The Mija Chronicles

Mexican food and culture, on both sides of the border

Lesley Tellez

My favorite food moments of 2012

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A tlayoyo — a rustic Poblano version of the DF tlacoyo, made with mashed alberjón beans and avocado leaves — was one of my favorite foods of 2012.

I’m grateful for so many things this year.

We saw a little bit more of the world. We had lively conversations with good friends and stared out at gorgeous vistas and sipped excellent wine. (And excellent mezcal.) I got to come back to a city that I love like no place else — fetid air, crushing traffic, raw chicken vendors who hoot at me and all — and I got to learn and share everything I know about Mexican food, a job that I still cannot believe is mine.

My family, thankfully, stayed healthy, and my husband did not complain when I had to work weekends, on vacation, or until 9 p.m. on a weeknight. (Thank you honey, and I promise not to make you visit any more markets if you don’t want to.) I’m also thankful for the vendors who said hi to me when I was walking down the street, and for the stoic tlacoyo lady who prepared her last tlacoyo of the day for me, for free — “Un regalo de navidad,” she said. I’m thankful for the roof over our head and the abundance of food in our lives.

I really don’t know how I ended up with this life, but I am so glad it’s mine.

Here are some of my favorite food moments of the year:

1. The Tamales Course at Fundación Herdez. This four-day course was probably the best cooking class I’ve ever taken in Mexico City. The instructor gave an exhausting overview of tamales from prehispanic times to the present, and we supplemented our knowledge with a trip to the Botanic Garden at UNAM.

Grilled tamales at the Fundación Herdez cooking course in January, 2012

The filling for a grilled tamal: one small mojarra fish, a leaf of purple epazote, tomatillos and xoconostle slices.

2. Judging a small-town tamale fair. We arrived to Tetepango, Hidalgo thinking we’d peruse the tamales and atoles and that would be that. Instead we ended up judging more than 100 homemade tamales and atoles, in flavors like cajeta con whisky and bean maguey-worm. It was a blast.

A “tamalchil” — tamal with chile ancho — at the Tamales & Atoles Fair in Tetepango, Hidalgo.

Ben and I deep in thought. Was the masa too dry? Too dense? These were the questions we grappled with.

3. Making homemade tortillas at the Escuela de Gastronomía Mexicana. This was my second-favorite cooking class of the year. We made tortillas with guajillo chiles, and tortillas embedded with quelites. Mine inflated (ya me puedo casar), and I realized that a huge part of making good tortillas is a hot comal. I’m blaming my non-inflated tortilla failures at home on my stupid electric stove.

Homemade tortillas with quelites and guajillo chiles at the Escuela de Gastronomía Mexicana

4. Visiting the farmers of Xochimilco. I’d heard of De La Chinampa, a group that supplies organic, locally grown produce to restaurants and local residents in Mexico City. In March, I finally had a chance to see the chinampas up close during a trip with Ricardo Rodriguez, the organization’s director. We met a farmer, who explained his farming practices to us; then we floated around the most tranquil part of Xochimilco that I’ve seen.

Cilantro seedings, farmed in the chinampas of Xochimilco

The Xochimilco canals at sunset

5. Touring Queens with Madhur Jaffrey. In April, I was one of the few lucky ones who got to take an Indian food tour of Queens with Madhur Jaffrey, part of an event with the International Association of Culinary Professionals. Ms. Jaffrey was gracious and kind, and she taught us the history and preparation of every food we tried. This ranks in my top food experiences ever.

One of my favorite things was chaat, a cold-spicy-sour-sweet salad that’s eaten as a snack.

6. Puebla’s International Mole Festival. In May I tasted some of the best foods in the state of Puebla — moles, molotes, tlayoyos and more — and listened to Rick Bayless, Marcela Valladolid, Mark Bittman and others share their personal experiences with mole and Mexican food. Completely worth the journey there and back, and I’m already looking forward to the festival again next year.

Spooning chilayo onto a molote. Chilayo is made with sesame seeds, white beans and red jalapeños.

