A Brunch for a Saturday in Summer

To celebrate the return to the Rancho of our Alabaman neighbors; as well as to take advantage of the excellent produce and seafood now available, Doña Cuevas and I hosted a brunch loast Saturday. There were seven of us in all.

The developing menu went through several stages of creative imaginings, but in the end, this is what we had.

Brunch Menu July 11, 2009

Sangríta Marías -Bloody Mary drinks made with Tequila and seasoned muy picante.

Platón de frutas de la temporada.

"Gazpacho" Salad

Angel double-raised Biscuits with crisped cecina.

Salsa Poblana Cremosa,. (Roasted fresh green chile crema salsa; muy rica.)

Herbed, garlicked and pimentón dusted roasted baby potatoes.

Revuelto de gambas y ajetes, (soft, creamy scrambled eggs with shrimp and garlic chives; tocino y quesillo de Oaxaca)

More Angel Biscuits, butter. Conservas de Santa Rosa, GTO. Miel de Abeja. (Tropical and other jams, marmalades and honey.)

Café Americano

Brioche au raisin et canelle

(Nadie pudieron comer el brioche por tanta comida. Lo cortamos y repartimos para llevar.)

Our neighbor, Geni took some pictures which she generously agreed to share with us.

More, perhaps, later.

Mercado Niño Santo Morelia

"How could I have missed this place all along?" I exclaimed when our friend Rose led us to the Mercado Niño Santo (officially, the Mercado Nicolás Bravo), on the western side of Morelia's Centro. The popular name derives from la Iglesia del Niño Santo, up at the corner.

I had often walked nearby, south of Avenida Madero and west of Calle Galeana. I'd been close, but not quite close enough.
The Mercado is just south of Calle Corregidora, on Calle Nicolás Bravo.

Photo: Cambio de Michoacán

It's a small, traditional mercado, one of the most pristine in México. I Googled it and found out that it was the first mercado in Morelia to be certified under the government's "Mercados Saludables" program. News article, Spanish. It's celebrating its 34th birthday this year.

Across Calle Nicolás Bravo from the mercado entrance is a small shop where a busy family makes corundas. Customers line up to have these small, simple corundas, 4 pesos apiece.

Back on the steps at the portals of the mercado were bread and pan dulces sellers. Rose bought us a few hearth baked bolillos. We ate them later that day at home. They were hand made, and had the characteristic and desirable scorch marks where la masa had hit la piedra. They were tangy with sourdough, equal and perhaps superior to those of La Espiga in Pátzcuaro.

Inside the main floor of the mercado was a world of blue and white walls showcasing the dried chiles, vegetables, fresh fish and meats.

An older woman was selling tall bottles of golden liquid. I asked her what it was."Vinaigre de piña" was the reply. I wondered if there were any smaller size bottles available. She sad the big one was only 10 pesos. She unscrewed the cap to allow my to sniff the mildly pungent vinegar. She said, "Look, there is la madrita on top."
It's a fuzzy little fermentation film that I remember from my Mom's pickling and canning days, back in the 50's.

"Es muy bueno para el estómago" she went on.

I decided that for the price, I couldn't go wrong. I gave her the 10 peso coin and she crossed herself and blessed it. It may have been her first sale of the day.

Beyond were beautiful, rosy huachinangos being unloaded from an icy crate onto a sales table. I knew I'd have to come back another day. For one, I hadn't brought a camera.
Various meaty joints and piggy parts were set up on a table across from the fish.

The mezzanine level beckoned, with its comedores ringing the mercado, promising a savory breakfast in the true Mexican mercado tradition.
Although not al the comedores were open that early, it was still a difficult choice.

One of the nice things in a mercado comedor is that the proprietors are happy to lift the tops of the cazuelas and explain the contents to you. Local # 127 had birria, bistec de res en salsa negra; albóndigas. I imagine that they could prepare huevos al gusto.

On the opposite side, another local had barbacoa, which in that instance looked a lot like the birria across the way. The were also serving menudo. The man lifted the pot lid to show me the caldillo and to one side, a separate pot full of very fresh cooked and varied viscera.

Over in a corner local, a strumming guitar player sang scratchily. Although I can appreciate the cultural aspects, I prefer not to listen to these performances while I'm eating.
I found my wife and Rose and we sat down at Local #127, Comedor Doña Feli."Felicitas" is her true name, and it's felicitous to eat there.

My choice was easy: birria. I'd had a bowl of barbacoa de borrego the day before at Barbacoa José Luis, on the Periférico near ISSTE, west of Costco. But it wasn't up to its usual standard. There were too many small bony fragments which detracted from an otherwise pleasant meal.

At Doña Feli's, the birria was bone free, rich and meaty, red with chile and tomato and very satisfactory.

Doña Cuevas had a plate of Bisteces en Salsa Negra, with some good beans and a small mound of rice. We both drank jugos de naranja brought up from the juice stand downstairs. Rose recommends this juice stand for its special combination jugos.

When we finished, Rose ordered some rice and beans to go.

We asked for la cuenta. $115 pesos Mexicanos. About $8.44 USD
This demonstrates again that in México, the best food bargains, and delicious ones, are in mercado comedores.
Contrast that cuenta with what we paid the evening before at Cafe Catedral, under the portales, looking at the Plaza de Armas. Two limonadas, a cafe con leche, a portion of carrot cake and some pastel de elote: about $160 pesos.

The sótano or lower level of the mercado seemed more typical of mercados elsewhwere: dark, relatively low ceilinged (compared to the main floor) and jammed with merchandse and more chiles and vegetables.

I've a last observation about el Mercado Niño Santo.

