Mexico Cooks!

Albóndigas de Jalisco, Estilo Diana Kennedy::Jalisco-Style Meatballs, Adapted from Diana Kennedy

These and just a few other ingredients for albóndigas de Jalisco (Jalisco-style meatballs) combine to become a simple but delicious meal.

It's been cool during the day here in Mexico City for the couple of months since the rainy season finally got itself underway.  Summer in Mexico's Central Highlands is my favorite time of year: cool-to-warm partly sunny days are nearly always followed by downright chilly rainy nights. 

For those of you who live in the USA or Canada, it's hard to realize that at more than 7500 feet above sea level, Mexico City has weather completely unlike what many think of as Mexico's desert or even beach temperatures.  In the last few days, the afternoon high temperatures have hovered just under 70° Fahrenheit.  In Mexico Cooks!' household, cool days always mean something warming and delicious for our comida (midday meal).  Subtly-flavored albóndigas--especially as prepared from this recipe, adapted from Diana Kennedy's book The Cuisines of Mexico--are the perfect comfort food.

You only need to blend eggs and a few herbs and spices to give a most wonderful Mexican touch to the meat mixture for these albóndigas (meatballs).

This is a dandy recipe for cooks of any level: if you're a beginner, you'll love the simplicity and authenticity of the flavors of the end product.  If you're a more advanced cook, the people at your table will believe that you worked for hours to prepare this traditional Mexican meal. 

All the ingredients you need are undoubtedly easy for you to get even if you live outside Mexico.  Here's the list, both for the meatballs and their sauce:

Ingredients
Albóndigas
1.5 Tbsp long-grain white rice
Boiling water to cover
3/4 lb ground pork
3/4 lb ground beef
2 eggs
1/4 scant teaspoon dried oregano
4 good-sized sprigs fresh mint (preferably) OR 1 tsp dried mint
1 chile serrano, roughly chopped
3/4 tsp salt
1/4 scant teaspoon cumin seeds OR ground cumin
1/3 medium white onion, roughly chopped

Add the liquified eggs, onions, chile, herbs, and spices to the ground meats and mix well with your hands.

Sauce
3 medium tomatoes (about 1 lb)
1 chile serrano, roughly chopped (optional if you do not care for a mildly spicy sauce)
Boiling water to cover
3 Tbsp lard, vegetable oil, peanut oil, or safflower oil (I prefer lard, for its flavor)
1 medium white onion, roughly chopped
5 cups rich meat or chicken broth, homemade if possible
Salt to taste

For serving
2 or 3 carrots, cut into cubes or sticks
2 medium white potatoes, cut into cubes or sticks

 Utensils
A small bowl
A large bowl
A blender
A saucepan
A fork
A large flameproof pot with cover

Preparing the meatballs
Put the rice in a small bowl and cover with boiling water.  Allow to soak for about 45 minutes.  I use the glass custard cup that you see lying on its side in the initial photo--it's just the right size.

While the rice is soaking, put both kinds of meat into the large bowl.  

Put the eggs, onion, and all herbs and spices--in that order--in the blender jar.  Blend until all is liquified.  Add to the meat mixture and, using your hands, mix well until the liquid is thoroughly incorporated.

Rinse out the blender jar for its next use in this recipe.

Drain the rice and add it to the meat mixture.  Form 24 meatballs, about 1.5" in diameter, and set aside.

Preparing the sauce


Bring about 2 cups of water to a full rolling boil.  Add the whole tomatoes and allow to cook for about five minutes, until the skins split.  Watch the pot, though: this procedure might take a bit less or a bit more time. 


When the tomato skins split, take the tomatoes one by one out of the water and peel them.  If you've never tried it, believe me: this is miraculously easy--the skins are not too hot to handle and they slip off the tomatoes like little gloves.  You can see that I have stuck a fork into the stem end of the tomato for ease of handling.

Skin the tomatoes and put them in the blender jar.  Add the roughly-chopped onion and chile serrano.  Blend until thoroughly puréed.

Freshly rendered manteca (lard) for frying the sauce.  If all you can get in your store is a hard brick of stark white, hydrogenated lard, don't bother.  It has no flavor and absolutely no redeeming value.  If you want to use lard, ask a butcher at a Latin market if he sells freshly rendered lard.  If none is available, use the oil of your choice.

In the flameproof cooking pot, heat the lard or oil and add the tomato purée.  Bring it to a boil and let it cook fast for about three minutes.  Splatter alert here!

Turn down the flame and add the broth to the tomato sauce.  Bring it to a simmer.  Add the meatballs, cover the pot, and let them simmer in the liquid for about an hour.


After the first hour of cooking, add the carrots and the potatoes to the tomato broth and meatballs.  Cover and cook for an additional half hour.  When I made the albóndigas this time, I cubed the vegetables.  I think the finished dish is more attractive with the vegetables cut into sticks.

