Mexican Christmas Traditions

Roasted tomatillo and chile morita salsa

55 · Jul 12, 2017 · Leave a Comment

This easy roasted, smoky salsa made with tomatillos and chile morita is great on everything from tacos to scrambled eggs.

I'm all for simple salsas to dress up any meal of the day. Our dear friend Victor taught me how to make a version of this salsa when I was a newlywed and it's one that I've continued making frequently ever since. You should use tomatillos milperos for this recipe. They're a smaller variety of tomatillo, no bigger than about 1 to 1.5 inches in diameter. Anything much bigger than that is a larger variety of tomatillo. Tomatillos milperos have a more concentrated flavor, but are less acidic than the larger tomatillos, and have a slightly sweet, mellow taste when roasted. They're called "milpero" because they're often grown in the milpas in Mexico—the rows between corn planted in the cornfields.
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How to make agua fresca de melón with a juicer

31 · Jul 2, 2017 · 1 Comment

Agua fresca de melón is a very popular fresh fruit drink in Mexico. Learn how to make it in a flash with a juicer to cut down on time and mess!

Why use a juicer instead of a blender? While the blender does the job OK, the process of filtering the pulp through a mesh sieve can be a lot messier, and also take more time. The end result is that your juice has some pulp that you really don't want in an agua fresca. ...

How to prepare chicharrones de harina

95 · Jul 1, 2017 · Leave a Comment

Chicharrones de harina are a puffed, salty, crunchy snack that are very popular in Mexico, and easy to find among street food vendors.

I've written before about how to fry your own chicharrones with the kind you buy at the store that you have to cook so they're edible. But if you can't get those at your local Mexican market, you'll at least be likely to find them already fried and packaged to buy—usually alongside the chips, Takis, and that kind of stuff. All you have to know is how to prepare them!

I get a lot of questions from my non-Mexican friends and readers about this snack because they've never seen it before, or didn't know how to prepare it properly. It's actually really simple, and these things are super addictive....

What to order at Gracias Madre

15 · Jun 25, 2017 · 1 Comment

Gracias Madre is my favorite restaurant in West Hollywood and one of my top 3 favorites in Los Angeles. And I'm betting if nobody told you in advance that it was a vegan restaurant, you might not even notice because the menu is that good.

Vegan and Mexican are two words that most people wouldn't necessarily associate with each other, however, there are actually quite a few vegetarian and vegan-friendly dishes that are part of the cuisine. Everything on the menu at Gracias Madre is organic and vegan, but don't let that distract you; you're in for a truly excellent Mexican meal.

If you're visiting Los Angeles, Gracias Madre definitely deserves to be on your list of restaurants to check out, and if you're local to LA, early lunch or happy hour is the best time to go if you want your choice of tables (you might even see me there).

Paparazzi tend to lurk nearby, as this restaurant and several others in the neighborhood are celebrity favorites. Request to be seated on the patio if it's not too hot outside—you'll have the best chance to see famous faces or at least catch a glimpse while they're leaving.

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Tacos de chicharrón guisado in the slow-cooker

133 · Jun 20, 2017 · 1 Comment

Chicharrón guisado is an easy, flavorful dish made from crunchy, fried pork skin stewed in salsa, and it makes incredible tacos.

The best part about this dish is that it's incredibly easy to make, packs a ton of flavor, and using a slow-cooker means it's mostly a hands-off recipe.

There's a taquería in Los Angeles I really love called Guisados. They make a taco de chicharrón guisado that's very similar to this recipe, and they serve it on a corn tortilla over refried black beans, and topped with a little dollop of avocado salsa verde, which is how I served them here as well, but you can serve it without beans (or different beans) and whatever kind of salsa you like on top.

There are lots of recipes out there for chicharrón guisado—mostly in Spanish—and there's one key departure in my version aside from using a slow-cooker: I use chile morita, which is a small, dried and smoked chile. I also like to serve these on smaller tortillas (about 4.5 inches round instead of the standard 6 inches) because it makes you feel more like you're in a taquería....