A whole frog, battered, deep fried and served with chiles toreados (chile serrano, rolled in oil and grilled or sautéed until soft), cebolla blanca (white onion, in this case caramelized), and limón to squeeze all over it. Deep fried frogs are a specialty of Queréndaro, Michoacán. It's a truly graphic presentation, but you only eat the legs--unless you care to nibble on other parts.
A Sunday afternoon on the trajineras (boats) in Xochimilco requires a refueling stop at a 'restaurant' trajinera. In this case, our midday meal was juicy carne asada (grilled meat) and quesadillas cooked to order, guacamole and tortilla chips, rice, beans, and hot-off-the griddle tortillas. Delicious!
Mexico Cooks! discovered Panadería Manduca at Av. Nuevo León #125-B during the November Col. Condesa bakery crawl and hasn't stopped buying their marvelous made-on-site pretzel bread. The bread is dense, extremely flavorful, and just the way we like it.
Still on the bread theme, here's the pan de romero (rosemary bread) from Rosetta, a lovely Italian restaurant at Calle Colima 166, Col. Roma Sur, Mexico City. Next time we eat there, I promise you a report on London-trained chef Elena Reygada's wonderful food.
Home cooking: Mexico Cooks! prepared the hot, fennel-y Italian sausage and then created sausage, peppers, and onion sandwiches for a recent meal at home.
Another home-cooked meal: eggplant parmagiana. Peter Francis Battaglia, an Italian-American friend in New Jersey, keeps me inspired to try his recipes. Once you've read his web page and seen his photos, you'll be equally inspired.
Once every six weeks or so, Azul/Condesa or Azul/Histórico call out to us. It's difficult for me to resist the pechuga de pollo en mole negro (chicken breast in black mole). For me, Chef Ricardo Muñoz Zurita's mole negro recipe continues to be the gold standard for this dish.
To end on a sweet note: these buñuelos--foot-in-diameter deep-fried flour pastry, finished with a dash of granulated sugar and cinnamon, broken onto a plate or into a bowl and bathed with syrup made of piloncillo--were on the fonda table (small family food booth or restaurant) next to me the last time I was in Morelia, Michoacán. Could you resist? I couldn't.
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