7.The joy of Oaxacan tamales. I thought I had tasted tamales before I went to Oaxaca. Let’s be clear: I had not tasted tamales. These tamales have ruined me on all other tamales, now and into the future. Every time I make tamales, I know they will not be as good as the Oaxacan ones, and that is the cross I have to bear.

A bean tamal with hoja santa in Etla, Oaxaca

8. Burning a tortilla on an outdoor stove, for homemade mole. During the same June trip to Oaxaca, I took a cooking class with Susana Trilling. I volunteered to make the chichilo mole (no one else wanted to do it), which entailed burning a whole tortilla on the clay comal and then adding the ash to the stew. Can I tell you how fun this was?

Burning a tortilla for chichilo mole

The tortilla’s on fire, the tortilla’s on fire!

9. Roast suckling pig in Mealhada, Portugal. When we were in Portugal in July, Crayton insisted (yes, Crayton!) on taking a side trip to Mealhada, also known as roast suckling pig central. We got lost on the way there, so we had to pull over and ask for directions in Crayton’s Brazilian-style Portuguese. Eventually we found Pedro Dos Leitoes, a huge restaurant with skewers of pigs roasting in the front lobby. We gobbled down an entire lechón with the crispest skin, plus potato chips, salad, bread, olives and dry, fizzy white wine.

Lechón (roast suckling pig) at Pedro dos Leitoes in Mealhada, Portugal

10. A long weekend in Coatzacoalcos, Veracruz. So what if the city is feíto? The food is fantastic, and I’d love to go back. I had the best time touring the markets with my friend Janneth and her mom, Martha. We stopped at little restaurants and I helped make homemade tamales de masa colada.

Camarones enchipotlados (shrimp in chipotle sauce) outside Coatzacoalcos, Veracruz

11. A food tour of Tijuana. I’m going to write about this soon — hey, it barely happened in October (wince) — but Crayton and I had the pleasure of taking a food tour with Bill Esparza, a blogger and Mexican food expert who lives in LA. Of the places he showed us, my favorite was Mariscos Ruben. The goopy, creamy taco de marlin still lives on in my dreams.

A taco de marlin from Mariscos Ruben in Tijuana, Mexico

12. My first homemade chile en nogada. In hopes of channeling the 19th-century Poblana nuns who invented this dish, I went to Puebla to buy my ingredients and I peeled walnuts for six hours. When it came time to fry the chiles, curls of smoke wafted out of my kitchen and floated over my guests’ heads. In the end — the chile was spectacular.

I forgot one more thing that I’m thankful for: you reading this blog, and commenting (or not), and generally making The Mija Chronicles a lovely place to be. I wish you a wonderful New Year, and hope you get a few moments of reflection before all the craziness begins.

Un abrazote a todos!

Gorditas infladas de anís (puffy anise-seed gorditas) with cajeta

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I fell in love with the gordita inflada in Veracruz.

Remember this beauty? She came to me in Coatzacoalcos, warm and crunchy with anise seeds, dribbling bits of mole.

And then there were these little cuties in Xico, lined with a layer of black beans.

The gorditas in Mexico City are not what one would call cute. They’re flat and dense and thick with pork flavor. They are the hoss of the gordita genre. With the Veracruz versions, I kept wondering, what makes these things inflate? Is it baking powder?

The only cookbook I found that really addressed the gordita inflada was Zarela’s Veracruz: Mexico’s Simplest Cuisine and she didn’t specifically mention what made them puffy. (Perhaps because it’s common knowledge to everyone except me.) I assumed I’d spend hours trying to figure out how to inflate the darn things, but it turns out all you need is two items: a thin-pressed gordita and a lot of hot oil.

When I placed the first gordita in the pan — with the oil heated to over 300F — it puffed up into a round bubble and started sputtering oil, zipping around the skillet like a little motorboat.

“Se infló!” I yelled to Crayton. “Se infló, se infló!” He was on the computer and didn’t hear me.

After some futzing with a candy thermometer, I figured out that the ideal oil temperature was 260 to 280F for a golden-brown, plump gordita.

Today after the football game, I figured out the best way to serve them: layered on a platter and drizzled with ribbons of cajeta, with lots of napkins so everyone could wipe their sticky fingers afterward.