Upstairs, on the mezzanine level, you can get a dental or medical checkup or, as I've read, even a chest x-ray . It's open to the locatorios or stall holders and the general public.

Don't go away.
I'll be back...with a camera.

My Vegetable Love Should Grow

A new enterprise, the Mercado Buen Provecho burst upon the Pátzcuaro food firmament like a nova, one day before the Fourth of July.

It was a great beginning for what promises to be a mecca for gastronomes and foodies alike who crave fresh produce of varieties hitherto unknown or rarely seen in Pátzcuaro.

Lisa, one of the principal movers behind this mercado/tianguis told me that for their first day, they hadn't brought everything that they might have. To my eyes, it was still a dazzling selection of beautiful salad greens, white eggplants, two sorts of earthy turnips and herbs; as well as hen's eggs and freshly killed ducks. There was also a table of specialty fruits, including the fantasy pitahaya, giant Italian lemons like small footballs, Persian limes (not so rare, but excellent, and most tempting of all, red round hothouse tomatoes, just a day or so short of perfect ripeness.*

Panadero Ivo's bakery table had a attractive selection of whole grain and seed breads to sell, but the packages of plump cinnamon rolls were selling like the proverbial hotcakes.

I had to restrain myself from buying more than we could use. I focused on vegetables: mixed salad greens plus arugula. Since all the salad greens were priced the same (I wasn't paying close attention to the prices), mix-and-match was easy.

I also bought some super nice, purple blushed, young turnips with great greens attached. There were red turnips as well, which, I was told were sweeter and had little or no "bite". But as I like "bite", I chose the purple ones.

A branch of fragrant Lemon Verbena or "cedrón, for tea; and a handful of basil, sweet basil, not the small leafed variety common in Michoacán, completed my herb purchases. There was also very robust branches of rosemary, and amazingly fragrant Lavender!

I bought two dragon fruit pitahayas from the second vendor's table, plus over a kilo of medium tomatoes, and one Italian lemon, just to fulfill my lust for lemon lemon LEMON! We rarely can get sour yellow lemon here.

The next morning, we tried one pitahaya for breakfast. It was easy to peel, despite its fearsome apparance, and the vivid vermilion-purple flesh was pleasantly light and tartly refreshing.

Although the baker's table held attractive products, I didn't want to buy any as I have much home baked bread of my own. The plump, packaged cnnamon rolls seemed to be selling like the proverbial hotcakes.

Then came the reckoning: la cuenta. I paid up; it was not cheap, but to me, well worth it for specialty produce of top quality.

When I returned to Hacienda Enmedio de Nada, I laid out all my purchases and took a few photos ** of them.

The following day, inspired by a sample of Braised Turnips I'd tasted at the Mercado, I made my own version.

I first coarsely cut several strips of smoked bacon. Thick sliced would be best, but I used what I had. This was set to slowly frying in a large non-stick skillet. The greens had been throughly picked over (they were in very good shape) and washed in several changes of cold water. They were then cut very coarsely into lengths. The tougher stem toward the root was discarded.

One onion, sliced, was put into the skillet, then very carefully, I put in the greens. It's important to leave some moisture on them. In fact, I added about 3/4 cu of water.
Salt and pepper are added. Go lightly on the salt.

When they begin to simmer, I turned down the heat and covered the pan.

The turnip roots themselves had been peeled and sliced into thick rounds. They went into the pan before the apples.

Next, I cut an unpeeled Granny Smith apple into small chunks, then as the greens began to get tender, added the apple pieces. Next, a tablespoon of white sugar sprinkled over all. I let this caramelize a bit, then added a "glug" of cider vinegar.

At that point, I replenished the liquid with about 1 cup of beef stock, made in this case from Bovril Beef Concentrate and a cup or so of hot water. That is the reason to be very easy on the salt at the start.

After a while, when the vegetables become tender, it was time to check the seasoning.

This was a wonderful, earthy, hearty dish, which went very well with the brown beans I'd cooked the day before and some freshly made Southern Style Buttermilk Cornbread.

*Last night, we tried a couple of the beautiful tomatoes. They were a little disappointing in that despite their brilliant red color and perfect conformation, they lacked any sort of that unmistakeable, sharp fresh tomato fragrance. The taste was o.k. but not what we were hoping for. I found that when I sliced them, they had good acidity, but were improved by sprinkling the slices with salt and a little sugar, and letting them repose about 10 minutes. Best of all, there a much better texture than the watery, pale red balls sold for tomates bolas in the supermarkets here.


** While at the mercado, I acceded to a request to not photograph within the mercado, so that all my photos were taken afterwards, in my own kitchen, at home. I'm hoping that the ban on photography will one day be relaxed, so that the mercado can be shown at its best to others.

Chickening Out (reprise)

We're big fans of pollos asados al carbón. It used to be that we didn't distinguish between the al carbón pollos and the pollos rostizados. I now make the distinction that the former are cooked on a grill over charcoal and the latter, more common and usually cheaper, cooked by gas or perhaps la luz on a rotating spit.

So, over time, we've made a small list of favorites. Many made our list due to their convenience as well as their savory qualities. Price is a lesser consideration, but still of some importance.

Here's our personal favorites; what are yours?

1. Pollos Asados al carbón "El Tejaban". It's north of the railroad tracks on the right side of the highway on the edge of Tzurumútaro, heading towards Tzintzuntzan. It's ably run by Abel, but is consistently open only on weekends. Sometimes you can get lucky and find it open other days.

