It was me who opened my mouth...so here's the Mexican recipe thread

Ooohhh, good thread.

*drooling, she scurries off to search her recipe files*

We love Chile Rellenos and although a lady from Chihuahua taught me how to make them, I have played with the recipe until I got it the way we like it best. Traditionally, a ‘batter’ is made for the chilies by beating egg whites until the are stiff, then you fold in the beaten egg yolks. However, I make ours using a standard vegetable batter. If you want traditional, beat 3-4 egg whites with a pinch of cream of tartar until stiff but not dry. Beat their yolks until they lighten in color, and then gently fold the yolks into the whites. Substitute for the batter shown below.

Chile Rellenos​

6 fresh Anaheim, Padilla or Poblano chilies (I use Poblano because they have a wee bite to them.)
¼ inch thick strips cut down the length of an 8 ounce block of Monterey Jack cheese

All-purpose flour (for dusting chilies)
Batter (recipe follows)
Oil for deep-frying

Roast the chilies over an open gas flame on your stove or under the broiler, turning frequently until they are completely charred and black. Place chilies in a plastic bag and seal the bag. Allow the chilies to steam in the bag until you can easily remove the charred skins from them by using your fingers and fingernails. (Approximately 5 –10 minutes. The chilies will be limp.) It’s a messy job but worth the effort. Do not rinse the chilies under water and don’t worry if some of the charred skin remains on the chilies. It adds to the flavor.

Using a small sharp knife or your fingernail, make a 3-4 inch slit down one side of the chili starting from the stem end. Using a small spoon or your fingers, carefully remove as many of the seeds as you can without tearing the chili badly. A few seeds left behind are just fine and won’t hurt the final outcome of the dish. If a chili tears badly, you can still use it. Fry it last. It may not look as pretty and some of the cheese will leak out and splatter as it cooks, but it will taste good.

Carefully stuff each chili with enough strips of cheese to nearly fill them but not make it impossible to close the slit’s seam. You may need to cut pieces off the slices of cheese to make them fit properly. Place on a plate or in a Tupperware container until you have filled all of the chilies. Chill in the refrigerator for at least one half hour, covered, or until you are ready to fry them.

Pour enough oil in a high-sided pot to come 1/3 up its sides or use an electric deep fryer. Heat oil on high to 375F.

Roll chilies one at a time in flour, carefully shaking off excess, only flouring those chilies you are ready to fry. Dip chilies in batter, allowing excess batter to drip off. You may need to dip chilies more than once to completely encase chilies in batter. *

Carefully drop one or two chilies at a time in oil, turning periodically to cook all sides, and fry until deep golden brown. Remove chilies from oil, allowing excess oil to drip back into pot. Place on paper toweling to remove additional oil, and then place on a roasting rack/cooling rack set on a cookie sheet in a warm oven (200F) until all chilies have been fried.

Serve with homemade salsa or a good quality bottled salsa.

Vegetable batter​

3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 cup cornstarch
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper

1 – 1 1/4 cup ice-cold water

Sift dry ingredients into a bowl. Whisk in 1 cup of the water, adding more if necessary to create a batter the consistency of heavy cream

Note: With the addition of 1 tablespoon sugar this batter is excellent for deep frying ice cream.

* The important part of making these chilies is to seal the seam with the flour and batter so that the cheese does not leak out during the cooking process. With practice, this becomes easier each time you make this delicious dish.

Kitrianna said:

For those who are wondering, it's mexican sausage. I don't put mine in casings (cause I haven't found a place yet to get them), but it makes a great taco filliing andit's great mixed into scrambled eggs. That's how the hubs really likes it!

Click to expand...

Chorizo with scrambled eggs, eaten with a tortilla. Breakfast heaven! Machaca is also delicious with scrambled eggs and flour tortillas! Though I'm pretty sure you buy the machaca instead of making it.

But here goes! A very simple recipe for yummy chilaquiles!

Chilaquiles

Ingredients:
- 10 tortillas chopped up into triangles fried in enough corn oil
- 1/2 a litter of water
- 3 red tomatos
- 7 chiles serranos (or any number you like, depending on how spicy you want it to be
- 1/4 onion
- 3 garlic teeth
- some epazote (a spice)
- salt and pepper

To make the sauce:
You boil the tomatos in the water for 30 seconds in order to be able to peel their skin off. Then you put them back into the water to boil with the chiles. Once boiled, you blend them in the water along with the onion and garlic. It's supposed to be a thin sauce, not thick. Then, in another pan, you fry the sauce in a little corn oil and add the epazote with the salt and pepper.