The anise seeds are a nod to Coatzacoalcos, and the cajeta…. well, everything tastes good with cajeta.

Puffy anise-seed gorditas (gorditas infladas) with cajeta
Makes 14 to 15

Note: These contain a mixture of masa and flour. You don’t absolutely need the flour for the gorditas to inflate, but the flour does help the gorditas hold their puffy shape longer. (My plain corn ones deflated a little as they cooled.) I also like the extra sweetness that the plantain adds. If you can’t find one, leave it out.

It may seem like a lot of anise seeds you’re adding, but it works in the end. The anise comes through loud and clear, which is what I wanted.

Lastly, you’ll need a tortilla press and ideally a candy thermometer to measure how hot your oil is. You can eyeball it if not.

Do ahead: Masa is highly perishable and, if fresh, does not last longer than one day. The masa I bought from a local tortillería went bad stored in my fridge from one day to the next. However, I did freeze a small amount overnight and it was fine the next day. I would not recommend freezing masa for long periods of time.

You can prepare the dough the morning of and refrigerate it until using. Just make sure to knead it well before forming the gorditas.

Ingredients

1/2 lb. or 240g fresh masa or the equivalent prepared from masa harina (e.g. Maseca)
A 2 1/2 to 3-inch piece of ripe plantain, peeled
1 tablespoon milk
1 tablespoon flour
2 tablespoons grated piloncillo or packed brown sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 1/2 teaspoons anise seeds (toasted if you want), slightly crushed
2 cups oil for frying (I used vegetable)
Cajeta for drizzling

Other items:
Tortilla press
Plastic for lining press (e.g., from a grocery bag)
Slotted spatula or spoon
Baking sheet or platter and paper towels

Directions

1. Making the dough

Place your masa in a medium-sized mixing bowl.

Zap your piece of plantain in the microwave for 20 to 40 seconds until it softens. (Alternately, slice the plantain into thick pieces and simmer in a little milk. Alternately #2, if the plantain is already super ripe — the peel will be black all over — you don’t need to cook it.) Place the soft plantain in a small bowl with 1 tablespoon milk and mash into a thick puree. Add flour, sugar and salt and mix well.

Stir the plantain mixture into your ball of masa, kneading with one hand (or both) until well combined. Then add anise seeds, kneading again until the anise seeds seem well-distributed and the dough comes together and forms a cohesive mass.

2. Shaping the gorditas

Grab about a tablespoon of dough — Zarela calls these “pingpong ball size” — and roll into a small ball with the palms of your hands. Continue forming the dough into small balls until all the dough has been used. Cover them with a damp dish towel while you heat the 2 cups of cooking oil in a deep skillet.

Line the plates of a tortilla press with two pieces of thin plastic. (I cut up a grocery bag.) Once the oil has reached about 260-280F (a little bit of masa should sizzle in the pan) take one of the balls and press it flat. Peel off the top sheet of plastic. Then turn gordita onto your open hand — the upper edge of your hand works best — and peel off the other piece of plastic. Place the flattened gordita gently into the hot oil. It should immediately sputter and sizzle, and become enveloped in a lagoon of bubbles. If it doesn’t, your oil is not hot enough.

Using a slotted spatula or spoon, flick hot oil over the top of the gordita in a quick motion. It should puff up. When the gordita turns dark-brown around the edges — about 10 to 15 seconds — turn over and cook the other side. Remove the gordita from the pan using a slotted spoon or spatula and set on a platter or tray lined with layers of paper towels. (Or, if you are in Mexico, papel estraza.)

Continue until all gorditas are done. I fried two at a time, once I got enough confidence, in my 10-inch Lodge skillet.

Drizzle cajeta on top and serve immediately. Don’t forget the napkins! Or knives and forks if you want to be a little more civilized.

Chicharrón in salsa verde with cactus

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I love chicharrón en salsa verde, but when I first moved here the dish didn’t appeal to me. Drown crunchy chicharrón in salsa? And then what? Wait, the point is soggy chicharrón? I was too scared/weirded out to try it until early this year, when Ruth and I stopped at a roadside stand in the mountains outside Puebla, the kind with the hand-painted signs and the little stovepipes billowing smoke.

