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Someone asked me if I make Yucatecan food at home. My answer is, "No, why should I?" I am surrounded by places in which to eat great Yucatecan food from cocina economicas that serve frijol con puerco every Monday and La Poderosa in San Sebastian that makes the best salbutes and panuchos every evening, to the hotels who serve cochinita and other savory dishes in their breakfast buffets.

 

There is nothing like going to Las Ruinas and having beer and botanas with friends, for eating a wide variety of typical foods. In my quest to find out what people miss, I have found that often people mention missing Thai food.

 

We used to eat Thai food often NOB (north of the border), and our special dinners out were Thai. In keeping with the upscale image that they want to portray, Comercial Mexicana likes to highlight foreign imports in their stores by featuring a country. The first time I noticed was when they featured France, they even had some imported French enameled cast iron cookware.

 

I had just started shopping in their Mega Balcones store, so I didn't realize that it was an event. So I missed out on the lovely pots and pans. Last year, they did a Thailandia Expo, and, being wiser in the ways of Mexico and Mega, we stocked up while we had the chance.

 

If you missed out on the event, and are craving Pad Thai, don't worry. You can buy rice noodles in the Chinese import store at Plaza Dorado. Los Angeles doesn't look like a store that sells Asian foods, but they do. If you don't see what you want, just ask. They even have fresh spring roll wrappers hidden away in a refrigerator.

 

If you want to try making your own fresh rice noodles, here is a recipe and a video. While I was looking for videos I also found this one, which explains the title. After either buying some noodles or making your own, you can then try out my favorite Pad Thai recipe. Of course, you might just need a recipe for Green Curry Paste in order to make your own favorite dishes.

 

We're going to be having Satay and Pad Thai soon, as we just ordered a grill from the herrero. I'll report about how it all comes out on my cooking blog.

 

If you made a comment on one of my other articles don't forget to check back, because I always answer my comments!

 

 

Tags: Thai Food

I have been asking everyone that I meet, "What do you miss," in hopes of finding ideas for this column. So far, I haven't gotten any answers that have stimulated my muse. One person misses the abundance of low fat products, but other than that, the people that I have polled don't seem to find anything seriously lacking in their new home. We had the opportunity to meet Chef Shirlé of Rocking the Stove and her husband, so while we ate lunch together I asked them, "What do Americans eat?". The answer is, Americans are interested in organic food. Even in the most ordinary low-end supermarkets, you can find organic produce, and Americans are going green. All of which is great news, but it doesn't really help me out in producing a column.

 

I don't want Canadians to feel left out, but I have even less of an idea of what constitutes Canadian cuisine than I do American and certainly no idea what is comfort food for you.

 

I reached back to my childhood memories of Leave it to Beaver, and asked myself, what would June Cleaver, the iconic 1950s mom, serve for dinner? It came to me, a casserole! Here is a link to the Campbell's Soup website Casserole Kitchen.Now, I have not looked at every can of soup available here, but it seems to me that plain old Cream of Mushroom soup, which is the basis of the most famous of all casseroles, the Green Bean Casserole, is decidedly missing here. So tah-dah!

 

 

Cream of Mushroom Soup for Casseroles

• 1 tablespoon of oil
• 4 tablespoon butter
• 1/2 cup chopped mushrooms (fresh or canned)
• 2 teaspoons bouillon powder (chicken or vegetable for plain,or beef for "golden" mushroom)
• 4 tablespoons white flour
• 1 1/4 cups milk

1. Heat the oil in a small saucepan. Sauté the mushrooms until soft. Remove the mushrooms from the pan.
2. Melt the butter over low heat.
3. Blend the flour into the butter.
4. Add the bouillon powder.
5. Cook over low heat, stirring constantly, for about 5 minutes
6. Slowly add the milk, stirring constantly.
7. Continue cooking slowly until the sauce starts to thicken, add the mushrooms and continue to cook until very thick.

You can use this in any recipe that calls for condensed soup. If you replace the mushrooms with onions then it's "cream of onion" soup. Just make sure to cook the onions until soft and slightly golden. Now if only I knew how to make onion rings just like French's® French Fried Onion Rings, I could have a Green Bean Casserole just like June used to make for the Beaver.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tags: Substitutes

When we first came here, I searched high and low for a food processor. Finally, my mother-in-law brought me one from the USA. I like having it, but it turns out that the essential Mexican cooking gadget is the ordinary kitchen blender. I have used my blender more here than I ever did in all the years before I moved to Mexico.

I have also gone through several spice/coffee grinders since moving here. The blade tends to break off, or the motor burns out. I started using a mortar and pestle to grind peppercorns and other hard spices. But, recently, in Megabalcones, I bought a mini-blender set. The kit costs about the same as a new spice grinder (around $121.00 mxp), but instead of having a small motor, the 3 small half pint jars screw into a cutting blade assembly which you then use in place of your normal blender container and blade assembly. The jars also come with lids so you can use them for storage, too. 

