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Courgette Salsa Verde...

Saturday, 2 May 2015

This is not a traditional Mexican salsa verde recipe, if you're looking for that, check out  or , which are both delicious and way more traditional. This post's salsa verde is a tad bit less conventional. Like many of my cooking endeavors, it was born out of hunger and greed...

When it comes to food, I'm always greedy and hungry, so when my diet had to be curtailed suddenly due to  that had me in soups and pretty bland food, I was looking for a salsa that would not be acidic or terribly hot and that would be gentle on my tummy as well as norishing and healthy.

Although, in my opinion, all salsas are healthy, this one is, VERY good for you and VERY low in cals (if that sort of thing rocks your boat that is). For me it was a matter of eating something tasty that was not boring. This little recipe ticked all the boxes.

It's a salsa verde with not a tomatillo or avocado in sight, yet it's creamy, tasty and can be made as mild or as hot as you like it. It's vegan and vegetarian friendly (which is a bonous) and can be done in minutes! I've been drizziling it over everything, but particularly loved it with steamed potatoes (which I've been eaten a lot) or with a batch of home-made oven baked tortillas chips or if you feel nauty, make some proper at home and tuck in. Enjoy it! 

Beef Caldillo...

Saturday, 25 April 2015

The last ten days have been crazy. I hadn't been feeling entirely well and it all came to a halt on Saturday morning when I was admitted to hospital with a suspected appendicitis. Alan had to cancel classes, organise deliveries and my niece Daili had to cover for us in the ,  which in turn, messed up our friends, Margaret and Alfie's, travel plans too. Three days later and a ton of tests done, I was none the wiser and still in pain and fasting for more than I had ever done in my life. Fasting is not something I do well. When hungry, I truly become the anti Christ!! As much as I dislike the persona portrait by Jeremy Clarkson, I could (in a tiny corner of my mind) understand how he would punch somebody over not having any food!

As an enthusiastic and adventurous eater, my stomach has always been there for me. I had never had serious issues with it; sure like most of us, I've had the odd upset tummy here and there (that food poisoning gift while in Portugal a few years back was no joke), but nothing that had caused more than a couple of days of discomfort, so when appendicitis was ruled out, I knew this was a more serious issue. I came out of hospital, bruised, tired, hungry and with a ton of antibiotics to take. My stomach in bits and I had to live on jelly and bananas for a couple of days. After that, I could introduce gentle soups, nothing spicy, nothing fried, nothing greasy, nothing dairy, no bread or pastas, no wheat and no acidic fruits. I wanted to kill myself! When I finally felt well enough for soup yesterday, I immediately went for this recipe. It fills all the criteria and it's delicious and nourishing, plus it feels like a big Mexican mama bear hug.

The writing of this post caused a lot of controversy here in Ireland and in Mexico; you see, I have always known the dish as Picadillo, my mother calls it that. I never questioned it... and yet I know many versions of Picadillo and it is normally a dry dish made with mince meat, never served as a soup. I skyped mother and with my dad shouting on the background -it's called Caldillo- we engaged in a long discussion over the actual name of the dish. According to mam, Picadillo (which translates as chopped or choppings) was originally prepared with a chunk of beef that was cooked and then chopped finely, then used to stuff chiles (like in ) or to eat with rice and beans. She said people got lazy and decided to start making it with mince meat instead and this was just a variation of the original dish. She said 'Caldillo' (which translates as 'little broth') was always made with dried meat, never with fresh.

Now all that made sense to me, but I had still no explaination for the transition from a dry dish to a broth, so naturally, I took to my Larousse de la Gastronomia Mexicana and after a bit of reading, I was able to sort of confirm my mother's explanation... however, she was not entirely right; to my amazement, my dad, who has never cooked a day in his life, was right! The actual name of the dish is 'Caldillo' and in most states in Mexico is made with dry meat, but in La Huasteca Tamaulipeca, where my mother learned to do most of her cooking as a newly wed, they use fresh meat! The meat was cooked, chopped and then used to make Picadillo to stuff , and the broth made into a soup in which chiles rellenos were served in. Caldillo is also a term used to describe the broth in which meats are cooked with aromatic herbs, vegetables and spices.

So there you have it, this is my family's recipe for Caldillo with a few tweaks to suit availability of ingredients in Ireland! Hope you enjoy it as much as we did!

