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v:gourmet in MexicoMarch 2012

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v:gourmet just spent a stupendous week in Tulum, Mexico. Aside from the white sand beaches, Mayan ruins, a world class biosphere reserve, snorkeling, and getting drenched running through town in a tropical thundershower, we discovered a rich and plentiful food culture. Lunches were filled with burritos, tacos, and empanadas. Dinners boasted rice, beans, and salsa galore. I hope this magazine, a first for v:gourmet, will help you discover the joys of Mexican cuisine to build into your cooking routines and gastronomic explorations. Enjoy.

Breakfast on the beach

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Someone once said “The ability to simplify means to eliminate the unnecessary so that the necessary may speak.” So it is with homemade marmalade straight from the fruit to the plate to your mouth. Nothing is simpler than breakfast on the beach with fresh orange juice, organic mint tea, a plate of fresh fruit, and housemade marmalade with toast. Use whatever fruit is on hand that needs to be used up - pineapple, papaya, orange. Peel and core the fruit. Chop finely. Put the fruit in a large heavy-bottomed pot with an equal amount of organic cane sugar. Add juice from a lemon or lime and some mint or lavendar and bring the mixture to a boil. Turn the heat down to low, cover the pot, and let simmer for 1/2 hour, or until the fruit is tender and starts to thicken. Let the flavours speak for themselves, simply.

“The ability to simplify means to eliminate the unnecessary so that the necessary may speak.”

3 Sisters Chili for Lunch on a Rainy DayIn honour of the wisdom of many of our aboriginal peoples who planted beans, corn, and squash together in a symbiotically supportive micro-ecosystem. If its good to plant them together, I’m guessing it’s good to eat them together.

2 tbsps olive oil

3 cups chopped onions

1/4 tsp sea salt

5 garlic cloves, minced or pressed

1/4 tsp red pepper flakes

1 tsp each oregano, cumin, coriander, paprika, chili powder

2 cups winter squash or sweet potato, peeled and diced

2 cups red or orange pepper, diced

1 cup water

15 ounces red kidney beans or other dried beans, cooked and drained

15-ounces tomatoes, diced or stewed

1 1/2 cups corn, cut off the cob

ground black pepper

chopped scallions and/or cilantro

Warm the oil in a soup pot on medium-high heat. Add the onions and salt and cook until the onions are translucent, about 10 minutes.

Stir in the garlic, red pepper flakes, oregano, cumin, coriander, paprika, chili powder, squash or sweet potato, bell peppers, and water. Cook, stirring often, for 10 minutes.

Add the beans and tomatoes, cover, and simmer for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally to prevent sticking.

Add the corn and simmer for about 10 minutes. Add black pepper to taste.

Serve topped with scallions and/or cilantro alongside a nice cold cerveza.

Taco Taco Burrito Burrito

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It’s all about the format folks. For lunch dive into any one of these tasty Mexican specialities:

Taco: an open face collection of goodies on a corn or wheat tortilla with toppings.

Burrito: a tortilla wrapped into a roughly cylindrical shape to completely enclose a filling, usually involves rice and beans.

Quesadilla: a tortilla filled with goodies then folded in half to form a half-moon shape, usually includes cheese.

Fajita: mixed goodies on a hot iron skillet to be assembled on a tortilla as one pleases.

Enchilada: a tortilla rolled around a filling and covered with a chili pepper sauce.

Empanada: stuffed pastry baked or fried, from the verb empanar, meaning to wrap or coat in bread.

Tamales: tamal batter mixed with one of several fillings with chiles then wrapped in a corn husk or banana leaf and steamed.

Tortilla: corn that's been cooked in water and lime then ground into masa, patted and pressed into thin cakes, and cooked on a hot griddle known as a comal.

Flautas: a Mexican dish made by wrapping a tortilla around a savory filling and deep frying it. Typically served hot out of the fryer, they may be topped with an assortment of ingredients. From the Spanish word for flute. 

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Tulum’s Zamas with live muxic every night

What’s for Dinner?

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Mexican cuisine has been built on the simplicity of a few ingredients – tortillas, beans, chiles,

squash, and tomatoes – for centuries. In fact did you know that archaeological digs found that the

black bean originated in southern Mexico more than 7,000 years ago? Corn is a central tenant of

the Popul Vuh, the Mayan creation myth, which attributes this domesticated strain of wild grass to

humankind's very existence. Tomatoes as we know them came from the Yucatán, where the

Maya cultivated them before the Spanish arrived. And chiles have been grown in the Americas for

more than 6,000 years. Speaking of chiles, Mexican food itself usually isn’t spicy or piquant when

served (unless the cook likes it hot!) but instead the picante flavor is added at the table with chiles

and salsas which are ever-present and a much-welcome addition to any meal.