After the sauce is ready, add the tortilla chips. The amount of time you have the tortilla chips there will affect how crunchy or soft your chilaquiles are.


They're done! Serve with cream, onion rings and sprinkled fresh cheese on the top, along with a serving of fried beans at the side. Yummy!

DamaNegra said:

- some epazote (a spice)

Click to expand...

Nice recipe.

Are you talking like a palm full of fresh epazote, rough chopped? Or is it more like sprinkling a bit of finely chopped parsley over the top of a sauce to add a punch of freshness and flavor? I've never used it before and I'm excited to try your recipe.

If it is unavailable is there a substitute?

Thanks for the recipe!

Yes, it is about sprinkling a bit of finely chopped parsley over the top of a sauce. Hmm I don't know if there's a substitute, maybe someone who's more knowledgable about spices than me can help you there?

DamaNegra said:

Yes, it is about sprinkling a bit of finely chopped parsley over the top of a sauce. Hmm I don't know if there's a substitute, maybe someone who's more knowledgable about spices than me can help you there?

Click to expand...

Thank you.

I found a link that talks a great deal about epazote. They say there really isn't a substitute but that Mexican oregano could be used with pleasing results.

Un tarascón, unos colmillos (iban
sin duda a destrozarme)
los jabalíes y los cocodrilos:
entonces
saqué de mi bolsillo
mi estimable palabra:
orégano, grité con alegría,
blandiéndola en mi mano temblorosa.

Oh milagro, las fieras asustadas
me pidieron perdón y me pidieron
humildemente orégano.

Click to expand...

Um, I need tortilla recipes since they aren't available here. Corn flour is not available here, either (although corn starch is), so I'll have no choice but to make flour tortillas. Although I've also heard that popcorn can be ground into a kind of corn flour that might work, so maybe some recipes of both kinds, please? I'm craving Mexican and you're my only hope, Obewan!

How about a recpie for salsa roja? It's great, it's easy to make and the ingredients are available almost anywhere. You just need tomatoes, jalapeño peppers (or really, whichever peppers you fancy), cilantro, salt and some cooking oil.

Just fry the tomatoes and jalapeño peppers, and blend with water, the cilantro and the salt.

For flour tortillas you need:

500 gr of wheat flour
1/3 spoonful of salt
1 spoonful baking soda
150 gr of lard
1 cup of warm water

Mix the flour with the salt and baking soda. You make a fountain (kind of like a volcano) out of the flour and put the lard in the middle, you mix and start adding water little by little until you can form a soft ball. You do little balls of masa in whatever size you want them and start making them flat with whatever technique you're used to, and then just put them in the comal.

DamaNegra said:

How about a recpie for salsa roja?

Click to expand...

Not so darn fast! I'm still trying to figure out how the teeth, crocodiles, trembling hands, and purses shouting with joy fit into the previous recipe.

Obviously, my Spanish is horrid.

I'm guessing it has something to do with finding the humble oregano as a substitute for more costly things?

Would you be so kind as to translate?

Un tarascón, unos colmillos (iban
sin duda a destrozarme)
los jabalíes y los cocodrilos:
entonces
saqué de mi bolsillo
mi estimable palabra:
orégano, grité con alegría,
blandiéndola en mi mano temblorosa.

Oh milagro, las fieras asustadas
me pidieron perdón y me pidieron
humildemente orégano.

Click to expand...

Great Thread. I love Mexican Food...

Muy Bien

Be veeerrrry careful with fresh tortillas. They're unbelievably delicious for something so simple, and they're a sure way to uncontrollable weight gain.

Yeah, I'm already fat, and my husband still loves me, so I'm not worried.

Thanks, DamaNegra. We can't get lard here, so I'm going to substitute with virgin coconut oil and see how that goes unless you have a better suggestion?

DamaNegra said:

For flour tortillas you need:

500 gr of wheat flour
1/3 spoonful of salt
1 spoonful baking soda
150 gr of lard
1 cup of warm water

Click to expand...

One question. About the flour tortillas, anyway. When you say spoonful, do you mean teaspoon or tablespoon? If you prefer milliliters, that's fine by me.


