This is the kind of food that I enjoy making with family and friends who love to cook. I set out small stations for filling and rolling the cabbage rolls and then cook them together in a large pot. And when I need to do this by myself, it is still one of the most relaxing ways to pull my attention away from the everyday hustle and bustle of life.
If you end up with extra filling for whatever reason (maybe you got tired of making the rolls; I’ve been there and done that), then make the cigar-shaped logs and bread them using the same technique and breading mix used for the Golden Za’atar Onion Rings and present them as vegetarian croquettes to your dinner guests.
There is something about making a salsa in a molcajete that makes it taste better. I swear that something magical happens when you crush chiles between two pieces of stone that no blender will ever replicate. We like to bust out the molcajete to make a salsa as regularly as we can to remind us of this magic and continue this ancient tradition with my children.
In Mexico you are as likely to find the comforting pasta dish fideo seco on the table as beans or rice, especially in central Mexico, where it is very popular. We cook fideos not as the Italians do, but like the Spanish, who brought them to Mexico, first frying them in oil until they are toasty and nutty-tasting, then simmering them in a tomato-based sauce or broth until the sauce thickens considerably and coats the noodles. Forget al dente—our pasta is soft, and that’s the way we love it. The dish is called fideo seco—dry noodles—because it is not saucy at all. It’s also very convenient, because you can make it ahead. You can get packages of fideo pasta, thin noodles broken into pieces, in stores that sell Mexican ingredients, but you can also use thin Italian noodles such as vermicelli, angel hair, thin spaghetti, or spaghetti, and break them up yourself.
I include three different kinds of dried chiles—ancho, guajillo, and chipotle—here in addition to tomatoes, onion, and garlic. For one more layer of complexity—a bit of sweetness in addition to smoky heat—I add some adobo sauce from chipotles in adobo. Top with a drizzle of crema and a sprinkling of tangy cheese, with some sliced avocado to counterbalance the heat of the chiles, and I guarantee that you’ll make it again and again.
I was in Durango at a small restaurant in which they served a dish of rajas con crema as a condiment with other assorted salsas and chiles en escabeche. I tasted it and was so completely taken, I kept asking them to bring me more. It was creamy and spicy, with a tiny bit of sweetness from the charred chiles and the onion. The poblanos here in the northern states seem to be hotter than those in the US, so it does read a little more like a hot condiment, but I love the extra heat and am crazy for these rajas as a taco filling or as a side dish for grilled meat or fish. But honestly, I could eat this right out of the skillet wrapped in a warm flour tortilla. This to me is pure comfort food.
What Santibañez wants cooks to realize, he told me, is this: "There is a very important textural thing to guacamole -- we never really mush up the avocado. You want to feel everything." He crushes only enough of the avocado to warrant it consideration as a dip rather than a salad, but leaves the rest of the cubes intact, bathing them in the vividly flavored chile sauce, "a bit like salad properly dressed in vinaigrette," he writes. Recipe adapted slightly from Truly Mexican (Wiley, 2011). —Genius Recipes
The flavors of this ceviche were incredible, but what was most surprising was the burnt habanero chile oil drizzled on top. Its heat and bitterness cut through the bright and sweet flavors—it was at once sweet, spicy, and refreshing—in essence, everything I wanted at that moment.
The first recipe any Mexican will cook as soon as they move out of their parents’ home and live on their own is chicken tinga. It is easy, reminds everyone of home, and the ingredients are very accessible. Although it is better made with dried chipotle chiles, canned chipotles work if in a pinch. It can be a soupy stew served over white rice and with tortillas. If you cook it down to thicken a bit more, it is a great topping on a tostada with fresh shredded lettuce, some crema, cheese, and fresh salsa.
Portobello mousse with grilled mushrooms and toast, drizzled with a balsalmic reduction.