Mexican cuisine is characterized by originality, originality and uniqueness of dishes. It combines the incongruous - sweet and savory, and get delicious dishes that are considered the pinnacle of culinary art.

Mexican Cuisine Features

The cuisine of Mexico has a rich history and consists in adapting the best traditions of African, Caribbean and South American cuisines to the hot temper of the Mexican people.

Temperament can be called a feature of Mexican cuisine: dishes are distinguished both by spiciness and spice.

Another characteristic feature is Mexican table etiquette. He orders to take dishes of national cuisine with his hands.

History and traditions of Mexican cuisine

The world-famous cuisine, recognized and revered throughout the globe, was born in the literal sense of the "pasture" feed. Cacti, snakes, lizards and insects - that is what stood at the origins.

The characteristics and traditions of the Aztecs wandered through the desert only slightly changed and supplemented with the beginning of settled life on the shores of Lake Texcoco. Having erected the city of Tenochtitlan, the Aztecs began to comprehend agriculture: they cultivated sweet pepper, amaranth, corn, potatoes, pumpkin, and legumes. The meat diet, previously consisting of everything flying and crawling, was supplemented by meat from farmed cattle. But boiled and baked creeping creatures and now often become part of the menu of the native Mexicans.

The favorite method of cooking meat was grill. Serving such a treat is customary with a side dish of beans, beans with the addition of salsa sauce or guacamole.

“Barbarians” surprised with their skillful culinary combinations even the most avid gourmets of that time - the Spaniards. A characteristic feature of the kitchen, both then and now, is the skillful combination of traditional national products: beans, potatoes, corn, avocados, pumpkins, beans - with spices.

List of National Products

Dishes of Mexican cuisine are unthinkable without:

  • corn tortillas, which can be served as a separate dish, or as a component of an appetizer;
  • Tabasco sauce - spicy is one of the most important "chips" of Mexican cuisine;
  • nachos - corn chips that are eaten in bite with sauces.

Now it’s worth talking in more detail about corn, which in Mexico is considered not only the queen of the fields, but also the mistress of the culinary world. On its basis, tortillas, nachos, burritos, anchilada, chimichanga and even desserts are prepared. It is customary to add as an ingredient to many traditional dishes.

Another indispensable product: hot peppers. It is not only used for sauces, but also added to salads, served with meat and fish.

Did you know The fashion for using tequila with salt and lime was invented exclusively for tourists! Mexicans themselves frankly do not understand how to somehow spoil the extraordinary taste of their traditional agave vodka.

Mexican Restaurants and Cafes

In almost every point of the globe, you can try dishes that are prepared based on the characteristics of Mexican cuisine. Of course, they are slightly adapted, but they still have notes of burning Mexican passion.

If you want to taste the whole taste symphony of the most popular dishes of Mexico, buy a ticket to the sultry sandy country and immediately go to the restaurant "Don Chong". There you can taste dishes prepared according to old recipes preserved from antiquity. Larvae of ants and caterpillars, a fried iguana, a baked armadillo lizard and other most popular dishes of native Mexicans - this is what awaits visitors to the restaurant.

Recipes of the most popular dishes

Many recipes used in our time have come to us in their original form. What can I say - even the cooking method remains the same: for example, spices are still recommended to grind in a mortar.

Burito - a traditional dish of Mexican cuisine

If the trip to Mexico is delayed, prepare a dish that meets the characteristics and traditions of this country, on your own.

For 5 servings you will need:

  • 5 tortillas (tortillas from cornmeal);
  • 3 small chicken breasts;
  • 2 tomatoes;
  • fresh cucumber;
  • Bell pepper;
  • onion head;
  • cheese;
  • sauce (mayonnaise);
  • spices and spices.

