Recipe Index: Mexican

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Jicama Salad
Are you familiar with jicama? This tuber looks like a seriously overgrown radish and is the root of a vine native to Mexico and Central America. The flesh is crunchy, mild, and even faintly sweet, and is often served with...
Chorizo and Eggs
Growing up, we had some of the standard American foods for breakfast - cream o' wheat, oatmeal, waffles, fried eggs, pancakes (no sugar coated cereals in this household!) - and a couple things I never saw in any of my...
Arroz Con Pollo
Arroz con pollo means "Rice with Chicken" in Spanish. It is a classic dish of Spain and Latin America, with many different traditional ways to prepare it, unique to various countries. An arroz con pollo you find in Cuba may...
Huevos Rancheros
One great benefit of growing up in California (LA actually) and having a Hispanic mother is being exposed at an early age to Mexican food. From the time I was 5 it was my job to prepare the salsa for...
Salsa Verde Carnitas
Carnitas are the Mexican version of pulled pork. Braised first in a spicy sauce, pork shoulder is slow cooked until so tender the meat just shreds easily with a fork, then it's roasted at high heat to make crispy browned...
Shrimp Quesadilla
Quesadillas have to be my favorite go-to food for lunch. They're just so easy to make! Especially when you have tortillas and cheese in the fridge, which we almost always do. Recently I had lunch with an old friend at...
Chile Verde
Walk into almost any taqueria in this country and you will find chile verde on the menu. The chile will likely be made with chunks of pork shoulder, slow cooked in a green chile sauce of jalapeno chiles, garlic, and...
Vegetarian Banana Leaf Tamales
Tamales are a Latin American favorite, a delicious filling surrounded by corn meal dough, and steamed until cooked. Most tamales that we have the occasion to eat here in the US are wrapped in corn husks, the method typical of...
Mexican Red Chili Sauce
Red chili sauces are used in many Mexican and Tex-Mex dishes, such as red chile enchiladas or tamales. On doing research for this post I found references to many different ways of making red chile sauce; in Mexico alone there...
Perfect Guacamole
Guacamole, a dip made from avocados, is originally from Mexico. The name is derived from two Aztec Nahuatl words - ahuacatl (avocado) and molli (sauce). The trick to perfect guacamole is using good, ripe avocados. Check for ripeness by gently...
Carne Asada
Carne asada shown wrapped up in a flour tortilla with pico de gallo and avocado Carne asada is the thinly sliced, grilled beef served so often in tacos and burritos. It is also commonly served as is, with rice and...
Carnitas
Enter any Mexican taqueria in California and you'll find carnitas on the menu, usually pork butt (the shoulder roast) braised first, pulled apart, and then roasted on high heat to caramelize. This is my father's favorite recipe for pork carnitas...
How to Make Corn Tortillas
Nothing beats tortillas made from scratch. The packaged tortillas you get at big American markets don't even come close to a good, freshly made corn tortilla. My dear friend Martha's husband Arturo recently spent an afternoon with me, taking me...
Tortilla Soup
Tortilla soup encompasses all the things I love best in Mexican cooking. Do you like salsa? avocado? cilantro? fresh hot tortilla chips? Tortilla soup is like a soup version of my favorite enchilada, with chicken, and tortilla chips. And avocado...
Oven-toasted Sonoran Quesadilla
My mother grew up in Tucson, Arizona, and remembers fondly what she calls "Sonoran Quesadillas" - large, thin, flour tortillas, toasted with butter and cheese, and often topped with strips of mild green chiles. The quesadillas are called "Sonoran" because...
Quesadilla
I grew up making quesadillas, the benefit of having a Hispanic mother who is a great cook. "Queso" is cheese in Spanish. And a quesadilla is a toasted tortilla with melted cheese inside. But in addition to cheese, you can...
Mom's Chicken Enchiladas
Ninety-five percent of the time when we have enchiladas, it is my mom's (amazingly good, incredibly awesome) cheese enchiladas. Once in a while however, she'll make chicken enchiladas. With chicken enchiladas she often uses a red chili sauce which is...
Simple Salsa
There are two basic types of tomato-based salsas - salsa made with fresh tomatoes and salsa made with cooked tomatoes. When cooking salsa, as we do when we make enchiladas, we always use the cooked-tomato version, not the fresh. Starting...
Refried Beans
Frijoles Refritos Pinto beans, prepared Mexican style, are such a staple in our house a week rarely goes by without my mother making up a batch. Although beans have a relatively long shelf life, the older they are the longer...
Chipotle Bean Tostadas
Tostadas are toasted or fried corn tortillas, topped with a layer of refried beans and other things such as cheese, lettuce, and salsa. Growing up, my mother made tostadas or tacos for us at least once a month, the main...
Pickled Jalapenos (Escabeche)
Chiles Jalapenos y Serrano Escabeche This year I decided to grow jalapeño and serrano chiles - those wonderfully hot and flavorful Mexican chiles that are used salsa, guacamole, and so many Mexican dishes. But I certainly wasn't expecting each plant...
Huevos a la Mexicana
Huevos al la Mexicana, or Mexican-style eggs, are essentially eggs, cooked and scrambled in salsa. My mother has been serving "huevos" (pronounced weh-vose, with the beginning like "when" without the n) prepared like this forever, as her mother before her...
Fish Tacos
In Mexico, practically every meal is accompanied by a stack of fresh warm corn tortillas, much in the way that bread is served here in America. As you eat, you can wrap whatever is on your plate in a fresh...
Ceviche
The first time I made ceviche, I was amazed. I could actually see the lemon and lime juice turning the color of the fish from translucent pink to opaque white. The acid from the limes and lemons change the structure...
Albondigas Soup
This Mexican meatball soup was a family favorite growing up. Not an appetizer, always a main course, either for lunch or dinner. "Albondigas" means "meatballs" in Spanish, and the trick to perfect albondigas soup is to put chopped mint leaves...