The pollos Tejaban are coated with adobo marinade before cooking, then fresh orange is squeezed on at the finish, and a sometimes too generous shake of salt and black pepper. They come with a thin, piquant salsa roja; a fresh, crisp and barely dressed cabbage slaw, accented with strips of chile Jalapeño, and crunchy carrot rounds; rice (we skip the rice as it's extremely dull, oily and stodgy); tortillas hechas a mano are extra. Sometimes, but not often, Abel will grill chiles güeros to toss in. Prices have varied from $50 to $60 pesos recently.

There is outdoor seating, and drinks (including barrel Tequila in the nearby tienda de abarrotes "Los Fresnos".) We usually get it to go, but it's even better eaten on the spot, even with some flies about.

2. We have heard good things about Pollos "El Rey" from a blogger named Felipe Zapata. He likes El Tejaban but says El Rey is even better. It's on Libramiento kind of near the bus station, below Mercado Tariacuri but above Ibarra. We haven't tried any yet, but intend to.

3. Just stopped yesterday at "Pollos Asados "La Vías", which kind of translates to "Chicken Tracks", indicating it's closer to and just south of the RR tracks at Tzuru crossing, on the other side of the highway than El Tejaban, but close to Barbacoa a la penca "Javier y Lety".

(Got all that?) It's the one with the pineapple upright on the grill. It seemed a bit more primitive and less professionally run than Abel's El Tejaban, but the chicken we had today (and it was a slow day for pollos) was very tasty. It came with grilled onion, nopales and a couple of tasty slices of grilled pineapple. It was supposed to have salsa and rice, but the very young assistant left them out of our purchase, even though he told his Mamá he'd put them into the bag.
No importa; we had both rice and salsa at home.

A whole pollo to go at Pollos Las Vías was $65 MXP. A good deal, even with the mixup and a general air of dishevelment. I didn't note any seating.

4. Pollos Al Pastor "Don Alfredo" This place attained a moment of fame from an appearance in a Lonely Planet Guide to Mexico. We once got one of these rustically prepared chickens, speared on a tilted stake over smoldering charcoal and were quite unimpressed, It was one of the blandest pollos we've had. The price a few years ago was $70 MXP, and not worth that much. Today, I was quoted $80 MXP. We passed on that. The chickens did not look very attractive, especially at the price. I think they may come with frijoles de olla. Maybe it's the Lonely Planet listing and maybe it's the superb location, on the lower end of Libramiento, just before it enters the Glorieta, opposite the new Bodega Aurrerá, but they are just not worh that much to me. (Speaking of which, I'm surprised that Bodega hasn't put in a rotisserie for chicken.)

5. 'Way up on the Carretera a Santa Clara is a pollos al carbón grill run by women. It's sort of across from and between Super Codallos and Automotriz Gárvez. These chickens have a heavier coating of adobo. If you get there early, say, 1:00 p.m. they are quite good. But if you arrive after 3:30 or so, the pollos tend to be dry. Back when we used to stop there, 3 years ago, the chickens came with frijoles de la olla, tortillas and salsa. I have no idea of current prices.

6. Unnamed pollos asados al carbón, Calle Padre Lloreda, east of Siete Esquinas, more or less below el Hospital Civil. Nicely adobado, about $60, but doesn't come with much. One disadvantage is that they are cooked ahead and kept warm in an ice chest. I don't care for that method, but prefer them fresh off the grill. However, they are no bad and will do in a pinch.

You Are My Flour

By pura casualidad, Joe Pastry is starting a series on flours and their qualities. Interestingly, an American Mexpat acquaintance emailed me last week with a question about Mexican flours.

DISCLAIMER: My reply is based solely on my subjective experiences and should not be seen as a result of deep and painstaking research.

Don Cuevas, I know you have a background in baking so perhaps you can comment on this observation. Isn't it true that the wheat flour sold in Mexico is soft wheat (i.e., cake/noodle) flower, rather than the hard, red wheat flower used for bread in the US. I notice that the bagged wheat flour sold at Soriana clearly has a picture of cakes and pancakes on the bag, and I have noticed that most breads sold here have the texture of cakes. Could this be the problem with the breads baked here?

D.Y.

In reply;

D.Y., that answer may be partially correct, but in my experience, pan salado (not pan dulce) is chewy and occasionally crisp crusted. That's not likely achieved with soft wheat flour. I'm confident Bodega, Wal-Mart, and probably Soriana have steam injected rack ovens. This steam injection, in the first moments of the bake, are what give the baguettes and other pan Francés its crisp crust. Crispness is not considered desirable in teleras, or the usual bolillos (although you can get fantastically crisp bolillos from a tiny bakery on Calle Abasolo, near Plaza Carillo in Morelia. However the taste of those is inferior, IMO, due to the probable use of dough conditioners "fluffer-upper").*

The packaged consumer grade flour you are seeing on the shelf at Soriana is probably a soft wheat flour for making hot cakes, cakes and the occasional tortillas de harina. ("Harina Celestial" is a good example.)

I'm betting that with the exception of harina integral, your regular, popular bakeries (not in the supermercados) use one kind of flour only, and I'm going out on a limb to predict that the majority use Harina Óptima. It's milled by Harinera Guadalupe.


In my baking, I use Sello Rojo Harina Tradicional, milled by Harinera Michoacana, which makes fine bread. I also use it for cookies, cakes, sweet breads such as cinnamon rolls and Danish, and even occasional strudels. A strudel dough is optimally made from a high protein Hungarian wheat flour, but lacking that, I just make it work with Sello Rojo.

Óptima flour is my close second choice. I buy 10 kilo bags of these at Super(mercado) Codallos.

If I wanted to be very picky, I'd buy Harina Celestial brand, in 1 kg bags, just for pies, biscuits and cookies. It seemes to be a softer wheat flour, although I have nothng but subjective experience on that one.

