Without avocado there’s no guacamole; without corn, adios tortillas. And without either of these two recipes, Spanish cuisine would be useless. A cuisine you will never know about aromas, spices or herbs, freshness, colors and whose basic kitchen pantry we talk about the following.
Sneaking into a Mexican grocer or a Mexican cooking area is a sensory enjoyment and not only gastronomically speaking. Good music, revitalizing day light through the windows, textbooks, memories… and, naturally, the aroma involving something brewing with the cooking. And if you can’t go in person, you can always buy Mexican products on-line in a Mexican food market online.
The basis associated with Mesoamerican cuisine is the milpa, a variety of corn, squash and also beans. This grape planting allowed us to stop being nomadic and start making settlements and, in addition, it was not necessary to turn crops.
Mexican food, therefore, has always been accompanied by corn: in products, tortillas and its variants such as sopes (small and with sides so you can put one thing liquid), panuchos… those a number of formats that are nothing more than different vehicles as a way to put food from the mouth.
As for coffee beans, there are many varieties, but the one most commonly employed in Mexico is the dark bean. In every home they are always cooked properly and, from there, these are sofritoed and made spicy, brothy, inside soup or mashed… Beans unite completely all Mexicans. They generate no distinction between wealthy and poor.
The third product that cannot be absent in the pantry of those who want to get were only available in Mexican cuisine will be, of course, the soup. In Mexico we now have more than 300 versions: fresh, dried, used to smoke, ripe… that give coloration, flavor and, additionally, spiciness. These are products having a very regional figure. There are species which might be only used in certain areas, that towards the south they are generally used fresh, towards north rather dried out, that it is in South america City where it really is consumed more hot and that in the towns they take it “tranquilito”.
Saving money chiles are jalapenos, the red cuaresmenos, the dried types are called morita and the smoked ones chipotle. And what about them if they are leftover? Escabeches, using jalapeno peppers as an alternative to peppers, or a marinade that will keep for a few months in the freezer (prepared with cooking or cooked fills by adding red or even green peppers, red onion and cilantro). The dried out chiles can be used as if they have been our noras or choricero peppers and the fresh ones can be frozen whole wrapped in cling film.
It is necessary to care with the spicy, if it is added little by little zinc increases the tolerance and the knowledge, because certainly not everything is tabasco. To “clean” along with balance that spiciness, there are three other products which are indispensable in the basic Mexican larder: onion, cilantro and lime scale. They refresh, stay hydrated, allow the spiciness not to bathe and add, when combined, some of the most typical flavors of your cuisine.
The idea continues with the tomato as well as red tomato and the eco-friendly tomatillo, a great unknown whoever most common use is throughout sauce, cooked in water with cilantro, onion and some chili. As well as with avocado, already integrated in any kitchen and key to get ready the Mexican guacamole. Even without the this traditional volcanic rock mortar, one can use “a small bowl and the base of the glass, preferably plastic material, to crush along with mash the pieces of avocado. Otherwise, with a derive, but never from the Thermomix!
Avocado, lime, onion and cilantro are the elements of guacamole, which is ready in a molcajete.
And a attention: if we superimpose the guide of Mexico on the map of the European place we can realize that just one of its states has already been the size of Spain. Guessing the gastronomic richness of which an extension is not easy, however we have managed to reduce it into eight elements.
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