The rich fragrance of the cooking albóndigas and their broth penetrates every corner of our home.  By the time they're ready to eat, we are more than eager!

Albóndigas de Jalisco served with steamed white rice (you might also like to try them with Mexican red rice), sliced avocado, and fresh, hot tortillas.  This flat soup plate filled with albóndigas and vegetables needs more sauce; we prefer to eat them when they're very soupy.  A serving of rice topped with three meatballs plus vegetables and sauce is plenty. 

Albóndigas freeze really well, so I often double the recipe; I use a flat styrofoam meat tray from the supermarket to freeze the uncooked meatballs individually, then prepare the sauce, thaw the meatballs, and cook them as described.

The single recipe serves eight.

Provecho!

Looking for a tailored-to-your-interests specialized tour in Mexico? Click here: Tours.

Isthmus of Tehuantepec Cooking in Oaxaca: Cocina Istmeña Oaxaqueña

Good friend and chef Rodolfo Castellanos with his adorable daughter Elisa.  Chef Rodolfo owns Restaurante Origen in Oaxaca.  He and Elisa's mother, Lisette, asked me to join them for comida (the main meal of the day) at Oaxaca's Restaurant La Teca.

Invited by the Mexico Today initiative to a several-day-long meeting in Oaxaca, I took a little time away from that group to visit another group: several culinary-world friends who live and work in this southern Mexico city.   I played hooky to eat on Friday with Pilar Cabrera at her wonderful restaurant La Olla, and on Saturday with chef Rodolfo Castellanos and his family at La Teca, a restaurant specializing in cooking from the Isthmus of Tehuantepec.

The Isthmus of Tehuantepec is the skinniest part of mainland Mexico, lying between the Pacific Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico.  Prior to the opening of the Panama Canal, it was the most important route for goods working their slow way across the relatively flat lands between the two bodies of water.  Partly in Oaxaca, partly in Chiapas, partly in Tabasco and partly in Veracruz, the territory has its own legends, its own history, and its own cuisines. 

You may not be aware that you are already familiar with the native dress of the Tehuanas, as the women of the isthmus are known.  Above, a Frida Kahlo 1948 self portrait, dressed as a Tehuana. Image courtesy of: http://www.earlywomenmasters.net

Far off the beaten tourist track in Oaxaca, Restaurant La Teca serves outstanding food from the Isthmus of Tehuantepec.  The welcoming owner and cook, Señora Deyanira Aquino, will make sure that you eat your fill of her marvelous regional cuisine.

The cooking of the Isthmus is traditionally corn-based and idiosyncratic.  Most ingredients are indigenous to its hot lowlands (for example, armadillo and iguana) and its proximity to the sea: fresh and dried shrimp, fresh fish, and other creatures from the ocean depths.

At La Teca we shared a platter of garnachas, a traditional entrada or botana (appetizer or snack) based on a fried disk of corn dough and topped with a mixture of meat, vegetables, and salsa.

Tamalitos de cambray from Tehuantepec, savory-sweet tamales made of chicken, raisins, olives, almonds, and capers.


These are molotes de plátano macho (small, sweetly ripe plantain croquettes) topped with crema de mesa (table cream) and queso fresco (fresh cheese).  The three of us shared an order of four molotes.  We kept dividing the last one into smaller and smaller pieces so that one of us did not hog the whole thing--although each of us would have!


Next course at La Teca: a taco filled with a small chile pasilla oaxaqueño relleno (a regional dried chile, reconstituted, stuffed, and fried).  It doesn't look like anything special, does it?  If you could just enjoy the fragrance, I assure you that you would want to lick your monitor.

Tamales de elote (fresh corn tamales) followed, served with crema de mesa.  These reminded me very much of Michoacán uchepos, another kind of fresh corn tamales.

Another traditional dish from the Isthmus, estofado de bodas (wedding stew).  It's a delicious long-cooked combination of beef, fruits, chiles, and other spices, typically served at weddings.

Purée de papa, estilo Istmeño (potatoes, coarsely mashed and then baked, Isthmus style). 

Asado de puerco con mole (pork roasted with mole, from Tehuantepec).

The owner and chief cook at La Teca is Sra. Deyanira Aquino, born and raised in the Isthmus.  Women of the region are called 'tecas'--from Tehuantepec--hence the name of the restaurant.

You are probably well aware of the mythical seven moles of Oaxaca, and although the state is best known for those, there are many other less-well-known but equally wonderful dishes available to visitors.  By all means go see Sra. Aquino at La Teca; you will be as thrilled by everything you eat as we were.  This is not fancy, high-end designer-plated food.  Your palate will be delighted by traditional Tehuantepec home-style cooking.  And oh my god, you might exclaim, did the three of you really eat all that?  We most assuredly did, every bite, and so will you.