The chicharrón, which I’d never had for breakfast, bubbled in a cazuela and sent up reams of steam. I ordered some and the texture was surprisingly delicate, like a fluffy cooked egg. The acidy tomatillo sauce settled into its nooks and crevices, while the smoky taste of bacon lurked. All in all, it was outstanding.

Cazuelas with homemade guisados outside Puebla, Mexico (Photo taken by me)

I was looking for an easy party dish to make last week and Lola suggested chicharrón en salsa verde con nopal. I’d never made it, but she said you make your sauce and throw in your chicharrón and cactus y ya. Done.

She was right. The dish didn’t take much time, it was hearty and satisfying and easy to transport. We added lots of boiled nopal and chicharrón with plenty of meat on it, known here as chicharrón carnudo. (I told the butchers at the market: “Deme chicharrón bien carnudito!” I have no idea if that’s an albur or not.) Simmered everything in a big pot of salsa until the chicharrón was just soft, then scooped it into warm tortillas. The taste was just like I remembered — spicy and acidy, with just the right amount of pork flavor.

The biggest compliment I got was after the party. A friend told me over Twitter that he fed his Mexican aunt and grandmother my guisado, and they loved it. Let me repeat that: A Mexican grandmother loved my cooking. Now I just need to learn how to identify an albur and I will be that much closer to being Mexican.

Chicharrón en salsa verde con nopal
Serves 10 to 12, or more

Note: You can halve this dish if you want or make even less. As long as you have the salsa base, it’s just a matter of tossing extra ingredients into the same pot. (I’ve thought of adding peas or green beans in addition to cactus, although that’s not traditional and Lola looked at me funny when I suggested it.) If you can’t find fresh chile de árbol — a long, skinny green pepper — serrano will work. I also used the smallest tomatillos I could find, which are sweeter and more flavorful than the larger ones.

I bought WAY too much chicharrón because I thought it would reduce to a third of its size. It doesn’t — it reduces somewhat but also soaks up a lot of liquid, so if you put in too much you won’t have any salsa left or room for extra veggies. I have adjusted the recipe below to reflect the amount I should have bought.

If you have extra chicharrón left over, it’s great with pico de gallo, or to bring to a party in place of chips. Chicharrón = super popular Mexican party food.

This dish also reheats beautifully and will keep in an airtight container in the fridge for at least a week.

Ingredients

4 pounds/2 kilos of tomatillo, husked
1/2 lb./250g fresh chile de árbol (see note), stems removed
1 medium white onion + 1/4 chunk of an additional white onion
4 garlic cloves, peeled
6 pounds/3 kilos fresh cactus paddles (about 20 large paddles), de-spined and washed
2 tablespoons lard
1 1/2 to 2 pounds/1 kilo chicharrón carnudo (chicharrón with lots of meat bits), broken into pieces
12 stems cilantro, chopped
Salt to taste

Directions

Rinse your tomatillos well under running water, removing any dirty bits. They should still be a little sticky — this doesn’t mean they’re dirty, it’s just the tomatillos’ natural sugar.

Working in batches (or one large pot if you have one) place half the tomatillos and chiles in one pot, and half in the other. Cover with water. Add half an onion and two garlic cloves to each pot. Simmer on medium to medium-low heat until the tomatillos and chiles have softened and turned a muted green.

Remove the tomatillos, chiles, onion and garlic to a bowl and reserve about 6 to 8 cups of your soaking liquid, which you’ll use to thin out your sauce later.

Fill a blender jar halfway with the hot tomatillo-chile-garlic-onion mixture. (Important note: if you fill the blender completely with hot contents, the lid may blow off. Be careful and tread lightly here. You could also let the items cool and go have a glass of wine.) Add one ladleful of tomatillo water and blend on low; then slowly blend on higher speeds until the sauce is smooth. Pour into a bowl and repeat until you’ve blended all of the sauce.

Once the sauce is done, it’s time to work on the cactus.

This amount of fresh cactus cost me less than $2 USD. I love living in Mexico.