Addendum: There's an excellent baker's supply house in Morelia on Calle Abasolo at Plaza Carillo, "La Frontera". They have just about everything the professional and home baker might need.

*(The best tasting bread in Pátzcuaro, as far as I know, are the teleras made in the Panadería La Espiga, bien escondida in a casa in a colonia north of Don Chucho's. The rest of their products are not at the same level of quality.)

And, now, purely for your musical entertainment, here's Flatt and Scruggs doin' that old favorite, "You Are My Flower". ( I am aware that Flatt and Scruggs were for years sponsored by Martha White Mills, makers of  Martha White Flour, with "Hot Rize".)
Come on in boys, and pick it out.

Conservas de Corazón

Until very recently, I'd never heard of Conservas Santa Rosa at Santa Rosa de Lima, Guanajuato; a women's co-op dedicated to conserving and selling fruits of that area.

We had the opportunity to pay a visit to the shop, located on the main street of upland Santa Rosa, at an elevation of over 8000 feet above sea level. It's about a half hour by car from Guanajuato Capital, on the highway to Dolores Hidalgo.

If I had ever visited Oregon state, which I've not, then I could say that the area resembles that state.

The shop is small, neatly and attractively set up. The walls are lined with shelves displaying the co-op's various products. Above are jars of beautiful, selected pear halves and peaches; below, an extensve assortment of marmalades of several types. Fresa is popular, and is avalable in different sizes. Durazno, chabacano, ciruela, piña, nopal, xoconostle, mango and guayaba. I may have missed a few.

Another shelf unit holds sweet fruit licores, such as tamarindo, of which I was not fond for its sweetness. There are others.

I was drawn to a shelf near the back door holding very attractive jalapeños encurtidos, but I can make those myself. More interesting were the Conservas Santa Rosa's Chiles Chipotles, in glass jars which showed off the chiles' dark, smoldering and smoky potential to advantage.

All the products are packaged in attractive glass jars with brown paper caps and twine. They would make good gifts. We bought about 10 items and have already given way 3 of 4.

This is a recommended excursion out of Guanajuato. You can visit the Valenciana mines; Las Conservas Santa Rosa, the fancy Alfarería Mayólica; and have a nice comida at one of the famed local restaurants, sch as Restaurante de La Sierra, Rancho Enmedio, or where we did, at La Cabaña de Lolita.

Website: http://www.ccg.org.mx/santa.HTM
Product Catalog.
Email: conservasanta@yahoo.com
These are their hours of operation:
All I know is that weekends, they open
 sabado    10 AM to 6 PM

 domingo  12 PM to 5 PM

The tienda may be open only on weekends.

Their website says that you can try some of the mermeladas in Tok's Restaurants; various locations in La República Mexicana. 

Carne en Su Jugo

Carne en su jugo is, literally, "Meat (cooked) in its own juice". It's somewhere between birria and caldillo, on their way to evolve into Chile Con Carne, Texas Style. (The latter contains neither beans or tomatoes. However, the recipe for CESJ I used contains frijoles de olla.)


Ever since I read the Mexican Cooking Project #10 on mouthfulsfood.com, for Carne en Su Jugo, I've wanted to make it. I think I made one careless (insouciant?) attempt before, with limited success.

This time, I used Cristina's*  Carne en su Jugo 2, with very few modifications of my own.

The marinade consists of fresh Mexican jugo de limón, Salsa Inglesa (Worcestershire), Maggi Jugo or salsa China (soy sauce), and Salsa Tamazula, a bottled hot sauce.

One of the keys to the dish is to add no salt until it is almost done, after tasting it. The seasonings and the knorrsuiza de res add a lot of salt. (I actually used Knorr Suiza Costilla Jugosa de Res tablets, and they worked very well).

It seemed to be a boatload of bacon and thus, of fat, but you only live once, and well. The pieces of marinated meat are drained and dried off, then browned in the bacon fat. It made sense to me to first caramelize the cebolletas in the fat, remove them, and then cook the meat, thus adding more flavor from the onions to the meat.

When all the necessary elements are browned, I added the liter of caldo de res made from the tabletas Costilla Jugosa de Res. Follow package directions carefully, as it's always better to start with not enough and add more later if necessary. The meat is then simmered until tender. Surprisingly, it did not take as long as expected. Some cooked frijoles de olla and some of their broth are pureed in a blender and added to the pot.

One of the very important garnishes are cebolletas (young knob onions) or cebollettas de cambray (scallions). These small onions are caramelized in the fat leftover from cooking the bacon and they are wonderful. Next time you are at a taquería, be sure to get some cebolletas with your order. The well browned ones are the best.


The bacon is recommended to be added to each bowl of CESJ at the moment of serving, but in a lapse, I added it to the pot in the last few minutes of cooking. It was still good.

Condiments can make or break a dish. Here the recommended additions at the table are fresh, crisp and pungent radishes; chopped white onion, cilantro, limes and sea salt. We had the sea salt ready, but the CESJ did not need any more salt.

We ate hot flour tortillas as we generally prefer them to corn tortillas, but I think hot, crisp-crusted pan Francés would be good.
(We have found above average pan baguette Francés at the Bodega Aurrerá in Pátzcuaro.)

I recommend a good cerveza clara to accompany the dish, or an agua fresca de jamaica.


Some versions contain tomates verdes or tomatillos. That's something to try the next time I make the dish, and it won't be as long until I do so again.

*Cristina Potter of the excellent Mexico food and culture blog, Mexico Cooks!

Guanajuato: Restaurante Las Mercedes.

