Mexican Cooking

[Mardoo]

OK folks, from the looks of the cultural exchange thread there are a fair few of us who love Mexican food and cook it or want to so it's time for a thread of our own.

I've cooked, eaten and rolled around in Mexican, New Mexican and Central American food for most of my life. I grew up in California where it's hot and cold running Mexican food everywhere, and the best tacos come three for $6 from the back of a food truck. Paying $20 for three OK tacos here sticks in my craw.

So let's share recipes, books, experiments and ideas for Mexican food, the food that was made for beer!

 

[bum]

My entire Mexican food experience is based on visiting California tonnes (mostly LA but there's some proper RAD taco trucks in Oakland) and SWMBO's cooking (her carnitas are amazing).

I have no recipes to share.

I want an El Grande Burrito all-beef burrito right now thanks to this thread. You've ruined my day.

 

[Mardoo]

So the first thing I'll add is one of the great Mexican cookbooks, Diana Kennedy's "The Art of Mexican Cooking". She's the doyenne of Mexican cookbooks and this is one of the classics (in English that is).

Mexico has many regions with significantly different types of food and her regional books, particularly the one on Oaxaca, are great.

Her recipes can be a bit fiddly, but if you're not into that you can very easily just mine them for ideas.

The Art of Mexican Cooking
http://amzn.com/0307383253

 

[Lord Raja Goomba I]

Just got into it (actually been wanting to get into it, but didn't know where to start).

Food Safari with the dude from Guzman Y Gomez did it for me (and SWMBO). I've grabbed a book called Muy Bueno from the US and hoping that sort of contains 'real' mexican food. But it's certainly got me doing more research.

I have a particular fondness for chilli, my missus not so much - but she is starting to get used to heat (she now likes the flavour). I blame part of it on her Hungarian father who put Hot Paprika on everything and thus traumatised her from using anything red coloured and related to chilli for a long time.

 

[Mardoo]

I want an El Grande Burrito all-beef burrito right now thanks to this thread. You've ruined my day.

Story of my life in Oz mate. I feel your pain, (but not your bum). I literally ate Mexican every day for about 15 years in the States. I have struggled on though. Fight the good fight.

And I'd love to learn a bit about your lady's carnitas. So far cooking carnitas to my satisfaction has evaded me.

 

[Mardoo]

I have a particular fondness for chilli, my missus not so much - but she is starting to get used to heat (she now likes the flavour).

Awesome. It's incredible food. Tex-Mex (most of what you get here) has a place, but it's far from the whole truth.

I miss the chili sauces of New Mexico, Roasting and grinding the dried red chiles, bit of garlic, Mexican oregano, etc, cooked into something resembling napoli but ALL chiles. There's a fresh green chile one too. Oh **** me it's good.

 

[Bribie G]

I've never been into Mexican food for a simple reason:

Go to an Indian Restaurant and you will be greeted by Jarveesh, Pradeep and his staff
Go to a Chinese Restaurant and Lin Ho will welcome you with open arms
Japanese restaurant - even the local sushi stall - girls and guys look like they are straight out of Kobe
I will not even attempt to pronounce the surname of the lovely couple who own the Old Bar "Thai Tea and Table" restaurant here.

Mexican Restaurants all seem to be run by fat bogans called Sheila and Doug who will happily microwave you a takeaway container of something swimming in red crap with something that looks like rolled up pancakes lurking under the slop.

Mexican has always seemed too much of a learning curve. Might get onto it eventually as I live on garlic and chillies.

 

[Liam_snorkel]

for people in Brisbane there is Villa Maria at Camp hill which seems to be pretty legit.
Mexican & Sth American.

EDIT sorry that was a bit off topic. Was just following up Bribies post.

 

[Mardoo]

Mexican Restaurants all seem to be run by fat bogans called Sheila and Doug who will happily microwave you a takeaway container of something swimming in red crap with something that looks like rolled up pancakes lurking under the slop.

That's the sad truth of most of the Mexican I've seen here BG, but things are looking up. A lot of decent places, and some really good ones have opened in Oz in the last few years.

I myself pretty much stopped eating it out for most of my 15 years here. I still cook better Mexican than most places here, so why would I.

But if you like chile and you like garlic then done right, it was made for you.

 

[scon]

Totally second the recommendation of Dianna Kennedy's book, it's amazing. No pictures though if that sort of thing puts you off.

Also, you can get a lot of the chillis and masa flours from Fireworks Foods.

 

[OzPaleAle]

Love mexican food, here are the places I get my mexican ingredients from,

well priced and lots of mexican imported products, online ordering as I'm pretty time poor its very convenient.

http://www.fireworksfoods.com.au/


Also for fresh Tortillas in Melbourne I go here, its just near my work (And Matilda Bay Brewery) in Port Melbourne

http://www.elcielo.com.au/

 

[Mardoo]

Holy crap! Fresh tortillas in Melbourne! Thanks OzPalAle. That's been the #1 huge problem for me - finding even passable tortillas. World of difference!

 

[Bridges]

Love Mexican food too, should try to do a better job of cooking it. This place in Johnston st Fitzroy has some interesting gear.

 

[Mardoo]

for people in Brisbane there is Villa Maria at Camp hill which seems to be pretty legit.
Mexican & Sth American.

EDIT sorry that was a bit off topic. Was just following up Bribies post.

I reckon names of places to get decent Mexican food belong right here just like a burrito belongs in mah belly. Bring on the recommendations.

 

[OzPaleAle]

Holy crap! Fresh tortillas in Melbourne! Thanks OzPalAle. That's been the #1 huge problem for me - finding even passable tortillas. World of difference!

No worries, really nice people there, its in a little warehouse of Salmon street, bit tricky to spot at first.

I heard news of an "authentic" Tortilla place in melbourne, I think it was kensington, footscray somewhere out that way.
They use some old technique to make them that is meant to be pretty good, can't remember whats its called though.

 

[OzPaleAle]

No worries, really nice people there, its in a little warehouse of Salmon street, bit tricky to spot at first.

I heard news of an "authentic" Tortilla place in melbourne, I think it was kensington, footscray somewhere out that way.
They use some old technique to make them that is meant to be pretty good, can't remember whats its called though.

This is the one, haven't tried it yet though.

http://latortilleria.com.au/

 

[Mardoo]

This is the one, haven't tried it yet though.

http://latortilleria.com.au/

Mate, I've died and gone to heaven! Now if I can just get whole New Mexican chile through customs my life will be complete. Thanks again.

And if you understand the difference good tortillas make , well, you pretty much get the essentials of Mexican cooking. Tortillas, tortillas and tortillas.

 

[bum]

Now that you know where to get proper ones from you just need to somehow get people to say it properly.

Good luck with that.

 

[Mardoo]

Now that you know where to get proper ones from you just need to somehow get people to say it properly.

Good luck with that.

Call me Sisyphus.

 

[Phoney]

So the first thing I'll add is one of the great Mexican cookbooks, Diana Kennedy's "The Art of Mexican Cooking". She's the doyenne of Mexican cookbooks and this is one of the classics (in English that is).

Mexico has many regions with significantly different types of food and her regional books, particularly the one on Oaxaca, are great.

Her recipes can be a bit fiddly, but if you're not into that you can very easily just mine them for ideas.

The Art of Mexican Cooking
http://amzn.com/0307383253

I bought that book after I came back from a 2 month stint in Mexico. Agree with scon though the no pictures makes it a little difficult. I'm a seafood and eat it kinda guy.

Seriously though, Mex food here has been sorely disappointing here *up until fairly recently* Agree with Bribie that the reason is that there just isnt enough of a Mexican community in Australia to a) import the ingredients and B) to run the restaurants.

The hardest thing I found in mx was that they actually had names for their dishes. So anywhere else in Latin America you can kind of translate menus into english to work out whats what. eg: filete de carne con ensalada. "Right, that's a beef steak and salad. easy. I'll have that" Whereas in Mexico you see everything on the menu us like Huachinango a la Veracruzana. "WTF? That aint in my dictionary" So you order it anyway and it almost always turned out to be freakin tasty. The only thing I wasn't big on is mole. Pronounced "Moll eh" Think chunks of meat cooked (rather drowned) in chocolate sauce without any sugar and lard served on a plate. I went all through Oaxaca which is supposedly the mole region of mx but I found it all too rich and heart attack inducing.

Everything else was awesome.