Cut the cactus into 2-inch pieces and place in a pot covered with water. Bring to a boil, lower flame and simmer until the pieces are tender and a muted pea-green color. Strain and let drain in a colander while you fry the sauce.

Raw cactus, simmering in water

Heat a large pot or Dutch oven over medium-high heat, and add the lard. When it’s melted and hot, add the 1/4-piece of onion and fry until dark golden-brown and bubbly on all sides. Remove onion pieces from the hot oil using a slotted spoon. Quickly pour in your salsa (be careful as it might spit), stirring constantly so it doesn’t stick and burn.

Once sauce starts to boil, add chicharrón pieces in batches.

A big mixing bowl full of chicharrón

Then add the cooked cactus to the pot, and 5 cups of the soaking liquid. Stir to combine. The dish should be saucy but not watery and thin — if it’s too thin, raise the heat and bring to boil to reduce it. I tend to use a lot of liquid since we’re at such a high altitude and it evaporates quickly.

Taste for salt — I added about 1 teaspoon or a little more — and bring sauce to a gentle boil, again stirring occasionally so it doesn’t stick. The dish is done when the chicharrón has softened, about 15 minutes. Remove from heat, taste again for more salt and stir in chopped cilantro. Serve with warm tortillas and beans.

Felices fiestas!

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I hope you’re enjoying a lovely day with family, friends and lots of good food.

Here are a few Christmas-inspired photos culled from The Mija Chronicles’ archives.

A big ol’ pot of bacalao, at Mercado de Medellín

Ensalada Nochebuena, a mix of beets, oranges, jicama and peanuts

First-ever Christmas tamalada, December 2009.

Sweet corn tamales

Chaya-wrapped tamales, at the Fundación Hérdez in January 2012.

Five days in Tulum

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The beach at Coco Tulum.

Crayton and I went to Tulum three years ago, and we loved it so much we decided to spend five days there this year.

The beach is still spectacular, but the town didn’t feel like the same place. New pricey hotels and restaurants lie along the beach road. There’s a Tulum aesthetic now: hand-painted signs meant to look weathered by the sun, open-air restaurants with lights hanging from the trees, bars with chalkboard menus that sell artisan mezcal and fresh-juice cocktails. It’s charming until you realize that it all looks the same, and the prices, for middling to below-average food, are double, triple and quadruple of what you’d pay in Mexico City. (This is along the beach — you can still find cheap taquerías and street stands in town.)

I know I sound nostalgic, but I liked how solitary the Tulum beach felt on our last trip. I liked the mix of casual and cool and rustic, and I liked that it still felt like Mexico. Of course everyone else did, too, which is why there are now more people than ever.

Here’s quick run-down of our trip, in case you’re headed there anytime soon.

TULUM LODGING & TRANSPORTATION

We stayed at the Secret Garden hotel, the same place in town where we stayed last time. We paid about $63 USD per night for a room with air conditioning and a kitchenette, which I still think is a good value for your money. The hotel provides fruit and cookies for breakfast, and free tea and instant coffee. We made breakfast in our room a few times and ate in the garden, which was nice.

We rented a car for fairly cheap through Budget at the Cancún airport. Usually we decline extra car rental insurance, as our credit card provides basic collision coverage. But the rental agent insisted that according to Quintana Roo law, we had to pay for third-party liability insurance, meaning any costs if we injured someone else in an accident. This cost an extra $20 USD per day. We asked him to show us the law, and he pulled up a page on the Internet that appeared to reinforce what he said. Anyone else ever have to deal with this?

WHERE TO EAT

Usually Crayton and I skimp on lodging so we can spend more money on food and sight-seeing. My favorite upscale restaurant — worth every penny and then some — was Hechizo, a small place with only three nightly seatings located at the end of the beach road. Chef Stefan Schober, who owns the restaurant with his pastry-chef wife, sat down at our table and recited us the menu, which changes daily depending on availability of ingredients. We ordered shrimp curry and steak, and ate every last lick of sauce, and every grain of rice off the plates.