The preparation of burrito consists in performing a sequence of elementary steps:

  1. Boil chicken meat or cook it on the grill, then disassemble it into fibers. Cutting into small pieces and frying is allowed. Spices, which may include chili peppers, are added at the meat preparation stage.
  2. Onion, pepper, cucumber cut into medium sized slices. We perform similar actions with tomatoes, but it is recommended to remove the skin beforehand.
  3. Grind cheese, preferably hard varieties, with a coarse grater.
  4. We mix the ingredients, sprinkling with spices and spices. If desired, you can supplement the composition with hot pepper.
  5. We lay the filling in tortillas, spreading the sauce on top. Having formed a traditional "pocket", we send it to the oven for 10 minutes.

Serve the burrito warm.

How to make tacos at home

Taco dish is a type of "stuffed bread." It is a tortilla wrapped in a tube stuffed with meat, cheese, sauce, herbs and vegetables.

For 8 servings:

  • 8 corn tortillas;
  • 300 g of meat;
  • Sweet pepper;
  • bulb;
  • tomato;
  • a bunch of parsley;
  • olive oil;
  • spicy sauce "Tabasco";
  • wine vinegar, chili powder, sugar, salt and sugar.

Getting started:

  1. Chopped onion, pickle in vinegar with herbs, ground pepper, sugar and salt.
  2. Peel the tomato and pepper and cut the fruits into small cubes.
  3. Meat, scrolling through a meat grinder, fry in olive oil.
  4. After 5 minutes, we interfere with chopped vegetables (pepper and tomato), salt, chili and a couple of tablespoons of water.
  5. Stew until the liquids evaporate.
  6. We form the tacos: put the cooled minced meat, onion and a little Tabasco sauce on the cake.

Fold the cake in half and serve.

Mexican Spicy Vegetables

Pumpkin, of course, cannot be compared with corn in popularity, however, it is also a highly revered ingredient in Mexico.

To cook hot vegetable stew in Mexican you will need:

  • pumpkin - 500 g;
  • 2 carrots, onions, sweet peppers, potatoes, garlic cloves;
  • tomatoes in their own juice - 400 g;
  • beans - a can of 400 g;
  • hot peppers;
  • water - 400 ml;
  • vegetable oil - 30 ml;
  • parsley is a bunch.

Cooking:

  1. All vegetables, except garlic and hot pepper, are cut into cubes of the same size. And the remaining garlic and pepper are chopped so finely as we can.

Advice! Spicy peppers should only be worn with gloves. They are easy to remove, but it’s difficult to wash your hands from pepper juice, which is fraught with burning on the skin and mucous membrane (upon contact).

  1. In a stewpan, heat the oil and fry the ingredients one by one (in the indicated sequence): onions, carrots, sweet peppers, hot peppers, potatoes, pumpkin.
  2. Fry for 10 minutes and add the tomatoes in their own juice, garlic.
  3. Another couple of minutes - and pour water. Boil a quarter of an hour and add salt and spices.
  4. Cook the composition over low heat for 10 - 15 minutes and 5 minutes before turning off add the beans.

Mexican spicy vegetables ready.

Cooking Nachos

When planning to make nachos, keep in mind that you definitely need deep-frying oil and cornmeal - you cannot make chips without them. Of course, you can add corn flour to both rice and wheat flour, but you cannot completely replace it.

Read also:corn flour

Prepare:

  • 2 cups corn flour;
  • glass of water;
  • 400 ml of oil;
  • 5 g of salt, cinnamon, black pepper and paprika.

Homemade nachos are prepared as follows:

  1. Sifting flour with spices, pour warm water and leave for 20 minutes.
  2. Knead the dough with your hands, spreading them with vegetable oil - we get an elastic dough.
  3. We form many balls the size of a tennis ball. Roll out and fry for 30 seconds in a pan greased with a small amount of oil.
  4. We divide each cake into 8 parts - giving preference to the shape of a triangle.
  5. We put them in boiling deep-frying and cook at about 180 ° C for 45 seconds. Ready nachos give themselves away - they begin to float on the surface.
  6. We stop the snack with paper towels so that the excess oil is gone.

Ready nachos served with sauce.

Salsa

Salsa is one of the traditional sauces of Mexican cuisine. It is prepared quite easily, so be sure to make it at home.