I have to confess that the title I chose for my earlier post on Guanajuato, ("Guanajuato: Eating the Mummy") was meant to seduce you, titillate, and horripilate, with a promise of the delicately macabre. After all, Las Momias are among the icons of Guanajuato. But in reality, we prefer not to visit them "in the flesh," but to keep them at a safe distance.

In truth, there was nothing at all macabre about our wedding anniversary dinner at Restaurante Las Mercedes. I did indulge my imagination with an appetizer of Chile Pasilla Relleno de Queso, Envuelto de Tortilla de Harina con Natas. When I thought of the dark, shriveled chile pasilla, shrouded in a sheet of tortilla de harina, an alternate name, "Momia Envuelta" leapt into my imagination. The reality was a pungent chile, filled with requesón, in a very buttery wrapper. The flour tortilla, made in house, took on some of the qualities of a strudel, but with more substance. It was an appetizer with an earthy heart, despite the refined presentation.

Doña Cuevas enjoyed a "Napoleon" of nopal, (or, may we call it a "Nopaleon"?) with smoked salmon, goat cheese, capers and anchovies, sided by a very dark crushed chile salsa. That had a very nice balance of acidity and unctuousness.

---

I had better return to the beginning. After a whirlwind ride in a Guanajuato taxi through calles y colonias, tuneles oscuras y carreteras panorámicas, we were deposited at the gate of the sunny contemporary Mexican house in the Colonia San Javier hills. We were greeted like old friends by our host, Sr. Jesús Cárdenas and our model waiter, Pedro. La Chef, Sra.Luzma Gonzáles, was in the kitchen.

Sr. Cárdenas is a very good host, charming and engaging in a very friendly and informal manner. Pedro's service is nearly perfect, quietly attentive and unobtrusive.

Jesús enjoys interacting with interested guests, explaining the origins of each dish and its ingredients. The menu is verbal, and we had several excellent selections among the choices.

We were brought amuse bouches of tiny, crisp envelopes, perhaps made from fried flour tortilla, filled with a cool black bean pico de gallo. We were also brought complimentary, small raspaditos (shaved ice) drinks of mezcal de la sierra with the juice or puree of xoconostles, a sour cactus fruit.

Then, the above mentioned entradas, or appetizers, the "Nopaleon" and the Pasilla Chile.

My second course, a dramatically presented (an empty bowl set before me, a dried red chile protruding from julianas de tortilla, a wooden paddle perched on the dge of the bowl, holding clantro, cebolla and limón; then the Sopa Negra de Cuitlacoche is served at the table. It was an excellent choice, and for all its earthy complexity, lighter than anticipated. My wife wisely chose a nice salad of mixed greens, flor de calabaza with herbed goat cheese, and a light tarragon dressing.

Doña Cuevas continued with the salmon theme for her plato principal with a perfectly cooked, moist fleshed salmon fillet, a little mound of very rich mashed potatoes, a bit of spinach, touched with capers and anchovies.

I chose a Chamorro de Cerdo en Caldillo de Frijól Negro, which was very good. It carries a lot of porky meat. I enjoyed it, the bean broth more than the pork shank, but it was too much to finish.

Already sated, we regretfully were going to skip dessert, but Jesús, in his charmingly convincing manner, said that Chef Luzma had prepared a special Anniversary dessert. It was a small basket of good chocolate, filled with a light cream of garambullo, a variety of ripe cactus fruit. It rested next to half a small cake of a budín de elote or steamed corn cake. I liked the combination very much, especially the corn cake.

With a bottle of very good Argentine wine, Roca Valdivieso 2004; one bottled water, 1 cafe Americano and and 2 cafés express, the total bill was $1010 pesos Mexicanos, about $77 USD, apart from a well deserved tip to our waiter. We consider the meal a fantastic one, and a bargain by our standards.



An earlier review from another blog, "Living and Working In Mexico")

Restaurante Las Mercedes

Calle de Arriba No.6, Fracc. San Javier, C.P. 36020, Guanajuato, Gto.
Telephone: 01-473) 732-7375 y 733-9059

Mobile: 473-756-3836

Nextel: 52*185656

Email: lasmercedesrestaurante@gmail.com

Guanajuato: Eating the Mummy

We were just in Guanajuato for our 41st wedding anniversary over a long weekend, and had some enjoyable meals (and some less so.).

Our first stop was Casa Valadez, where we had a pleasant supper in plushly elegant surroundings that belie the moderate pricing. Doña Cuevas had Caldo de cebolla, a very good French Onion Soup, Fettucine con Camarones; I, Tacos de Arrachera, tender and tasty. Other than the superb Flan de Cajeta, nothing that we had was ground breaking, but the food and service were good.

The beautifully appointed restrooms were a plus! Have a peek into the Men's:

The restrooms broke the scale on the SBRT, Standard Baño/Restroom Test.

Following the advice linked from Rachel Laudan's website, we booked for Saturday afternoon at Las Mercedes, where we had a delightfully memorable, 2 1/2 hour meal. I won't recount the details here, but will expand on that in a separate post. Meanwhile, a preview here. (Scroll down to "Anonimo's" second post.)

Breakfasts at Restaurante Truco 7 (part of our B&B package) were "o.k."; filling but undistinguished. That was very disappointing to us as we had warm memories of the place back in the 90s. The Enmoladas con Queso were dreadful, IMO, as the almost fudgy mole was thickly sweet while the queso, both inside and on top was totally excessive. I was unable to finish it, which is unusual for me.

However, on our first morning at Truco 7, I had a slice of Pastel de Tres Leches, and I'm happy to report that it it fulfilled my fondness for this dessert very satisfactorily. Truco 7's Pastel de 3 L's is among the best ever in México. The coffee is decent if not outstanding.

