans.

More correctly: I’m in love with fresh beans, my new clay pot, and the mixture of the two together.

All my cazuela needs now is a name. Any ideas?