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Courgette Flower & Sweet Corn Tacos
Sunday, 15 July 2012
This is another of those recipes that was born out of desperation in my Dublin kitchen. I've tasted courgette flower quesadillas and stuffed courgette flowers before, they're quite traditional in Mexico, but they are fresh, so when I was first faced with tinned courgette flowers I thought, great! I don't have to miss them any more, but then I realised you can't do many of the things we do to the fresh ones. So I put my thinking cap on and came up with this little recipe. It's simple and delicious and perfect to make tacos with. I used shop bought corn tortillas from My Mexican Shop (of course!), but you can make your own following my recipe here in the blog. You will also need some refried beans to add to your tacos. Buy them or make your own. Hope you like it!
Mexican Chocolate Ice Cream
Sunday, 24 June 2012
When we started My Mexican Shop, there were a number of products I wanted desperately to stock, chief in the list was Mexican drinking chocolate. I absolutely adore it, it's so different from drinking chocolate here and believe you me, you have not tasted a good hot chocolate until you have one made with Mexican Hot chocolate!
The chocolate comes in this darkish brown disks, very granular and extremely hard. It is made with sugar, vanilla, cinnamon and a subtle caramely flavour. Many have tried to replicate the taste using regular chocolate and spices, but it is never the same. Mexican hot chocolate is foamy, warm and delicious and it feels like a mouthful of Mexico every time I have it.
So as soon as I could, I stocked the chocolate, but I was a little bit greedy and with the winter long gone (only in our minds that is) and the thoughts of summer looming in our heads, we found ourselves with a lot of chocolate sitting in the storeroom and no customers wanting to buy it! So I went into a quest to find the best summer recipes for Mexican Chocolate.
This Mexican Chocolate Ice-cream recipe is the first in the series. I love how creamy the ice cream turned out and with my new ice cream maker (picked it up at the summer sales for 40 euro), I am looking forward to a summer filled with ice cream treats! Yes it is more work than just going to the supermarket and buying the tub ready made, but think about the amount of experimental flavours you can try and the satisfaction of making something from scratch! Go on, give it a try!
Old Farm Sausage Pasta...
Sunday, 17 June 2012
Mexicans love pork. It features in most of our traditional feasts and celebrations and I use it a lot. I never paid much attention to my pork. I would buy it in the supermarket or the local butcher like everybody else, but a little over a year ago, I met this very nice lady, another food blogger like me, who came bearing the lovely gift of some home made sausages. The sausages looked different, very red and non-uniform in size. When we tried them a few days later we couldn't believe how tasty they were. That lady was Margaret O'Farrell, from Old Farm, and pork eating has never been the same.
Meet Margaret and Alfie. They are the two lovely people who breed, house, love, feed and generally look after the pork I eat. They are the pair behind the fantastic pork in Old Farm. Their small free range farm is located at the top of a beautiful green hill in Redwood, Co. Tipperary. Only a couple of minutes from the tiny, historical village of Lorrha with a ton of monastic heritage and its pretty Redwood Castle. Their pigs are free range and GMO free, they eat barley and apples, organic fresh fruit and vegetables donated by a local farmers. They eat all the stetically rejected, but perfectly good, rounds of organic Mossfield cheese (one of my favourite Irish cheesees) and whatever else they find in the rummagings of the fields where they wander all day long. Alfie and Margaret's pigs are happy pigs, which in turn makes good, healthy and delicious meat.
When I make my Cochinita Pibil, one of the most popular recipes on the blog, I always use Old Farm's free range pork. The meat, slowly cooked in a combination of spices, chili and anato seeds called achiote, is so tender and juicy it falls off the bones completely and the ruby colour of the achiote dissolved in the juices of this gorgeous pork meat is so rich and intensive that it sends ripples of sunshine into your taste buds even before you try a spoonful of this on a gently heated corn tortilla. Pure bliss.
We order a small box of mixed pork meat with them every month or so. They have a next day delivery service to your door and, believe you me, the meat is fabulous! They also make the best pork lard in the country. Today I'm going to share with you a recipe I use when I have Old Farm sausages and I'm in the mood for something quick and delicious. Enjoy!
Beer & Lime Cupcakes
Wednesday, 23 May 2012
Until a couple of years ago, I was totally oblivious to the whole Cinco de Mayo festivities. In most parts of Mexico, it is a day like any other, no big deal. Children in Primary Schools mark the day with a ceremony and secondary schools across the country would have a mention of the day or an assembly, but all in all, it was to me a pretty obscure date on our civic calendar. A couple of years ago I started getting 'happy Cinco de Mayo' cards on the post from my American friends, and that got me thinking... first I was a little annoyed, then I was amused, then I was touched and this year I gave in and actually posted a couple Happy Cinco de Mayos myself. I even went to a Cinco de Mayo party here in Dublin!
When thinking on what to bring to the hostess of the party, I did a bit of research and found a recipe for Corona Beer Cupcakes that sounded and looked delicious. Needless to say they were a smash hit in the party and they tasted and looked fab too. Totally recommend them. The plan is to use an Irish craft beer to make another batch soon, but in the meantime, here are the ones I made with Corona Beer. The recipe came from a blog called Erika's Sweet Tooth which in turn was adapted by a blog called Miss Make, which sadly is no longer active. Hope you enjoy them as much as we did!
Tomatillo's Salsa Verde
Thursday, 17 May 2012
There is one ingredient and one ingredient only that I miss the most living in Ireland, and that is fresh Tomatillos. They are also known as Tomate Verde (green tomatoes) or Mexican Tomatoes and they are widely used in most Latin American Countries. They are related to the cape gooseberry (that little orange colour fruit in a yellow husks that seems to top nearly every cake in the supermarkets?). They are the size of a large cherry tomato and grow in an inedible, paper-like brown husk. They are green in colour and are meatier and slightly more acidic than regular tomatoes. They are also incredibly delicious and the main ingredient for this authentic Salsa Verde.
All good Salsas Verdes are made with tomatillos and since they are very difficult to get fresh here, I have learnt to use tinned ones instead. The flavour is somehow tamer, but after so many years depriving myself of fresh ones, the tinned ones taste just fine! Hope you enjoy this incredibly good and easy to make salsa.
Note: there's only one place to get tinned tomatillos in Ireland at the moment, and that is in my shop! (cheeky but true), so hop onto the shop tab and get a small tin and try them out. If you get the bigger tin, 2.8 kilo, you can separate them into salsa portions and freeze them (using the juice from the tin). I've been also told by two of my readers that Organic Delights at the St. Anne's Market had them last year for a while and that some fresh ones were also found in the Sonairte Farmer's Market during the season (July to September). If you do find them fresh, use them, they are an amazing little food.