Note: this soup is served with thinly slices of onion and slices of banana. The banana gives a wonderful sweet element to this savoury dish. Use slightly under-ripe bananas if possible, as they will hold texture better in the hot soup. In some parts of Mexico, they use plantain instead of banana.

Enchiladas Rojas...

Thursday, 12 March 2015

I've written a lot about before trying to sort out the absolute mess in which this dish has been placed by general misconceptions, tex-mex influences and commercially available 'packets'. In , I tried to show you that what you know as an enchilada is really nothing to do with the real thing. I also wrote a post about , and two years ago I took my disgust for enchilada kits to the stage of at Electric Picnic and . I am hoping this post finishes off the twisted myth of the enchilada by presenting you the REAL thing.

So, let me start by saying: Forget EVERYTHING you know or think you know about an enchilada. They are not covered in tomato sauce, they are rarely baked and they are never, EVER, made of wheat tortillas!! An enchilada is corn tortilla that has been lightly heated in oil, stuffed with some cheese or meat, rolled or fold into shape and then covered with a chili sauce. The word ‘enchilada’ simply means covered or bathed in chili sauce. Now if you look at the word ‘’, you’ll see that this one means covered or bathed in tomato sauce. The world ‘’, on the other hand, means covered or bathed in Mole sauce. The word ‘enfrijoalda’, means covered or bathed in beans sauce. The words ‘’ mean covered or bathed in green tomatillo chili sauce… I’m sure by now you’ve got the picture!

There are tons of different sauces and different techniques to make enchiladas depending where in Mexico you are. Some people use Ancho chilli, others use Pasilla, in some parts of Mexico people use a combination of guajillo and cascabel chilies for the sacue. In Monterrey, where I'm from, we make enchiladas with a particular type of red corn tortilla that has been tinted with chilli powder and some natural colourings, they're super tasty but impossible to find here. The recipe I'm sharing with you here is, however, a more traditional way to make them. I use dried guajillo chilies for the sauce.

Some people dip the cold tortilla into the sauce and then fry them, others, like me, heat the tortilla in tiny bit of oil, stuff them and then cover them in sauce. Whatever way you choose to make this, you'll agree that there is no resemblance at all to that starchy fest you get in a packet. These Enchiladas Rojas are a full, balanced meal, so it's very important that you make all the toppings for them. They complement all flavours, so don't skip them.

Me on D' Telly...

Friday, 13 February 2015

The last two weeks have been super exciting. I was invited to do a screen test for RTE's Today Show. RTE is the national broadcaster of Ireland and the is an afternoon magazine show broadcast from RTE's studios in Cork City. I told no-one except close family about it. Live television is not for everybody and until you have to go through the rigours of a cooking demo live on telly, with all its time constraints and the self conciousness that goes with it, it is hard to understand why.

To begin with, you have only 6 to 7 minutes to do everything: you need to cook, chat, answer questions, instruct and plate food, all the while smiling and not showing how terrified and panicked you truly are. Then there is one minute left for tasting the food and say your good-byes. Hence, the screen tests. There are many very talented chefs and cooks who just don't transfer well to telly, so I told no-one about it.

I got myself to Cork early on a Monday morning with all my ingredients and my lovely niece Daili came with me for moral support. The production team was absolutely amazing, they made me feel at ease, walked me through the ins and outs of live telly and showed me the studio kitchen. They were encouraging, super friendly and helpful. I was a ball of nerves and when the screen test was done, I felt as if I had run a marathon! I was exhausted!! A few days after I was contacted again and was told they liked me and wanted me on the show. Man I was super happy and proud! Then it hit me: I had to do it now for real!! After a bit of discussion and they gave me a date.

I opted to go to Cork City by train this time and the day before I was rushing sorting ingredients, buying new aprons and cooking the dish so I could say those famous words:  'and here's one I did earlier'. It was all very cool and nerve wrecking. I slept very little the night before thinking OMG I'm going to completely fu*% this up!! I was afraid I would forget my English or that I would come out as completely moronic on national telly! Once again, the production team was amazing, they put me at ease, the presenters went out of their way to welcome me and help me through. It was a very long day, but at the end, a totally worthwhile experience. I loved every minute of it and I can only be super thankful to everybody in the Today team. Here's a link to the RTE Player if you want to see my first ever telly gig.