NaturALL, a cafe in Tulum, Mexico

Another favorite in town was NaturALL, a cheery spot for a cheap Mexican or American-style breakfast. I liked the banana pancakes (expats in Mexico know how hard good pancakes are to find), the eggs with chaya, and the chewy, crisp toast. Good coffee and orange juice too, and they’ve got WiFi.

For a heavier lunch or dinner, I loved the mole veracruzano at El Tábano, one of the older beach-road restaurants. (Tip: Bring bug spray when you’re going out to eat, or ask the restaurant to lend you some.)

Mole with a side of fried, cheese-stuffed plantains at El Tábano in Tulum

The patio at El Tábano, Tulum

We also liked Hartwood, an outdoor restaurant owned by two Americans (former New Yorkers). Crayton had a succulent grilled arrachera, and I had a spicy, peppery grilled fish served in a jícara with beans. The vibe is quirky and chill, like so much of Tulum now, and the cocktails were excellent.

BEACH TIME

Because our hotel wasn’t on the beach, Crayton and I had to choose a hotel or beach club to visit every day, or pick a section of public beach. Coco Hotel, one of my favorites, didn’t have beach-side drink or food service, but it did have hammocks and a covered area, which is good for people like us who aren’t sun-worshippers. The hotel restaurant, Juanita Diavola, also had decent pizza — thinnish crust, not too much cheese. Better than a lot of places in Mexico City.

Coco Beach, Tulum

Cabanas at hotel Zazil Kin, Tulum

My other favorite beach to laze away the afternoon was Zazil Kin, located just south of the Tulum ruins. You can rent beach chairs for 50 pesos per person, and a little cabana serves beer and potato chips. You could also snag a section of the public beach directly in front of them for free.

We sat under a palapa all day and then walked down the beach for a late lunch at Mezzanine.

The beach at Zazil Kin, Tulum

I’d like to go back to Tulum, but I realized on this trip that I really want my own kitchen, and I want to be further away from the trendy masses.

Have you found your own attitude about travel changing? How many trips does it take to really get to know a place?

Greetings from Tulum

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We’re here through Monday night. So far my favorite place to eat has been Hechizo, a quiet restaurant at the end of the beach road. (Thank you Liz for the recommendation.) The chefs, husband-and-wife team Stefan Schober and Hui Thai Low, source their ingredients daily, so the menu depends on what they find and like. I haven’t had a meal where I’ve sent back nary a crumb in I’m not sure how long.

If you are in Tulum, GO THERE. More of a full report to come sometime later, when I’ve gotten through my backlog of blog posts, and I’m back in the swing of things in DF.

Hope you’re enjoying the holiday season!

{Sponsored post} Where trends and flavors collide

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Disclosure: McCormick spices paid me to feature the Flavor Forecast report on The Mija Chronicles. I wrote the article myself, and the opinions are of course my own.

This homemade jam contains rosemary, smoked tomatoes and chili peppers, a combination McCormick is betting will become more popular in coming years. (Photo courtesy of McCormick)

I have a box of smoked paprika in my kitchen, and lately I’ve been sprinkling it on whatever I have cooking on the stove. Eggs and vegetables, sometimes, or shrimp and garlic. Not until recently have I really stopped to think about that one seemingly small choice. Why paprika? Why not something else? What does it mean about the way I cook?

This is the business that McCormick is in, and the objective of its annual Flavor Forecast report. The 2013 report, released today, attempts to identify not only the most up-and-coming ingredients around the world, but also what those ingredients say about the world we’re living in, and the type of cooks we are. The report predicts that the highlighted flavors and trends will become mainstream in the next five years.

In this year’s report — spookily — I actually saw myself. One of the trends is “Global My Way,” a cooking trend built on using ethnic ingredients in a non-traditional way. That is, like, my onda. Remember roasted carrot tacos with Korean chili sauce? Mamey muffins?

Here are a few other of the trends I found interesting:

1. No Apologies Necessary: Embracing rich foods as a sort of momentary escape. Flavor combinations include decadent bitter chocolate, hazelnut and passion fruit; and charred orange, black rum and all spice. (Or… extra-dark Mexican chocolate cream pie, which is a recipe I’ve been toying with. Maybe it needs a passion-fruit sauce.)

