pasta

Lasaña Azteca

4 · Oct 30, 2014 · Leave a Comment

This post is part of a compensated campaign in collaboration with Barilla and Latina Bloggers Connect, but the recipe and all opinions here are my own.

Rollitos de lasaña azteca, or Aztec lasagna rolls, are an easy and flavorful dish that you can prepare in advance and pop into the oven to get dinner on the table without much effort.

Several years ago, my Tía Annette gave me a copy of a Mexico City Junior League cookbook from the 1980s. The thing I loved most about the book was that it had expat fusion recipes that were Mexicanized versions of American comfort foods, and it was a window into what the most popular recipes were among these women at the time the book was published.

This recipe is my modern spin on a fusion of two recipes that were particularly popular at the time that edition of the Mexico City Junior League cookbook was written: A white lasagna made with Mexican cheeses, and a dish known as budín Azteca or pastel Azteca, which is basically a lasagna dish that uses tortillas in place of lasagna noodles, and has a cheesy, spicy chile and vegetable filling.

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Fideo seco

15 · Oct 10, 2014 · 5 Comments

This post is part of a compensated campaign in collaboration with Barilla and Latina Bloggers Connect, but the recipe and all opinions here are my own.

Fideo seco is a Mexican pasta dish traditionally made with either chipotle chile alone, or a mix of three chiles: chipotle, guajillo and pasilla. When made with three chiles, the dish is known as fideo seco a los tres chiles. This simple version uses only chipotle chiles in adobo sauce, and requires minimal effort and easy cleanup.

What makes this dish different than any typical pasta dish is that the pasta is first fried, which brings out a somewhat nutty flavor in the pasta, and then is soaked in a tomato-chipotle puree to absorb the flavor. It’s cooked by baking in the oven, and when finished, the consistency is moist but not soupy.

RELATED RECIPE: Sopa de fideo…

Sopa de fideo

365 · Mar 8, 2010 · 30 Comments

I’m sharing my sopa de fideo recipe because this tomato-broth and noodle soup is a comfort food for me that evokes one specific fond memory.

After more than a decade of dreaming about visiting Teotihuacan, I finally made the 40-kilometer trip northeast of Mexico City in 2009 with my suegro and my cuñada. I yearned to visit this archaeological site since I first learned about it in history books as a kid. The Aztec pyramids fascinated me and I never dreamed I’d be able to travel there, let alone make it all the way to the top of the Pirámide del Sol.