Mexican Cooking School, Part 2

Kaarina

Within two hours of the 737 wheels hitting the tarmac in Cancun, I was standing in front of a mind boggling array of peppers. “Grab the ones you recognize and at least one you don’t,” I told myself and moved on to filling the cart with a week’s worth of fruit and veg. We were in a Soriana supermarket in the Centro Maya mall just off the main Cancun-Tulum highway in Playa del Carmen. We had an hour to shop for 12 days. For US$30, USA Transfers stops for groceries en route to our destination, a condo on Half Moon Bay, North Akumal. It was a critical stop because in Akumal we’d be limited to a couple of convenience stores and a twice weekly fruit market on the edge of the village basketball court.

Akumal fruit market

We tore the shopping list in half. My husband’s had the basics - milk, eggs, cereal, mayo etc. I had the meat and tomatoes list. And the wine, of course. Mike found some great bread and scored mightily with the coffee, stumbling on the Starbucks of Mexico, Cafe Punta del Cielo, adjacent to the supermarket. It sells grind-your-own gourmet blends. This cafe alone is a reason to pick Soriano as the shopping stop. In this part of the world Nescafé rules.

Our condo garden pool

My first go at a Mexican dish in our rental condo was an encouraging start to my private Mexican cooking lessons. Of course, it’s likely that even a frozen pizza would have tasted spectacular on our sunset-bathed balcony where we took most of our meals eye-level with the tops of swaying palm trees.

View from our sunset-bathed balcony

That first recipe, Pork in a Tomatillo sauce from my guru Mely Martinez’s blog, Mexico in My Kitchen, introduced me to dry roasting vegetables on stove top. This sensible method will translate well to cooking aboard a sailboat, cottaging, camping or when an oven or a grill is unavailable or it’s simply too hot to fire up an oven. 

Dry roasting vegetables and pork in a tomatillo sauce

Having learned from Mely that various peppers are used in different parts of Mexico in this dish, I felt free to deploy the mystery peppers purchased at Soriana. They turned out to be mild Chilaca chilies (known as Pasilla when dried). They added lovely depth and a touch heat to the dish. Yucatan’s mild Xcatic pepper would likely produce a similar result. I chose to cook the pound-and-a-half sirloin pork chop in one chunk instead of cutting it into stewing pieces. I browned it on both sides and finished it in the sauce, reducing the cooking time by almost an hour. Sliced and smothered in green sauce and served with rice: Delicious.

Chilaca chilies, chayotes, chayotes with potatoes and BacDyn disinfectant

In my search for new vegetables I discovered chayotes and jicamas. The first step - always - is to wash all produce with a disinfectant. The owners of our condo provide this (as well as bottled drinking water), two important precautions to ward off Montezuma’s Revenge. For a refreshing salad, light green, pear-shaped chayotes are boiled like potatoes, cubed and tossed with a light oil and vinegar dressing, Mexican oregano and thinly sliced onion. A bit like a cross between cucumber and potato, chayotes go well with pork or chicken. Better yet sliced and sautéed with potatoes and onions as a side for chorizo sausages.

Jicamas whole and in fruit salad

Jicamas, a light brown round root, looks like celeriac but tastes quite different. I loved the crisp apple-like crunch of raw jicama in this sweet/tart citrus salad. Originating in the Yucatan, where the salad is known as Xec, this recipe is a true keeper, terrific as a side dish or on its own.

Spaghetti and chorizo in tomato sauce

Pasta with chorizo and tomato sauce is an easy and tasty menu option when kitchen equipment and/or shopping possibilities are limited.

I used dry spaghetti made with corn and rice, fresh tomatoes and grated Oaxaca cheese. Cotija would have been better for grating and a bit stronger in flavour, but there was none to be had in local stores. Sadly the choice of honest to goodness Mexican cheeses was very limited in this area. Most of the cheeses were labelled Manchego, but appeared processed with no resemblance to their famous Spanish namesake. Soriana did have very good goat chèvre, mild and creamy, and a firm Iberico from Spain.

Street view of Akumal Pueblo

After a week-long search, I found Queso Fresco in Akumal Pueblo, north of the main highway. Up and over the hill just a block or so beyond the shiny tourist convenience store on the main drag, Mike spied a local grocery. Alas, the store carried mostly cans and soft drinks, but when I inquired with my hopeless Spanish, a woman pulled a big block of Queso Fresco from a deli fridge (not self serve) and cut a slice for me. Lucky for us, we had arrived on a day when a few veg and fruit vendors were set up along the centre boulevard near the store so we were able to top up on produce too.With the Queso Fresco I replicated the cheese and salsa verde dip from our January Epitourist lunch.