From Guacamole to Margarita: 8 Mexican Recipes
Text: Elena Chernyavskaya
Mexican cuisine is loved all over the world, unsurprisingly, this is a hearty, spicy food. A new wave of popularity of traditional ingredients and dishes has also come down to us: in many supermarkets, avocados (albeit solid ones) are now lying side by side, and tasty tacos can finally be found on food courts. We chose eight recipes that we can cook at home without much difficulty - all the ingredients will be in a large grocery store.
Guacamole
This is a very famous and ancient dish - the Aztecs invented it long before the Spanish colonization. True, the real boom of guacamole occurred yet in the 20th century on the wave of interest in traditional cuisine and vegetarianism. And although each Mexican family has its own recipe, it combines all the availability of avocado, chili and lime, as well as the method of serving - with tortillas.
Ingredients:
Cooking:
Chop the peppers, peeled onion and tomato in a food processor (or, as in the old days, knead with a pestle in a stone mortar).
Add avocado pulp, mix. Add salt and lime juice and mix again.
Ideally, guacamole should be served with corn tortillas - fresh or dried to a state of chips.
Tortilla
These corn tortillas are one of the basic components of Mexican (and not only) cuisine and one of the oldest types of bread in Latin America. Maya and Aztecs ate them the same way as we do now: we simply dipped in guacamole or wrapped stuffing in cakes. Tortillas will be useful for cooking other dishes - tacos, fajits or quesadillas, and it is not difficult to make them, because they consist of two ingredients: flour and water.
Ingredients:
Cooking:
Flour requires special attention - ideally, it should be a special corn, very fine grinding, which is sold under the name Masa Harina (literally "flour for dough"). As an option - you can mix cornmeal in half with wheat.
Flour should be sifted into a large bowl, pour very hot (but tolerant to touch) water and mix until smooth. The finished dough should be soft, but not sticky, and water may need a little more or a little less. Then you need to roll the dough into a bowl and leave for half an hour in the refrigerator.
From the dough you need to sculpt the balls and roll them into cakes about three millimeters thick. Fry the flatbreads in a hot frying pan without oil, for a couple of minutes on each side. As soon as the tortilla began to swell - it's time to turn it over. It is important not to overdo the tortillas on the fire, they should be soft and slightly moist.
Taco
Taco - the oldest way to eat almost anything with tortillas and one of the most popular Mexican recipes in the world. Everything is suitable for tacos: meat, vegetables, cheese, fish, and their combinations - but this dish does not have a specific recipe. Mandatory ingredients are chili, lime, tortillas and sauces: either salsa or guacamole, and more often both.
Ingredients:
Cooking:
Prepare the stuffing. This could be fried fish, meat or chicken - or any option you like, such as grilled shrimps and vegetables. The filling should be cut into small pieces and sprinkled with lime juice.
Cut tomatoes into cubes, onions - thin ringlets. Sprinkle the onions with lime juice and mix with the tomatoes and finely chopped coriander.
Tortilla bend "boat", in each put two tablespoons of guacamole, a couple of tablespoons of vegetable mixture, and on top - the same meat or fish filling. Add salsa and serve immediately - if you prepare tacos in advance, the cakes can be sodden.
Salsa
The full name of salsa is salsa roja, that is, "red sauce", and it is made from tomatoes. The recipe here is again quite conditional, and the number of components can be changed depending on the desired level of sharpness and sourness. Salsa is added to almost all Mexican dishes - and its taste is strongly dependent on the quality of the tomatoes, which should be very ripe, "sugar".
Ingredients:
Cooking:
Use a knife or blender to chop the onion, tomato and chili.
Gradually add lime juice (to taste).
Use immediately - salsa is poorly stored.
Fajita
Historically, fajita was the food of the Mexican shepherds, and they made a dish of beef — and not from large pieces of meat, but the pieces that were fried over an open fire, supplemented with some kind of vegetables and spruce, wrapped in a tortilla. Now fajita often cooked from chicken.
Ingredients:
Cooking:
Onions cut into thick rings, put in a bowl and pour boiling water; water should completely cover the bow. Cover with a lid and set aside.
Finely chop the chili; fry chicken pieces together with chili on a thick-walled cast-iron skillet in vegetable oil.
Bulgarian pepper cut into strips. Add butter to the pan to the chicken, put the pepper and onion (from which you first need to drain the water), squeeze the juice of one lime and mix. Put the pan in the oven, preheated to 200 degrees, for 15-20 minutes. Finished fajita fill with lime juice, mix and serve.
The fajita is served very hot - right from the oven - and always in the pan, where they were cooked. During the meal, you need to mix the pieces of meat with pepper, butter and onions, and then spread the mixture on the tortilla, adding sour cream with a spoon.
Mexican Chicken Tortilla Soup
In Mexico, for this soup they use fresh, not canned, beans and corn - but you can not complicate the process and use canned food.
Ingredients:
Cooking:
Chicken pour water and put on fire. Bulgarian pepper and tomatoes finely chop and fry in vegetable oil until a light brown tint.
When the chicken is cooked, add beans, corn, roasted vegetables and chopped chili peppers to the pan, squeeze the juice from the limes and cook for another 10-15 minutes over low heat.
Cut the tortilla into strips about an inch wide. Heat the vegetable oil in a cast iron skillet and fry the strips of tortilla on it - as an option, you can dry them in a dry skillet.
Pour the soup into plates, put a handful of toasted strips of tortilla into each, sprinkle with cilantro and serve.
Margarita
This cocktail can be attributed to the Mexican classics - invented almost a hundred years ago, perhaps, it was he who glorified tequila to the whole world. For margarita need simple ("silver") tequila. We present a recipe that is slightly different from the classic one — it contains more lime and sugar syrup.
Ingredients:
Cooking:
Add all ingredients to a shaker with very finely crushed ice and mix well.
Pour into glasses, add a slice of lime and serve.
Rising Sun
This is a less strong, but no less popular cocktail (Tequila Sunrise - "Tequila Sunrise") based on tequila, which is also loved by Mexicans themselves. Our recipe is a classic, registered by the International Bartenders Association.
Ingredients:
Cooking:
Fill a glass with ice cubes. Pour orange juice from above, tequila into it, and grenadine last, so that the red color turns out.
Serve without stirring.
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