Restaurant La Teca
Calle Violetas #200-A
Colonia Reforma
Oaxaca, Oaxaca
01.951.515.0563 (from within Mexico)

Disclaimer: Marca País-Imágen de México is a joint public and private sector initiative designed to helppromote Mexico as a global business partner and an unrivaled tourist destination.  This program is designed to shine a light on the Mexico that its people experience every day.  Disclosure: I am being compensated for my work in creating content for the Mexico Today program.  All stories, opinions, and passions for all things Mexico that I write on Mexico Cooks! are completely my own.

Looking for a tailored-to-your-interests specialized tour in Mexico? Click here: Tours.

Going to the Chapel of Love--Getting Married In Mexico City!

Preparation for Mexico Cooks!' wedding in Mexico on July 22, 2011, was complicated, time-consuming, paperwork-heavy and worth every single second of the work involved.

On December 21, 2009, Mexico City became the first Latin American jurisdiction to legalize same-sex marriage.  This historic law went into effect on March 4, 2010.  On August 10, 2010, the legislature announced that although same-sex couples could only get married in Mexico City, same-sex marriages are valid throughout Mexico's 31 states.  Although we were still living in Morelia, Michoacán, Judy, my beloved long-time partner, and I started making plans for a Mexico City wedding ceremony.  Once we decided--for other reasons entirely--to move to Mexico City, our wedding plans accelerated.

In spite of this sort of decor being extremely naco (Spanish slang for declassé), we couldn't resist hanging this huge satin-and-lace-covered heart incribed 'Nuestra Boda' (Our Wedding) in the interior hallway, just in front of our building's elevator.  It was the first thing our guests saw as they arrived on our floor.  Photo by Mexico Cooks!.

Mexico has long been a wedding destination for heterosexual couples.  Now, of course, the same rules and regulations for getting married apply to same-sex couples, and it's expected that Mexico City will rapidly become a wedding destination for any couple who wants to tie the knot. 

Suppose you and your intended live in the United States, though--what exactly is entailed in getting married in Mexico?  Just remember that in Mexico City it doesn't matter if you are Adam and Eve or Adam and Steve, the rules are precisely the same.

• You are not required to be a resident of Mexico, but you are required to be in the country for at least three full business days before you apply for a marriage license.  Those business days cannot include a Saturday, a Sunday, or any of Mexico's legal holidays.
• For USA residents only: at least several weeks before you travel to Mexico, each of you needs to apply for an apostilled copy of your original birth certificate.  The Secretary of State's office in the state where you were born will handle the apostille for you.  And what, you might ask, is an apostille?  It's a legal guarantee per the Hague Convention that the original document was issued in that state.  Canadians are exempt from the apostille process.
• If either of you has been married and divorced, you are also required to provide an apostilled copy of your marriage license AND your divorce decree.  If you've been married/divorced more than once, the documents for each marriage must be apostilled by the Secretary of State's offices where the marriages and divorces occurred.
• All of your apostilled documents must be translated into Spanish in Mexico by a formally certified Mexican translation service called a perito (expert).  In other words, even if you are fluent in Spanish, you are not allowed to do this step yourself.  Be sure to allow enough time to have this done.

Very special guests: our friends (left) Judith Vázquez Arreola and (right) LolKin Castañeda.  Married on March 11, 2010, they were among the first same-sex couples wed in Mexico City.  Long-time feminist activists, Judith and LolKin were responsible in large part for the passage of the law legalizing same-sex marriage in the Distrito Federal.  We are honored to be their friends and to have enjoyed their company at our wedding.  Photo courtesy Jesús Chaírez.

In addition to the information and items listed above, you will also need:

• Your original passports plus several copies of them.
• You need the copies of your tourist cards that you'll be given on the airplane coming to Mexico.  The fee for your tourist card is included in your airplane ticket.  If you are driving down, you must stop at the border to get a tourist card.  There is a small fee for these, around $30.00 USD each.
• You will probably be required to have blood tests and possibly a chest X-ray prior to your wedding.
• Once you are in Mexico, you will apply for a marriage license at the Registro Civil (civil registry office) responsible for the location where you will be married.  If you are a same-sex couple, be sure that the registry office supplies you with the form marked 'el y el' (he and he) or 'ella y ella' (she and she).  If you are heterosexual, you'll need the one marked 'el y ella' (he and she).
• If neither you nor your intended is Mexican, you will be required to have four witnesses to the ceremony, two for each of you.  Your witnesses must be over age 18 and must present their passports (originals and copies) and their tourist cards three days before the ceremony.
• For legal reasons, weddings must be performed in Spanish.
• Your civil wedding in Mexico is legal in both the United States and Canada, as well as in many other countries.
• Civil weddings are the only legal weddings in Mexico.  Church or synagogue weddings are always lovely and are meant to be God's blessing on the newlyweds, but they are not legal ceremonies.
• Many couples marry legally in their home countries and have a spiritual ceremony--performed by anyone of their choice--at a special Mexican destination.  Beaches are very popular for this sort of ceremony.  Beach resort operators are accustomed to making arrangements for these weddings.