A small but enjoyable "find" were the antojitos stands up by El Pípila. One cart was already open on the morning of our vist, and the woman's sopes were beautifully done while her tlacoyos eran muy guapos.

One of the highlights of our visit was riding up towards Santa Rosa, about 30 minutes out of town, with a resident American friend, where we visited the Conservas Santa Rosa. I recommend the store for its variety of delightful products, low prices, and friendly service.

While in Santa Rosa, my wife enjoyed a roasted elote, served in a fresh corn husk and painted with lime and chile molido. It was a style of elote we'd never seen before. (It was too dry and chewy for my tastes, but Susan enjoyed it.)

After considering the options for comida, Restaurante de La Sierra (big) or La Cabaña de Lolita (small), we went to the later, off the highway at Puerto Barrientos, just a few kilometers back towards Guanajuato Capital.

I liked the simple, relaxed family country restaurant feel, and our meal bore out the wisdom of my decision. A decision, based in part, on the SBRT; the Standard Baño/Restroom Test. Below, you'll see two very simple facilities, in out buildings, painted appropriate colors. (Spotless and freshly scrubbed, also.)

Our meal was of traditional comida campestre favorites:
Caldo de borrego, caldo de pollo, one order of cecina, one order of mixote de carnero, a mescal curado con naranja, two jugos de naranja; an agua mineral. About $310 pesos.

(Doña Cuevas, perhaps affected by my general cynicism, proposes that the mixotes at Cabaña de Lolita are made up in bulk in a big pan, then wrapped in the foil packets when a customer orders it. She claims that the foil was just too clean of smoke or soot on the outside. I hate to believe that, but it could be true. Personally, I really would have preferred the mixiotes be cooked in the traditon parchment of maguey, pero, así es. Despite that, it was tasty, if rather ridden with bones.)

A specialty of La Cabaña de Lolita is the cecina. It's cut extra thin and cooked very crispy. It will virtually shatter in your mouth. It was lightly salted, if at all.

On our last morning in Guanajuato, we skipped breakfast at Truco 7, and instead, I bought 4 plump, steaming hot tamales from a vendor setting up, on a callejón just off Plazuela Baratillo. $28 pesos, supplemented with some so-so pan dulce from Panadería La Infancia, the one on Calle Alonso.

If we could have gotten better sleep, we would have stayed another night, with the aim of revisiting the Mercado Hidalgo, La Carreta, Cafe Tal, and more.

But we'd had a very enjoyable visit of two full days and part of two others, and we were ready to get home and get some rest.


I realize that I haven't explained the title of this post, "Eating the Mummy". That may happen in my next post.

Meanwhile, contemplate this:

More On the Cecina Scene

I posted a link to this blog on the Any port in a storm forum, and got some feedback from Oaxaca area resident. "Bixaorellana"

Nicely done report, DonC, although I've got some quibbles. One is that the pork version of cecina is not semi-dried. As a matter of fact, it's quite common to order it and wait for the butcher to make it from a solid piece of pork right in front of you. And the two versions are cecina blanca -- simply salted, and cecina enchilada. The cecina enchilada is smeared not with chile molida (ground dried chile), but with a paste of ground chile guajillo, garlic, oregano, vinegar, salt & maybe some secret ingredients. Each meat stall has its own recipe.

Ditto the beef tasajo (no accent on the o!). When you ask for tasajo, it's fresh beef, although dried versions are usually hanging over the display area. I need to find out if they're called tasajo as well. It's always simply dressed with salt around here -- no enchilada version.

Mexican food is so very regional, however, (note the disparity between what's cecina here & what's tasajo) that maybe cecina in other parts of the country is always semi-dried.

You are totally correct in your response to the reader who questioned the red flag. That misguided person must think that all the meat he buys in the supermarket is truly "fresh".

And more:

Food in Oaxaca is frequently over-salted. When I first moved here, I thought I'd never be able to eat out, as so often the food seemed ruined with too much salt.

Cecina and tasajo don't have to be too salty. Since meat cutters (who are very frequently women around here) are quite willing to make it for you on the spot, you could request it with no salt at all.

If you wanted to try it, you could have your local meat cutter thinly butterfly something like a piece of top sirloin. Take that home & lightly salt it yourself. Let it set at least a half hour, then cook it in a very hot, lightly oiled skillet. For pork, something like boneless loin would do the trick. It's very good with some kind of light salsa added at the table -- try fresh minced chiles, minced or crushed garlic, lime juice and cilantro.

I can't vouch for this recipe as I've not tried it, but it looks like a pretty good guide if you want to try the spiced pork cecina. As I point out above, there's no reason to bother with the drying process.

I appreciate the authoritative input from our friend, Bixa.

Over the weekend, Doña Cuevas and I visited Guanajuato. Rachel Laudan had given me a lead on a restaurante campestre, "La Cabaña de Lolita", at Puerto Barrientos, a few kilometers from Santa Rosa.

Three of us sampled their crispy cecina, as part of a more extensive meal. It was delicious yet even less substantial than the usual kind, cut more thickly.
Here's a look:

Update:

I found a photo I took in January of plated cecina enchilada, at Restaurante María Bonita, in Oaxaca.

Nice, but it doesn't have the rustic character of that at La Cabaña de Lolita.

Cecina: Worth Its Salt

  Cecina is thinly sliced, salted and partially dried sheets or strips of beef or pork. The technique for making it requires an extremely sharp knife and considerable skill and patience. A largish piece of boneless beef of beef is turned into a continuous roll of thin slices by deft cutting, back and forth, within the mass of muscle.

It's much simpler to go to a specialist who'll make it for you. Remember, a little piece goes far to satisfy your need for both protein, and salt, for that matter.