Black Bean Stew with Chipotle and Tomatoes

1 1/2 cups black beans, sorted and rinsed1 onion, quartered1/2 tsp oregano

sea salt1 tbsp olive oil1 onion, finely diced1/2 tsp ground chipotle chili1 cup chopped or slow-roated tomatoes

bunch of cilantro sprigssea salt! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !

Drain the beans, cover them with 6 cups fresh water, and boil them hard for 10 minutes, skimming of any foam that collects on the surface. Add the onion and oregano. Lower the heat and simmer, partially covered, until the beans are partially tender, about 45 minutes. Add about 1 tsp salt and continue cooking until completely tender, 15 to 30 minutes more.

Drain beans and reserve cooking broth for blackened rice.

Heat oil in a heavy-bottomed skillet or saucepan over fairly high heat. Add the diced onion and sauté for 4 to 5 minutes to soften. Add the beans, chile, tomatoes, and cilantro, lower the heat and simmer for 15 to 30 minutes. If the beans are dry, add a bit more water. Taste them for salt, then turn the beans into a dish and garnish with more cilantro.

Blackened Rice

2 tbsps olive oil1/2 white onion, finely diced

1 1/4 cups white rice

2 garlic cloves, minced

1/8 tsp anise seeds (or ground fennel)

2 cups broth from cooked black beanssea salt

Heat the oil in a heavy saucepan. Add the onion and sauté over medium-high heat for 4 – 5 minutes. Add the rice, garlic, and anise seed and stir to coat the rice. Cook until it’s light gold, 3 to 4 minutes, then add the broth and salt and bring to a boil. Cover and cook over low heat until the rice is done, 15 to 18 minutes. Turn into a dish and garnish with diced jalapeño chiles, chopped cilantro, or pico de gallo.

Sweet Corn Salsa with Red Pepper Jalapeño and Lime3 1/2 cups corn, niblets cut from the cob2 tsps olive oil

1 tsp salt

1 red pepper, finely diced

1/2 small red onion, finely diced

1 jalapeño pepper, seeded and minced1/4 cup cilantro, stemmed and chopped

1/2 tsp ground cumin

1/2 tsp pure chile powder

1 tbsp fresh lime juice

4 shots Tabasco sauce, or more to taste

Toss corn with the oil and 1/2 tsp salt and spread out on a baking sheet. Roast in a 350 degree oven for 10 minutes. Let cool. Meanwhile, prepare and measure the other vegetables, herbs and spices. Combine everything, including the corn, in a bowl and toss well. Season to taste and serve.

Pico de Gallo3 or 4 heirloom tomatoes, chopped

1 red onion, chopped finely

1 small jalapeño pepper, chopped finelyjuice from 1 lime

3 tbsps olive oil

1 bunch cilantro, chopped finely

sea salt and pepper

Put everything in a mixing bowl and mix well. While this is a pretty traditional version, you

can add cucumbers, radishes or firm fruit, such as mango as well.

Guacamole2 ripe avocados

3 limes

1/2 sweet onion, chopped finely3 cloves garlic, minced

bunch of cilantro, chopped

sea salt

Peel the avocado and remove the pit. Throw in a bowl along with the juice of 3 lemons, chopped onion, minced garlic and chopped cilantro. Mash with a potato masher. Season with sea salt to taste. Presto.

1. Jalapeño: This is the best-known and most widely used pepper in Mexican food. Jalapeños are medium hot and great in salsa or pickled whole.

2. Chipotle: More and more widely available, chipotle peppers are smoke-dried jalapeños - hot and spicy and smokey all at the same time.

3. Poblano peppers are the star of chiles rellenos, or stuffed chiles. They are mild in flavour and about the size of a small bell pepper. Called Ancho when fully ripened and dried.

4. Serrano: Easier to find than the guajillo, serranos are little and hotter than a jalapeño. Great when you want your salsa hot.

5. Pasilla: Sometimes called a negro pepper due to their dark colour, pasilla are available dried and have a mild flavour.

6. Habanero: short and squat, small and very hot, usually not eaten whole but used in making salsas, sauces, and in bottled hot sauce.

7. Anaheim: Also called a New Mexican pepper, Anaheim peppers are medium hot and used in their fresh and dried form. 7

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“Today  we  all  speak,  if  not  the  same  tongue,  the  same  universal  language.  There  is  no  one  center,  and  ;me  has  lost  its  former  coherence:  East  and  West,  yesterday  and  tomorrow  exist  as  a  confused  jumble  in  each  one  of  us.  Different  ;mes  and  different  spaces  are  combined  in  a  here  and  now  that  is  everywhere  at  once.”

Octavio  Paz:  Mexican  poet,  writer,  and  diplomat  1914  -­‐  1998

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