1. Mexican Chicken Tortilla Soup
2. Things to know (Q&A)

An easy way to diversify your usual meals

Mexican cuisine is loved all over the world, which is not surprising - it is a hearty, spicy meal. A new wave of popularity of traditional ingredients and dishes has also reached us: many supermarkets now have avocados (albeit hard) in a row, and delicious tacos can finally be found in food courts. We have selected eight recipes that you can easily cook at home - all the ingredients can be found in a large grocery store.

Guacamole

This is a very famous and ancient dish - the Aztecs invented it long before the Spanish colonization. True, the real boom of guacamole happened in the 20th century on the wave of interest in traditional cuisine and vegetarianism. And although each Mexican family has its own recipe, they are all united by the presence of avocado, chili and lime, as well as the method of serving - with tortillas.

Ingredients:

3 chili peppers

1 medium sized tomato

1 small red onion

2 ripe avocados

juice of 2 limes

salt

Cooking:

Grind chili peppers, peeled onion and tomato in a food processor (or, as in the old days, mash in a stone mortar with a pestle).

Add avocado pulp, stir. Add salt and lime juice and mix again.

Guacamole is ideally served with corn tortillas, either fresh or dried into chips.

Tortilla

These corn tortillas are one of the basic ingredients of Mexican (and not only) cuisine and one of the oldest types of bread in Latin America. The Mayans and the Aztecs ate them the same way we do now: simply dipped in guacamole or wrapped in tortillas. Tortillas can be used to make other dishes like tacos, fajitas or quesadillas, and they are easy to make because they consist of two ingredients: flour and water.

Ingredients:

2 cups very fine cornmeal

1.5 cups hot water

Cooking:

Flour requires special attention - ideally it should be a special corn flour, very finely ground, which is sold under the name Masa Harina (literally "dough flour"). Alternatively, you can mix cornmeal in half with wheat flour.

Sift the flour into a large bowl, pour in very hot (but tolerable when touched) water and mix until smooth. The finished dough should be soft, but not sticky, and you may need a little more or a little less water. Then the dough must be rolled into a ball and left for half an hour in the refrigerator.

From the dough you need to fashion balls and roll them into cakes about three millimeters thick. Fry the cakes in a hot frying pan without oil, a couple of minutes on each side. As soon as the tortilla begins to swell, it's time to turn it over. It is important not to overexpose the cakes on fire, they should turn out soft and slightly moist.

Taco

Tacos are the oldest way to eat almost anything with tortillas and one of the most popular Mexican recipes in the world. Everything is suitable for tacos: meat, vegetables, cheese, fish and their combinations - and this dish has no specific recipe. Mandatory components are chili, lime, tortillas and sauces: either salsa or guacamole, and more often both.

Ingredients:

300 g meat or fish

2 large tomatoes

1 medium red onion

6 tablespoons guacamole

3 teaspoons salsa

juice of 2 limes

a few sprigs of cilantro

4 small tortillas

Cooking:

Prepare the filling. It can be fried fish, meat or chicken - or any option you like, like shrimp and grilled vegetables. The filling should be cut into small pieces and sprinkled with lime juice.

Cut the tomatoes into cubes, the onion into thin rings. Sprinkle onion with lime juice and mix with tomatoes and finely chopped cilantro.

Bend the tortillas with a “boat”, put two tablespoons of guacamole in each, a couple of tablespoons of the vegetable mixture, and on top - the same amount of meat or fish filling. Add the salsa and serve immediately—preparing the tacos ahead of time can make the tortillas soggy.

Salsa

The full name of salsa is salsa roja, which means “red sauce”, and it is made from tomatoes. The recipe here is again rather arbitrary, and the number of components can be changed depending on the desired level of sharpness and sourness. Salsa is added to almost all Mexican dishes - and its taste is highly dependent on the quality of the tomatoes, which must be very ripe, "sugary".

Ingredients:

1 large tomato

1 red onion

3 chili peppers

juice of 1 lime

salt

Cooking:

Using a knife or blender, chop the onion, tomato and chili pepper.

Gradually add lime juice (to taste).

Use immediately - salsa does not store well.

Fajita

Historically, fajita was the food of Mexican shepherds, and they made a beef dish - and not from large pieces of meat, but scraps that were fried over an open fire, supplemented with some vegetables and eaten wrapped in a tortilla. Now fajita is more often made from chicken.

Ingredients:

500 g boneless chicken

3 large red onions

2 large very ripe red bell peppers

3 limes

3 chili peppers

4 corn tortillas

4 tablespoons of fat sour cream

Cooking:

Cut the onion into thick rings, put in a bowl and pour boiling water; The water should completely cover the onion. Cover with lid and set aside.

Finely chop the chile; fry chicken pieces with chili in a thick-walled cast-iron skillet in vegetable oil.

Bulgarian pepper cut into strips. Add oil to the pan to the chicken, put the pepper and onion (from which you must first drain the water), squeeze the juice of one lime and mix. Put the pan in the oven, preheated to 200 degrees, for 15-20 minutes. Season the finished fajitas with lime juice, mix and serve.

Fajitas are served very hot - straight from the oven - and always in the pan where they were cooked. While eating, you need to mix the pieces of meat with pepper, oil and onion, and then spread the mixture on a tortilla, supplementing with a spoonful of sour cream.

Mexican Chicken Tortilla Soup

In Mexico, they use fresh, not canned, beans and corn for this soup - but you can not complicate the process and use canned food.

Ingredients:

500 g chicken legs

2.5 liters of water

1 can (350 g) canned red beans

1 can of canned corn (350 g)

2 large tomatoes

1 bell pepper

2 chili peppers

2 limes

a few sprigs of cilantro

1 large corn tortilla

Cooking:

Cover the chicken with water and put on fire. Finely chop the bell pepper and tomatoes and fry in vegetable oil until a light brown tint appears.

When the chicken is cooked, add the beans, corn, roasted vegetables and finely chopped chili peppers to the pan, squeeze the juice from the limes and cook more
10-15 minutes on low heat.

Cut the tortilla into strips about a centimeter wide. In a cast-iron skillet, heat the vegetable oil to a high temperature and fry the tortilla strips in it - as an option, you can dry them in a dry frying pan.

Divide soup among bowls, place a handful of toasted tortilla strips on each, sprinkle with cilantro, and serve.

Margarita

This cocktail can be ranked among the Mexican classics - invented almost a hundred years ago, perhaps it was he who glorified tequila throughout the world. For a margarita, you need plain ("silver") tequila. We give a recipe that is slightly different from the classic one - it has more lime and sugar syrup.

Ingredients:

50 ml tequila

25 ml Cointreau

25 ml lime juice

15 ml sugar syrup

Cooking:

Add all ingredients to a shaker with very finely crushed ice and mix well.

Pour into glasses, garnish with a lime wedge and serve.

Rising Sun

This is a less strong, but no less popular cocktail (Tequila Sunrise - “Tequila Sunrise”) based on tequila, which is also loved by the Mexicans themselves. Our recipe is a classic, registered by the International Association of Bartenders.

Ingredients:

45 ml tequila

90 ml orange juice

15 ml grenadine

Cooking:

Fill a glass with ice cubes. Pour orange juice on top, tequila into it, and the last grenadine - so that red stains are obtained.

Serve without stirring.

Things to know (Q&A)