I've had it, both in the United States and in different parts of Mexico. Some (at a Mexican restaurant in Little Rock, Arkansas) it was so tough that it was impossible to chew. Even 4 hours of slow simmering at home rendered it barely masticable.

But cecina varies.

In Chihuahua city, in 1990, we entered a small shop selling everything needed to make antojitos Mexicanos: dried chiles, hojas de maíz para tamales, masa fresca, maíz pozolero preparado. They also served platillos típicos del Distrito Federal. The owner, Ramón, was from el DF and Edomex. One platillo offered was cecina enchilada. Although the hour was late, and the owner was reparing to close, he cooked a slab of cecina enchilada for me, and heated up a bowl of first rate pozole for Susan.

When the cecina arrived, I was a little surprised: it was like a large, thin, boneless steak. I had misunderstood and had been thinking of "enchiladas": corn tortillas dipped in a thin chile sauce, lightly fried, with a filling.

This was different. Pura carne, lightly coated with chile molido. It was pleasantly salty and mildly picante, chewy but doable. I'd rate it a "9" on the Chewy but Doable Decimal Scale.

Some years later, while in Oaxaca, we had tasajó, the Oaxacan version of cecina, often served in small pieces on tlayudas, (extra grande tortillas), smeared with a paste of frijoles negros, and nicely garnished with onions, avocado, tomato and quesillo, or Oaxacan string cheese. One is a meal.

Oaxaca goes its own separate way in la comida regional. There, "cecina" refers to sheets of semi dried pork, often with a sprinkling of chile molido. Tasajó is made from beef. This section of the Mercado 11 de noviembre, in Oaxaca Centro, specializes in grilled tasajó and cecina. It looks like a scene from Hell, but it smells great.

Here's a picture of a tlayuda con tasajó.

Last week, I saw that one of our favorite Pátzcuaro carnicerías, La Sin Rival, had some strips of cecina on top of the counter. I asked the hard working owner, Sr. Moíses Pérez H. about it. He guided me to some that was drier, for not long ago, at another carnicería, I'd bought some that spoiled. The fault was mine, for leaving it in the plastic bag without refrigeration. Not all cecina attains the dryness of carne seca, otherwise known as jerky.

                     The red flag is displayed to say "Fresh Meat Today!"

The cecina from La Sin Rival fared better. It became breakfast a few mornings later. I lightly oiled a skillet, and browned the meat on both sides. Meanwhile, I fried some huevos estrellados. These were flanked by a steaming mound of stone ground speckled grits from Nora Mill, Helen GA. Add some salsa casera of your choice, and you're all set. It's my Mexican version of a Good 'Ol Boy breakfast down South; the cecina a perfect stand-in for salty, aged Country Ham.

A couple of days  later, I lucked out when carrying my camera while in Pátzcuaro Centro. I went to La Sin Rival with hopes of photographing some cecina. Sr. Pérez told me that none was available until later, as it was drying at that moment, in the patio of the family house. 

He generously allowed me to pass through the work area of the carnicería to the pleasant patio where a large slab of plywood held sheets of meat drying in the sun.

The carnicero and his assistant apply vegetable oil to keep flies from alighting.

Carniceria owner Sr. Moises Pérez Hinojosa with some finished cecina.

I asked if any jugo de limón was used in the process, as I'd read in an old Mexican food cookbook I have.
"No Señor, solamente sal y un poco de aceite.", he replied.*

I recommend trying cecina when you have the chance. Just be sure to get it from a reliable shop like La Sin Rival in Pátzcuaro. (But, if you are less adventuresome, get una Hamburguesa Doble, como te gusta, at the Cafetería Chió's next door. Sr. Pérez wife runs the tidy little lonchería, and makes some of the best, juiciest hamburgers in Pátzcuaro.

Soon, we hope to sample some at a Santa Rosa, Guanajuato Restaurant, "La Cabana de la Lolita", recommended to us by Rachel Laudan, food scholar living in Guanajuato, as serving "Incredible cecina."

I hope to report back soon with my findings.

*I have the theory that all too often, American writers on Mexican food make overly complicated, overly elaborated versions of some simple, uncomplicated food. We could discuss the example of carnitas, but not here at this time. Remind me later.

Camarones a la Mandarina o Naranja

   
   Our comida yesterday was a big deal. The day before I'd bought 500 grams of headless shirmp in the shell. I have had this idea of Camarones a la Mandarina for sometime.

I got out an old Chinese cookbook by Virginia Lee and Craig Claiborne. It's notable for its excess in seasoning. I found a recipe for Szechwan Shrimp, which was my anchor.

The night before I put some dried tangerine peels to soak in some Cien Años Tequila (lacking Absolut Mandarin).
Today, I slowly dissolved a big cone of piloncillo (crude brown sugar) in simmering water, and reduced it to a molasses like syrup.

Meanwhile, I shelled and deveined the shrimp, trying to keep the tails. That was only partially successful. It was also tedious.

I put the shrimp in a small bowl and sprinkled on some tangerine peel-Tequila infusion. Some Controy Orange Liqueur figured somewhere in here also.

Separately, I peeled my last remaining ginger root, shredded it as well as some garlic and 3 or 4 very picante yellow Chiles Piquines (as defined in Michoacán terms).

Next, I peeled and julienned one stubby carrot and about 1/3 of a large, sweet red pepper. Celery, cut small. Then one white onion, cut vertically into segments. (Supposed to be green onions—scallions— with the tops, but I didn't have any.)

A sauce was mixed in a small bowl of light and dark soy sauces, red wine vinegar, brown sugar, plus some Tuong Cu Da, to substitute for the Fermented Rice I didn't have. I figured some Sichaun (modern spelling) Pepper would go well, so I ground up a little and sifted it through a tea strainer, to avoid those hard little pieces. There was sesame oil in the sauce and on the shrimp with the Mandarin infusion. Black pepper also.