Take:

  • 500 g tomato;
  • 2 chili peppers;
  • 5 cloves of garlic;
  • 100 g of onions;
  • 40 ml of lemon juice;
  • 50 g of cilantro;
  • spices to taste.

Cooking:

  1. Remove the peel from the tomatoes and chop the flesh to the state of a thick sauce. If you are too lazy to shred - puree with a blender. We take only ripe tomatoes, as fleshy as possible.
  2. Finely chop the onion and garlic and send to the tomatoes.
  3. It's time for lemon juice - send it to the bowl with tomatoes. If there is lime, then it is better to take it - a traditional recipe prescribes the addition of juice of this particular fruit.
  4. Hot peppers are cleaned from seeds, cut and mixed with other ingredients, adding spices. Puree.
  5. Shred the cilantro.

We stand salsa before serving in the refrigerator for about an hour. And remember that salsa is rapidly oxidized, so it must be stored in the cold for a short time.

Fajitos

Inexperienced culinary specialists, traditional Mexican fajitos may seem like shawarma. But this is a fallacy. And why? Learn from the following recipe.

First we find out what is required:

  • beef - 300 g;
  • onion (red) - head;
  • juice from 1 lime;
  • bell pepper, tomato - 1 pc.;
  • corn tortillas;
  • vegetable oil, mustard and ground pepper to taste.

And here’s the recipe itself:

  1. Beef cut into bars. Onions - in half rings.
  2. Mix the meat and onions and fill with a mixture of lime juice, vegetable oil, mustard and ground pepper. Leave for two hours to marinate.
  3. Peel the tomatoes and pepper and cut into cubes.
  4. Fry the marinated meat with onions in a pan. When ready, add vegetables to the meat.
  5. Stew the composition for a couple of minutes so that the vegetables reach the state of al dente.
  6. Before laying the fillings in a flat cake, we individually warm them in a dry frying pan, coat with oil and sprinkle with herbs.

Serve in the form of a roll.

Oven baked corn

Mexican corn is distinguished by a subtle symbiosis of spiciness and spiciness, sweetness and salinity.

For 5 corncobs we take:

  • 200 g sour cream;
  • 2 tsp balsamic vinegar;
  • according to Art. l chopped parsley and paprika;
  • tsp cayenne pepper;
  • 200 g of hard cheese;
  • clove of garlic;
  • salt.

We start by baking the ears at 180 ° C in the oven for 45 minutes. While the corn cools down after baking on a wire rack, prepare the sauce: mix sour cream, vinegar, garlic, salt. Now we make a breading of grated cheese, as well as parsley, paprika, cayenne pepper and salt.

We cools the cooled ears with a brush with sauce, and then roll in a dry mixture.

Corn is ready. Having prepared the cobs according to this recipe, you get a tasty and juicy dish.

Mexican Lean Tomato Soup

Another masterpiece of Mexican cuisine is a fragrant lean soup with tomatoes.

Ingredients:

  • tomatoes (canned, lumpy) - a can;
  • beans (canned) - a jar;
  • tomato juice - 400 ml;
  • vegetable broth - 500 ml;
  • corn - 5 tbsp. l .;
  • garlic - 2 cloves;
  • oil - Art. l .;
  • chili pepper (hot, ground) - 1 \ 2 tsp;
  • greens, lemon, sugar, salt - to taste.

Step by step instructions:

  1. Sliced ​​garlic cloves in vegetable oil.
  2. Next we send the tomatoes - bring to a boil. We try and with excessive acid we interfere with sugar.
  3. Add chili peppers, corn (fresh or frozen), tomato juice and vegetable broth.
  4. Bring the composition to a boil and boil in a saucepan for 10 minutes.
  5. We send the beans washed from juice into the soup: boil again for 15 minutes and, removing from heat, let the soup brew.

When serving, you can add a little lemon juice to each serving. Serve the dish with crispy tortilla.

Classic Guacamole Sauce

Guacamole is a traditional Mexican sauce based on avocado, lime juice and cilantro.

Take:

  • 2 avocados;
  • 1 lime;
  • 20 g of cilantro;
  • salt.

