Mexico

Menu: Posole, corn tortillas, & mangonadas | Recipe Source: masienda.com, isabeleats.com, & muydelish.com

Picking recipes for this project is sometimes easy and sometimes really, really, really hard. If you had asked me a month ago which countries I struggled with the most, I would have said Italy and China- Italy due to the sheer number of amazing things to make (she says with heavy American-Sicilian bias) and China due to the size of the country and how culinarily varied its regions are- but after today, I’m officially adding Mexico to my pantheon of “Everything-Looks-Good-I-Have-No-Idea-What-to-Make” countries, and I might even be giving it the top spot. Sidebar: A large part of my recipe-choosing angst with these three countries is that Chinese, Italian, and Mexican are probably the three cuisines that I’ve had the most exposure to over my last thirty years on this planet. Believe it or not, it’s actually much easier to choose a recipe from a list of “<<Insert Country>>’s Top 10 Foods” because you haven’t tried any of those foods before and don’t know what you’re missing out on. Making the choice is much harder when you’re trying to decide between posole, tamales, birria, and mole while knowing exactly how incredible all four of those dishes are.

Competition aside, I think posole was always going to win for me when it came to Mexico. Rich, peppery, doused in cilantro, and perfect for winter, it’s been one of my favorite foods since I tried it back in the mid 20-teens, and I was so excited to try making it myself. On the other hand, I was a little nervous to give tortilla-making a go, but it turns out that I shouldn’t have been. Of all the breads I’ve made for this project- na’an, soda bread, braided bread, semolina bread, pan Cubano, etc.- tortillas are by far the most low-maintenance of the bunch*. No proofing, no rising, no “is the yeast alive?” panic, no adjusting oven temperatures to combat the elevation… just two ingredients, a tortilla press, and a cast iron pan.

Mangonadas only entered my consciousness when my friends David and Diana texted me and essentially insisted that I make them when I got around to doing Mexico. I had to navigate my way around several Red Dye #40 hurdles (see notes below the photos) but it was entirely worth it. Sweet, spicy, citrusy, and faintly salty, it’s the perfect drink for a hot summer day (or in my case, a sunny January day in the low 40s that looks vaguely summer-ish from the safety of my kitchen).

*Calling tortillas “bread” is definitely egregious but I don’t know what other word to use, so you’re going to have to allow it just this once.

Ready to cook?

Corn Tortillas (link): No changes to this one! I followed the directions on the bag of masa harina and was blown away by how simple it was. I recommend getting your hands slightly damp when dividing the tortilla dough and rolling it into balls, but other than that, no notes or suggestions!

Pozole (link): I cooked the pork separately in a slow cooker because I could only find a 7lb shoulder, which would have been overkill! Otherwise, I followed this recipe exactly.

Mangonada (link): I followed the mangonada recipe almost exactly! I have an absolutely terrible allergy to red food dye (which, it turns out, is an extremely common ingredient in tamarindo straws, chili mixes, and chamoys) so I made some alterations there. For the tamarindo straws, I made my own using big milkshake straws from the grocery store, a 1:1 ratio mixture of tamarind paste and agave (coat 3/4 of the straw), and Tajin (roll the sticky straw in it)! I also used Tajin to rim the glasses and used Tajin’s version of chamoy instead of a more traditional brand because it was the only one I could find without red dye, so basically, Tajin sponsored this drink.