 

I love this accessory. I used it to make some small batches of specialty flours today, by grinding barley, brown rice and oatmeal. I made Saag Panir the other day, and in the past, I have either used a mortar and pestle to grind the chiles, garlic and ginger into a paste by hand or used my regular size blender. The blender is faster and easier, but it's difficult to scrape the small quantity of paste out of it. It was so easy with the smaller blender base and blade.

I know that I sound like an infomercial, but I'm really excited. After selling so much stuff to move to Mexico, I vowed that I wasn't going to buy needless gadgets, and if I didn't use it, I was would get rid of it. So I am glad that it worked out.

With the hot weather, we are drinking agua frescas, and licuados con leche daily. I even bought an expensive juicer, but I use my humble blender more often.

The basic agua fresca recipe is simple. Chop up your favorite fruit, seeding as much as possible. Put it in the blender with a little sugar (if necessary; I don't always use sugar, and if I do, it's only a tablespoon or two). Now, fill the blender with cold water. Blend at high speed. Taste, if it's too weak, add more fruit, and if it's too strong, add more water. This is the time to add the sugar, and blend a little more. If you weren't able to seed your fruit and are concerned about it, take a moment and strain it before serving. If you can wait, the agua fresca tastes much better cold.

Here are some variations to get your started:

1. You can freeze the fruit before blending it, or
2. You can use ice cubes in addition to the water
3. Instead of water, you can use fruit juice.
4. One of our favorites is a peach shake. I open a can of peaches and place it in the freezer for half an hour, and then blend the entire contents of the can with milk. In this case, you probably won't need sugar unless you like things really sweet, since the liquid is already sweetened.

We especially like to make banana shakes. When bananas get too ripe, I pop them into the freezer. Once frozen, I peel and slice them to use in shakes. A tasty combination is banana and strawberry thinned with either water or milk.

I have even made mock ice cream this way; frozen bananas blended with fruit and yogurt. I don't think it's any less calories than ice cream, but it's pretty tasty. Most importantly, I know it hasn't melted and been refrozen like ice cream that I've bought here in the grocery store.

 

 

 

Tags: Recipedaily Living Kitchen Essential

One of the things ex-pats often say about moving to Mexico, is that it's like moving back in time to the fifties, sixties or seventies (or whenever they experienced childhood). It's one of the reasons many people chose to move south of the border, the slower pace of life, the emphasis on family and the new and exotic foods.

 

When I was corresponding with Malcolm about writing this column, one of the things that occurred to me was that Malcolm and Jillian have probably never lived in a world without prepared curry paste, cake mixes and exotic spice blends like garam masala. If you are used to "time saving" recipes that call for prepared items, and for whatever reason never have made them completely from scratch, living in Mexico would certainly make cooking your favorite dishes a challenge.

 

I think the secret to cooking here, is to understand that even in the 50s you could bake a cake without Duncan Hines or Betty Crocker to provide you with a mix. Did you know that when they first introduced cake mixes, all you had to do was add water? These mixes made perfectly acceptable cakes, but the public didn't like them, it didn't feel like they were baking, so the mixes changed. Instead of just adding water, you were adding eggs, oil and water. Personally, I liked the instant ones better, if I am going to add all that other stuff, I'd just rather make my cake from scratch. It just isn't that much harder to sift a little flour, and cream some sugar. The cake mix people want you to think it's difficult.

 

I was stunned when I saw a commercial on TV for microwavable macaroni and cheese. It wasn't the product; I used to make Kraft Mac and Cheese in the microwave all the time. You just add less water and microwave the noodles.  What floored me was the cute  little girl talking about how hard it was to make Mac & Cheese the traditional way. By the traditional way, she wasn't even talking about grating cheese and making a cheese sauce, she was referring to the blue box! "All that boiling and stirring," I think is how she put it! I could just imagine her target audience listening and absorbing the lesson that cooking is tedious and difficult.

 

If anyone asked me how to prepare their favorite foods here, I would recommend that they bring with them a good basic cookbook like Fanny Farmers or Good Housekeeping. A cookbook that assumes that you don't know how to cook is essential.

 

If you really miss having mixes,(personally, I miss Bisquick) have someone bring you a copy of  Make A Mix by Katine Eliason or Perfect Mix by Diane Phillips. I found that I would just rather make baking powder biscuits from scratch rather than make up mixes, but lots of people love mixes and prefer to cook that way.

 

Sometimes recipes call for a cup of some mix, instead of listing the individual items. In those cases, I turn to the internet and see if I can find the list of ingredients or even a recipe to duplicate the item.

 

For example, my favorite mix is Bisquick, and according to Wikipedia, you can substitute 1 cup flour, 1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder, 1/2 teaspoon salt, 1 tablespoon oil or melted butter for one cup of the mix. So you can still make your favorite impossible pie even if you have used up that box of Bisquick your sister brought down for you in her suitcase.

 

Now, it's your turn, what are you jonesing for that you can't find here? What is your comfort food? Make a comment on this article, and help me find the topic for my next one!

 

 

 

Tags: Substituting

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