2. Personally Handcrafted: This reflects the exploding DIY movement at home, and the idea of spending time on a recipe instead of being rushed. Flavor combos include cider, sage and molasses; and rosemary, smoked tomato, chile peppers (fresh or dried) and sweet onion.

3. Global My Way: The flavors the team selected were anise seed and cajeta, and Japanese katsu sauce and oregano.

Some of these flavor combinations might seem weird — I will be honest and say I’ve never heard of katsu sauce until now — but past reports have been dead-on. McCormick’s team, comprised of chefs, food technologists, sensory analysts, and people who work in what’s called “consumer insights,” chose rosemary as an up-and-coming ingredient in the year 2000. They chose chipotle in 2003.

I’m interested in what you think about this report. Do you see yourself in any of the cooking trends? Do any of the combinations sound good to you, or too strange?

My top 3 Sonoran foods

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San Carlos, Sonora at sunset

A few weeks ago we were in Sonora for a wedding. It was only a four day trip, and most of the time we were busy with wedding activities. By the time we had to leave, though, I felt like my eyes had been opened. “Norteño food!” I wanted to shout from the rooftops. “NORTEÑO FOOD!”

Sonoran food, in my brief experience, included excellent cuts of meat; seafood with the occasional Asian influence (soy sauce and whole chiles, anyone?) and interesting salsas, some with charred tomato, others with cucumber.

Here’s more about I loved the most from my quick trip:

1. The steak. I’m not a big red-meat eater, but I couldn’t resist ordering a rib-eye at Mochomos, a fancy Sonoran fusion restaurant. It was the best steak I’ve had in a long time — velvety, peppery and oozing bits of juice. The only hassle was trying to tell them I wanted the steak “medium rare”; apparently such a term doesn’t exist in Ciudad Obregón. We settled on “entre término inglés y medio.” I didn’t get a picture of the steak because I ate it too quickly. But I did get a photo of Crayton’s arrachera, so you can see what we’re dealing with here:

Arrachera from Mochomo’s restaurant in Ciudad Obregón, Sonora

2. Chile caribe stuffed with marlin. I didn’t know the chile caribe until it came on the side of a hot dog we ordered at the Ciudad Obregón ball park. It was a squat, pale yellow thing, served simply, charred and unpeeled. The chile tasted buttery and spicy and almost sweet — I loved that it wasn’t overloaded with vinegar like the chiles encurtidos in DF. (Granted, I love me some chiles encurtidos, but sometimes you need a break.)

At Los Arbolitos, a famous seafood restaurant chain throughout Sonora, the chiles caribes came stuffed with smoked marlin and rolled around in what tasted like bacon fat, all while lying in a little lagoon of soy sauce. It was umami overload. I wanted to squeal.

Chiles caribes stuffed with marlin at Los Arbolitos, Ciudad Obregón, Sonora

3. Hot Dogs. I had heard about the famous Sonora hot dogs before I visited, and in fact it was the only thing I told the bride that I needed to try. On our first night in Ciudad Obregón, we visited the local baseball stadium, where of course we ordered a dog, known as a “dogo” locally. It was a bacon-wrapped monster, wedged in a fluffy bun and drizzled with various toppings. (This is the hot-dog equivalent of a torta.) Stadium food in Mexico is usually middling to sub-par, but this thing was worthy of several rapturous Tweets. The salchicha’s meaty flavor! The sweet burn of the chile caribe on the side! The bacon, the cheese!

A hot dog, cut in half, from the Yaquis baseball stadium in Ciudad Obregón, Sonora.

We had one more hot dog in Hermosillo, thanks to a taxi driver who shared his recommended spot with us. These buns were kept in a little metal steamer tray, and they tasted better than the ones at the stadium. They were soft and sweet, like a puffed-up version of the packaged hot dog buns we used to buy when I was a kid.

Street-side hot dog in Hermosillo, Sonora

On my next trip I want to try the sobaqueras — flour tortillas so large you can swaddle a baby in them, and so thin they’re nearly translucent. (Here’s a neat sobaquera video, so you can get an idea of what they’re like.)