I was kicking myself after for not having strained a bit the , but it kind of kept it real I suppose. It was such a fun thing to do and having had a couple of days to digest the whole experience, I would DEFINITELY want to do it again! :) Huge thanks to all my friends and family who tweeted, instagrammed and facebooked me on the day. Specially to my friend for her FABULOUS screen grab on the day and for letting me use her photo here!

Mexican Hot Chocolate...

Friday, 16 January 2015

Growing up in the North part of Mexico, we had maybe a day or two a year with proper cold weather and our house, like most houses, had no central heating! This means that in those couple of days when it is actually cold, you use extra blankets on your bed and you wear the heavy jumpers inside your house. If the cold spell goes on for a week, you dig out the aul gas heater to warm up the room you're most in and you indulge in a fit of baking, which is rarely attempted the rest of the year as temperatures go as high 45 Celsius and that's before you turn on the oven!

In those 'awful' winter days, my mam used to serve a special merienda (tea) consisting of a big cup of frothy Mexican hot chocolate with a crusty roll that had been halved, gently toasted on a and generously buttered. When she was not looking (most of the time she would turn a blind eye) we used to dip the edges of the buttery roll in the chocolate and scoop the foam from the top of the cup. Oh how I loved those days! , you see, is very different to the drinking chocolate we have in Ireland. It's much sweeter, with hints of caramel and spice and it must be, unequivocally foamy. 

Mexicans have been making hot chocolate for millenia. In ancient times, way before the Spaniards arrived on our shores, the cacao beans were considered so precious, they were used as currency. The bitter, frothy and energetic drink made with a paste of roasted cocoa beans and spices cooked in water was served to Mayan and Aztec Kings, nobles, high priests and top members of the ruling classes. It was considered the drink of the Gods and was, of course, very different to what we drink now; its making was ceremonial and it was believed that the foam formed on the chocolate, was a live force which had a spiritual connection to the Gods. The froth was also believed to have curative powers and was linked to fertility. In modern terms, the foam gives the chocolate a more satisfaying quality and a much more pleasing texture to the palate. 

Both Mayans and Aztecs developed several methods to produce long lasting foam. The Mayans favoured the decanting method, which consisted of pouring the hot drink from one container to another from a certain height several times to create foam; this shaking also prevented the chocolate solids from separating; nowadays emulsifiers are added to prevent chocolate from naturally splitting from the milk/water, but back then, it was a tight rope these chocolate stirrers walked, you wanted to create foam, but not cool down the chocolate. Other tribes would use branches of local trees or added the petals of a local flower to create foam. Chocolate stirrers who were able to make and maintain the foam in their chocolate were highly valued and the more stable and thicker the foam, the better the chocolate. 

The Aztecs used a , which is a Mexican wooden whisk, to froth hot chocolate and other drinks such as atoles. It's a very old kitchen tool and very little historical records exist prior to the arrival of the Spanish Conquistadores to Mexico. Very little is known of the origin of the Molinillo; some attributed as a 17th century Spanish invention, but it was meticulously described several times by Fray Bernardino de Sahagun in the 16th Century's Codices Florentinos (Florentine or Aztec Codices) and later on by the Jesuit scholar Francisco Javier Clavijero. The word Molinillo was given by the Spaniards as it was a sort of milling instrument for chocolate, the Aztecs called it aquaujul or aquahuitl  (which apparently means chocolate stirrer). 

Hundreds of years later, and with the addition of sugar and the comercialization of chocolate, Mexicans are still obsessed with its foam. We use blenders now, but most houses still have a Molinillo for that special foaming action. The design of molinillos was simple at first, becoming more elaborate with time, using mother pearl, ivory, wood and hand painted elements by the 1930s; to me, even the simplest of molinillos are beatiful to look at, and to this day, many Molinillos are hand carved and its many cogs and intricate designs all serve the same old and basic purpose: creating a frothy drink. 

This is really not a recipe, but more a way of using Mexican hot chocolate. The commercially available tablets are hard and a bit granular as sugar has been added to them. This is how to use them and in all my 'Irishness', I've gone and added 'piquete' (or spike) to it. We love it at home and hope you do too!

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