I also used some of the macerated mandarin peel and shredded it finely to add to the ginger, garlic and chiles.

Method:
First I stir fried the carrots, celery, onions, and removed them from the pan.

Then I stir fried the shrimp, adding the chiles, ginger, etc. There was an eye and sinus-searing blast of strong chile fumes.

As the shrimp became opaque, I tossed in the soy sauce mixture. Next, a small amount of that reduced piloncillo syrup. Then the cornstarch-water suspension, which I failed to mention earlier. It took a moment to thicken.

I tasted it: too sweet. More vinegar to perfect it.

I garnished it with a small thicket of very nice cilantro leaves, and we ate it with our Basmati Rice, green beans, etc; and a plate of sliced cucumbers, radishes, a tomato and the rest of the cilantro.

With this meal, I paired a lovely, red Agua de Jamaica, Mexico, 2009; which exhibited subtle floral notes that were underscored by its native acidity. I had to drink a lot of it, but really, the picante aspect of the main dish was less assertive than expected.

On Eating Cocteles de Mariscos

A friend emailed me regarding shrimp cocktails as sold at MEGA Comercial in Morelia. You get them in the Fish Department, preferably earlier in the day.

Until now, I was unaware that Mega offered such. Somehow, it just doesn't seem quite right to eat a coctel de camarones in that setting. Coctelería should be left to the specialists, not a mega hypermart chain. This is the same, "full service" store that among its notable features is an espresso bar, but one that is rarely staffed. To get a coffee, you have to flag down the Produce Manager or whatever employees nearby and they'll hail some especialista callow teenager barista to put the coffee pod into the machine and push the BREW button.

My friend asked, in a followup:
"Now then, about those stands at Plaza Chica (Pátzcuaro) that you seem to regularly 'never frequent'???"

Yes; what about them? I don't eat at those out of concerns of hygiene. Friends who've eaten at those open air carts, with the blocks of ice, (passed on by Canine Inspection Teams as the blocks lay waiting in the early morning gutter) have reported no ill effects. But I'd rather spend a little more for assuring quality and good hygiene. Chopping onions or tomatoes on a wooden board perched on an upturned catsup bucket, resting in the street, as traffic sputters by within arm's reach doesn't cut it for me.

In 2004, within the Mercado Independencia in Morelia, I ordered a coctel de camarones. I waited and watched while the guy defrosted the plastic bag of shrimp under running tap water. It was a passable, but not great CdC. What do you expect for breakfast at a stand overlooking the skinned cow's heads over at the carnicería close by? I'll spare you the foto de las cabezas de vacas.

A couple of years ago, I had a small, cheap CdC at Don Prisci's within the Pátzcuaro Mercado. It was poor; the shrimp were mealy, the sauce corriente. Don P should stick to his birria.

The first coctel de camarones I ever, ever had was the Gulf Coast village of Nautla, Veracruz. It was our first trip to Mexico, Feb, 1980. The air was warm and sultry, under the palms. A borracho entertained himself by mildly bugging us.

The coctel arrived; a very tall glass, brimming with very fresh, barely cooked shrimp, in a light red, not too sweet sauce, studded with fresh, picante bits of chopped chile jalapeño, minced onion, and LOTS of chopped cilantro. This was El Chingón Coctel de Camarones, one which will always be that against all others are measured.

The restroom was, unfortunately, quite memorably ghastly.

Nowadays, at least here in central Michoacán, cocteles are made too sweet for our taste. Even at our querido y lindo Mariscos La Güera. The trick is to ask for it as you like. "Poco catsup, pero con mucho cilantro, por favor."

The one exception, so far, to sweet cocteles has been at LangoStiko's in Morelia. They offer specialty cocteles including a Coctel Mazatleco style, made with NO CATSUP but with pepino and pineapple, and garnished with carambola. (starfruit.)

Actually, it's almost too pure for me. I'd appreciate the addition of some cilantro.
The same restaurant, and by no means, the only one, makes Micheladas Preparadas con Clamato and shrimp and oysters in it. Very tempting, but as I don't eat raw mollusca while in Mexico, I ordered it with shrimp only. (Michelada is basically beer with lime juice in a salt rimmed glass. Starting there, many different seasonings and variations are possible.)

We are lucky to have decent seafood inland here in Michoacán. Years ago, in Zacatecas, inland, far from the sea, I had a coctel at Mariscos Boca del Río, at the Plazuela Genaro Codina. It was murky and borderline hazardous. I hope that it's better there now.

La Jaiba, on Blvd. Garcia de León in Morelia has amongs its offerings huge chabelas (large goblets) full of Vuelve a la Vida (occasionally called "Levantamuertes"), either of which seem to have some sexual revival connotations. The La Jaiba version has just about every kind of boiled and raw seafood in it that they have. I had the oysterless version once. It was quite good, but lacking the oysters, I can't report on the sexual revival aspects.

Similarly, the "Viagra" coctel at El Pescador, Morelia. It's something like a Vuelve a la Vida coctel but in Clamato instead of the usual clear syrup-stock and catsup. Here is the Vuelve a La Vida under an alternative name of "Rompe Colchón": "Break Mattress". You figure it out. Here's a recipe, in Spanish, for this treat.

To conclude; in my opinion, you generally get what you pay for. In the better marisquerías, you can customize your cocktail al gusto. It helps to speak Spanish.

As a reward for staying the course until this point, our Feature Presentation of Pátzcuaro's beloved Mariscos La Güera, below.