What else did I miss? Please share!

Adventures in quelites: chivitos

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I spotted these at the edge of the Condesa tianguis a few weeks ago, at the stand in front of the Oxxo. The stand is staffed by a man and a woman from Ixtlahuaca, in the State of Mexico, and I like to buy there because they always have farm-fresh produce and homemade tortillas and wild mushrooms when it’s mushroom season.

I hadn’t seen these specific quelites before, so I asked the woman what they were. She said chivitos. I liked their long stems and thin, tender leaves, so I bought a bag for around 15 pesos. Thought about combining them with quelite cenizo in a salad and figured the contrast in shapes would be nice. It was — the cenizo-chivito salad was the best I think I’ve ever made in my life. It was grassy and green, and I was overwhelmed with the sense that I was eating something directly from the ground.

According to my helpful quelites research guide (“Los quelites, tradición milenaria in México” by Delia Castro Lara, Fracisco Basurto Peña, Luz María Mera Ovando and Robert Arthur Bye Boettler), it turns out chivitos (calandrinia micrantha) are one of the handful of “collected” greens in Mexico, which means they’re not cultivated. They tend to grow in corn fields or in the milpa, and they are are also called lengua de pájaro, or bird’s tongue.

The taste is interesting. Chivitos have the crunchy juiciness of lettuce, with a slight bitter aftertaste, like spinach. And they’re herbal and grassy.

Besides the quelites salad, I also used chivitos plain on their own, topped with a little lime juice and olive oil, as a side salad to roasted chicken and potatoes. This morning mixed them with scrambled eggs, topped with some roasted tomato salsa. Yum.

If you want to seek them out, the man-and-woman team usually arrive to the Tuesday Condesa tianguis around 11 a.m. If they’re out of quelites, you could also try another farm-fresh stand on the opposite end of the tianguis, sort of catty-corner to the chicharrón.

Chivitos at the Condesa tianguis

Thanksgiving in Mexico

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I had little patience for Mexico on Thanksgiving Day. It’s just a regular day here, so nobody really knows you’re whipping up a huge, crazy meal in your kitchen and that you need things now. My cheese vendor at Mercado San Juan forgot to create my cheese plate, which he swore he’d have at 11 a.m. The dude I ordered olive tapenade from likewise didn’t have it.

I wanted to kill everyone, but when I went to get a coffee, the coffee guy said, “Hola hola hola! Feliz Día de Thanksgiving guerita!” And the Oaxacan vendor gave me extra charales enchilados. “Señorita Lesley… verdad?”

The tortilla lady greeted me with a hug and a kiss on the cheek and said, “Qué milagro!”

When I went to grab a snack, the tlacoyo lady, who never talks EVER, asked me for the first time, “De dónde es usted?” And then when I said Estados Unidos, she said, “A poco es de allá?” I blabbered on and on, telling her about my fascination with Mexican food, how I fell in love with street food and fondas when I got here, how I really didn’t have any choice but to create a street food-markets-food tourism business, all the while she flipped the hot tlacoyos on the comal. I said goodbye and wished her a happy Thanksgiving. Even the chicken guys didn’t hoot at me while I walked by, I like to think because they recognize me by now. Or maybe it was the great spirit of Thanksgiving.

The meal came together, even without the cheese plate and the tapenade. Here was my Thanksgiving menu:

Appetizers
Panela cheese with epazote and chile cuaresmeño, purchased at Mercado San Juan
Fried charales enchilados, from the same stand

Main dishes*
Quelites salad made with quelite cenizo, parsley, chivito, tomato, organic sprouts and parmesan cheese, with a lemony vinaigrette
Crayton’s mom’s mushroom casserole (mushrooms, parsley and onion bathed in heavy cream and butter, and baked)
Pan-fried brussells sprouts with bacon
Pears poached in red wine (I used a recipe from Joy of Cooking)
Mexican chocolate cream pie — A riff on this Food & Wine recipe

*My friend Pam made the turkey, two types of stuffing, mashed potatoes and baked sweet potatoes.

Hope you all had a wonderful holiday! Would love to hear of any dishes you plan to make again next year.