Next question. I'm thinking about quesidillas, and I've never made them. Shocking, I know. I'm thinking the basic idea is a flour tortilla with veggies like tomatoes, onion, green peppers, and maybe some chicken or something, smothered in cheese and then, what, baked until the cheese melts, with another flour tortilla on top. Is that the basic idea? Please enlighten me, Obewan! I'm starting to get a hankering for Mexican again.

brianm said:

Would you be so kind as to translate?

Click to expand...

Lol! I was just playing around It is a fragment of a poem by Pablo Neruda called Oregano. I figured it would be semi-appropiate in a writer's forum. Translation:

One bite, some fangs (they
would, doubtless, destroy me)
the boars and the crocodiles:
then
I took out of my pocket
my most esteemed word
orégano, I yelled with joy,
shaking it in my trembling hand

Oh, miracle! The scared beasts
asked me for forgiveness and asked me,
humbly, for orégano

Click to expand...

L M Ashton said:

Thanks, DamaNegra. We can't get lard here, so I'm going to substitute with virgin coconut oil and see how that goes unless you have a better suggestion?

Click to expand...

Well, I've never tried it, since lard is too easy to get here (which would explain why we're 2nd place in obesity, but I digress). But yeah, you could try the recipe with vegetable oil. The worst that could happen is that you'd get a more healthy version of flour tortillas

L M Ashton said:

One question. About the flour tortillas, anyway. When you say spoonful, do you mean teaspoon or tablespoon? If you prefer milliliters, that's fine by me.

Click to expand...

Oh! I hadn't noticed that. We don't make distinctions between one and the other (well, we do but it's the same word with a diminutive applied to it: cuchara/cucharita), but yeah. It's 1/3 tablespoon of salt and 1 teaspoon baking soda.

L M Ashton said:

Next question. I'm thinking about quesidillas, and I've never made them. Shocking, I know. I'm thinking the basic idea is a flour tortilla with veggies like tomatoes, onion, green peppers, and maybe some chicken or something, smothered in cheese and then, what, baked until the cheese melts, with another flour tortilla on top. Is that the basic idea? Please enlighten me, Obewan! I'm starting to get a hankering for Mexican again.

Click to expand...

No, you're thinking of a sincronizada. A quesadilla is usually just the cheese melted in a folded tortilla, but you can add whatever you want to it. I recommend warm chorizo (the recipe can be found upthread) or chicharrón (but I don't know the recipe for that). But if you want to make a sincronizada, yeah, you've got the basic idea for it

Just go crazy the beauty of the tortilla is that you can eat anything with it, you can fill it up with whatever food you can find (italian food particularly agrees with tortillas, lol!) and it also works as cutlery and as a dish.

Thank you, DN.

I took out of my pocket
my most esteemed word
orégano,

Click to expand...

In my case, it's Visa.

Hey, I found plenty of Mexican stuff in Canada. Like, at least there's real actual cheese, and nacho chips, and tortillas, and salsa, and the like. Here, I got nuthin'. Nuthin', I tell you!

I'm actually at the point that I finally decided to figure out how to make cottage cheese cuz that doesn't exist here, either... Happily, it's not that difficult.


Dama, are you aware that 1/3 of a tablespoon is the same as 1 teaspoon since there are 3 teaspoons in a tablespoon? So your amounts of salt and baking soda are identical. Just in case it needs further clarification...

Also, I'm wondering about the baking soda. Just in case it's a translational problem, you don't happen to mean baking powder, do you? I ask because baking soda usually requires some kind of acid to work as a leavening agent, but there's no acid in that recipe. Please clarify?

And, for a corn tortilla, would a person just use corn flour instead of wheat flour, but otherwise the recipe is identical, or do you have a different recipe for that?

Thanks, Dama!

Oh! Another thing - like I said, i can't get Mexican anything here. No Mexican sausage, no Mexican seasoning packets, no nothing. So if I were to want to season some chicken, for example, for use in a taco or, you know, in a tortilla, what would you suggest?

Here's a hint when making Chili Rellones:

I used Blanco white cheese AND goat cheese and sometimes I put in some cooked Chorizo.

Here's a great taco seasoning recipe: here

Cwap, I've got such a buttload of questions on the tortillas! Dama, what the heck is a comal? And if I don't have one, do I bake these or fry them? I'm thinking I can fry them in a heavy pan with little to no oil.

Kitrianna, your seasoning suggestions are about what I was guessing, so thanks for the confirmation.