Cooking:

  1. Separate the flesh of the avocado from the peel and bone. To do this, cut the fetus into two parts, stick a knife into the bone and, turning it, remove it. Using a teaspoon, carefully remove the flesh.
  2. Knead the pulp with a fork or mashed.
  3. We cut the cilantro with a knife.
  4. To extract maximum juice from lime, knead it with your hands or roll it on the table surface before squeezing. It is possible to replace lime with lemon, but in this case less juice is required due to its greater saturation.
  5. Add the expressed juice to the pulp and herbs.

After stirring or, if desired, mashed with a blender, the guacamole sauce will be completely ready.

Quesadilla with chicken

Quesadilla is a Mexican dish consisting of tortilla and meat filling with vegetables.

Would need:

  • 600 g of chicken;
  • 4 tortillas;
  • 2 bell peppers;
  • 2 tomatoes;
  • 400 g of cheese;
  • 2 cloves of garlic.

From spices in addition to salt:

  • ground coriander;
  • pepper;
  • thyme.

Quesadilla with chicken is prepared as follows:

  1. Sew onion and garlic cloves in oil until the onion is transparent.
  2. We cut the meat into small cubes and send it to the root crops. Fry for 20 minutes.
  3. During this time, you need to cut tomatoes and peppers into cubes, grate the cheese.
  4. We send vegetables to chicken and fry for no more than 5 minutes: they will give juice, and the whole quesadilla will turn out more juicy. It is time to add spices.
  5. We form a dish: put a corn cake in a pan with a small amount of oil. First we distribute the cheese on it, then the filling and again the cheese. We cover the products with the second, free side of the tortilla, for this we distribute all the ingredients on one side of the tortilla.
  6. We warm the appetizer first on one side, then on the other.

Serve hot quesadillas.

Enchilada

Enchilada is a tortilla stuffed with cheese, vegetables and meat in an exotic sauce. A prerequisite is baking.

For the enchilada we take:

  • 5 tortillas;
  • Cheddar cheese
  • 1 \ 2 Art. boiled black beans;
  • 50 ml of oil;
  • 400 ml lumps of canned tomatoes;
  • 400 ml of water;
  • 75 g of flour;
  • about 300 g of chicken;
  • bulb;
  • 5 cloves of garlic;
  • 50 g of corn;
  • tsp oregano and ground dry garlic;
  • hot pepper.

In addition to the ingredients, it will also take about an hour of free time.

We perform the following steps:

  1. Cook the enchiladas sauce. We heat 50 ml of oil and fry the flour in it. We mix tomatoes, pour in water, pour in chili peppers, garlic and oregano. Boil for 15 minutes until thick.
  2. Proceed to the filling. Sew onion in butter. Add meat to it and fry until cooked. Add the corn and hot pepper. Another 5 minutes - and the filling is ready.
  3. Putting the enchilada together. Tartilla is coated on both sides with the sauce. We spread a strip of beans and the finished filling, wrap the tortilla in a roll and send it to a baking dish.
  4. After laying out all the rolls, pour them with the rest of the sauce, sprinkle with grated cheese and put in the oven. Temperature - 200 ° C. After 30 minutes you can enjoy a divinely delicious dish.

Desserts in Mexican Cuisine

Mexican desserts are a special subsection that deserves special attention.

Given the fierce love of Mexicans for spicy foods, even in the preparation of desserts could not do without them. The combination of sweet and savory makes the sweets generated by Mexican traditions unique and unforgettable.

Another characteristic inherent in the desserts of Mexico, should be called the focus on national holidays. So, for example, Kakhet Kemada sweets are made for the Day of the Dead and are Sugar Skulls. They are prepared on the basis of a diverse set of sweets, condensed milk and - who would have thought! - corn.

Another proof of the unusualness of Mexican desserts is Calabasa. No! Not sausage, namely “Calabash” - a dessert prepared on the basis of canned pumpkin with ginger.

So we finished a short excursion on the features and traditions of Mexican cuisine. Despite the voluminous material, not everything was covered and disassembled by us - Mexican cuisine is so diverse and vast.

Similar:More from the author: