Mexican Cooking
Mexican dishes usually fill the table with all sorts of soups, stews and sauces. Mexican food recipes are cooked using a variety of ways from quick-frying to slow roasting. All Mexican food recipes have some distinguishing key elements in them. Below are some of these distinguishing elements common in most Mexican dishes.
Corn is one of the key elements in Mexican food recipes. Some of the recipes that use corn are tortillas and tacos. Tacos are prepared by stuffing tortillas with beef, chicken, fish or cheese. Tamales are also prepared by using corn. They are first stuffed with meat or vegetables and then steamed.
Chilies are also an important ingredient in any Mexican food recipe. Chilies are cooked in either their dried-up or in their fresh state. The hottest parts of the chilies are the white veins and the seed pods. Mexicans regard the hot taste as a distinguishing part of the flavor. As a result, they use a wide variety of chili varieties, from chipotle, jalapeno, cascabel to varieties like ancho and poblana.
Beans are also a common add-on to Mexican food recipes. Bean varieties run from lentils, fava beans to kidney beans and they can be found in many Mexican stews and soups. Some small bean types are served in light broths.
Tomatoes are also another key ingredient in Mexican dishes. Their common usage is in beef and fish servings as well as in salsa Mexican where they are used to spice up the food. Tomatillo salsa is also prepared by use of tomatillos, a type of small green tomato that has a rigid husk. Tomatillo salsa also includes a lot of chilies in it.
Fruits are another key element in Mexican dishes. Fruits are mostly used in desserts and fruit sauces. Common fruit types are papaya, coconut, pineapple and others. In most cases, they are eaten raw. Some fruit types like nopales are used as a vegetable of sorts and are used to add a sweet taste to desserts. Other ingredients in Mexican foods are squash blossoms, pungent herbs like romeritos and epazote, and pumpkin seeds.
When serving chilies, Mexican food recipes specify that they first have to be cooked. Chilies are used for cooking a variety of foods. However, they first need to be roasted, cleaned and peeled along one side so that they can easily be reconstructed after stuffing. Meat is first boiled, and then spices and garlic are added after which the chilies are added, 15 minutes later to serving.
When preparing sauce, first boil the water and add garlic, onions, chilies and other spices as stipulated. After boiling for 30 minutes, drain the mixture and reserve the resulting liquid. From here, add the necessary ingredients following the recipe. Then season to taste. Both the red and green sauces are prepared using this method. It is therefore not a surprise that Mexican food recipes are preferred by a large majority of food enthusiasts.