 
The two brides with Sr. Louis Perrilliat Blum, the Registro Civil judge who came to our home to perform our wedding.  Photo courtesy Tony Chinn Anaya.

Our situation was different in that we are long-time residents of Mexico and were not visiting from another country.  Our situation was complicated by the fact that Mexico Cooks! is a Mexican citizen, while her bride is not.  If either of you is a Mexican citizen and the other is not, more paperwork and more permissions are required.  Get ready for a long haul--but know that it can be done, because we did it and you can, too.

The feeling as we exchanged rings and realized that we were truly married...it's hard to describe, but you can see the looks on our faces.  Amazing does not begin to tell the story.  Photo courtesy Tony Chinn Anaya.

I have been a life-long activist, either for or against any number of what I have considered to be worthy causes: civil rights, women's rights, gay rights, and more.  For many years, it was my stance that although I did not choose to marry my partner, I believed that any gay couple who wanted to marry should have that choice.  When Mexico City legalized same-sex marriage, I changed my mind.  I came to believe that since we now could marry, we should marry: as a sign in the world of our love and a sign that our relationship is equal to any other couple's.

What a thrill to know that my adopted country agrees with me.

Looking for a tailored-to-your-interests specialized tour in Mexico? Click here: Tours.

 

 

 

Regional Food and Drink in Oaxaca: A Comer! (Let's Eat!) with Mexico Cooks!

In Oaxaca, the state's fine regional drink--mezcal, la bebida de los dioses (the drink of the gods)--is almost as common as water.  Whether enjoyed from a shot glass or sipped from a traditional jícara (a small dried half-gourd), the smoky taste of mezcal combines perfectly with sal de gusano (worm salt, pictured above in the clay bowl) and fresh orange slices. 

About six weeks ago, Mexico Cooks! was a guest of Mexico Today, a new Mexican government initiative designed to promote all the best of Mexico to the world.  Twenty-four diverse writers--all with a passion for Mexico--met in Oaxaca to bond and to learn about the new program we would soon be representing to our readers. As you might imagine, Mexico Cooks! thought what's cooking in Oaxaca was one of the highlights of the trip.

We experienced our first Oaxaca cena (late-evening supper) at Pitiona, the new and highly touted restaurant owned by young Chef José Manuel Baños Rodríguez.  Along with several other courses, he served our group this estofado de carne de res con mole (braised beef tongue with mole).  The three pale-green globes are olive liquid that burst in the mouth to release the pure essence of green olive.  The beef?  Delicious, tender tongue.  Some of our group could barely believe that beef tongue, of all things, could be so wonderful.

Another member of the Mexico Today writer/community managers' team, my new pal Lisa Coleman, went with me the next day for a relatively light comida (the main meal of Mexico's day) at Pilar Cabrera's marvelous restaurant, La Olla.  Our first course was a plate of four of these tostadas callejeras (street-style tostadas).  Not one smidgen of anything--not tomato, not guacamole, not lettuce, not the crispy corn tostada and certainly not the delicious Oaxaca-style chorizo --remained on the plate after we finished the course.

Chef Alejandro Ruiz closely supervised the preparation of a beautiful and amazingly delicious Saturday-night cena for the Mexico Today group.  A candle-lit mezcal and jamaica (infusion of hibiscus flower) martini started our elegant meal at Restaurante Casa Oaxaca.

Chef Alejandro explains one of the fine points of the dinner preparation.

The Casa Oaxaca cebiche (marinated raw fish) appetizer, served with mango cubes, onion, cilantro, and an espejo (literally mirror, but in this case, a pool) of marinade that included jugos de limón y maracuyá (key lime and passionfruit juices).  This socko flavor combination was the hit of the night for me.

One table of the several tables of the Mexico Today group of contributors and community managers, ready for dinner at Casa Oaxaca. 

Next week, a very special not-about-food edition of Mexico Cooks!--don't miss it.  In just a few weeks, Mexico Cooks! will invite you for one last meal in Oaxaca and another quick peek at the Mercado Benito Juárez. 

 Looking for a tailored-to-your-interests specialized tour in Mexico? Click here: Tours.

Disclaimer: Marca País-Imágen de México is a joint public and private sector initiative designed to help promote Mexico as a global business partner and an unrivaled tourist destination.  This program is designed to shine a light on the Mexico that its people experience every day.  Disclosure: I am being compensated for my work in creating content for the Mexico Today program.  All stories, opinions, and passions for all things Mexico that I write on Mexico Cooks! are completely my own.