Mexican Made Easy: Everyday Ingredients, Extraordinary Flavor

313 Pages·2011·10.86 MB·English

by  Marcela Valladolid

Copyright © 2011 by Marcela Valladolid
Photographs copyright © 2011 by Jennifer Martiné
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Clarkson Potter/Publishers, an imprint of the
Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
www.crownpublishing.com
www.clarksonpotter.com
CLARKSON POTTER is a trademark and POTTER with colophon is a
registered trademark of Random House, Inc.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Valladolid, Marcela.
Mexican made easy / Marcela Valladolid.—1st ed.
Includes index.
1. Cooking, Mexican. 2. Cooking—Mexico. I. Title.
TX716.M4V334 2011
641.5972—dc22 2011004241
eISBN: 978-0-30788827-3
v3.1
For my son, Fausto,
my biggest inspiration

introduction
appetizers and small bites
tacos and tortas
soups
entrées
sides and salads
salsas
desserts
breakfast and brunch
drinks
menus
gracias
index

introduction
At 5:45 every morning, beginning when I was around three
years old, I remember my mom waking up my sister, Carina,
my brother, Antonio, and me so we could get ready for school,
jump in the car (oftentimes with breakfast in a Tupperware
container), and head for the border. We lived in Tijuana, but
we went to school in San Diego. Just like thousands of other
people who were going to school or work, we would wait in
line, sometimes for hours, to cross into the United States. When
the school bell rang, my mother would pick us up and we’d do
it all over in reverse to get back to Mexico. It was like growing
up in two countries—with two entirely different cultures,
languages, and cuisines—at the same time.
Having a foot in each world has served as the inspiration
for Mexican Made Easy. I grew up with all of the traditional
dishes, simple to elaborate. Tacos de adobada, marinated pork
tacos, were my favorite taco-stand find. I’d start off with cool,
crunchy cucumbers doused with fresh lime juice and a little too
much salt; an orange-flavored soda was mandatory. On
Sundays, we’d often drive south about forty miles to Puerto
Nuevo, the lobster capital of Mexico. There were so many of us
that they had to put a few tables together to fit all the cousins,
aunts, and uncles on my mom’s side of the family. We’d feast,
sometimes for an entire afternoon, on lobster, rice, refried
beans, clarified butter, and homemade flour tortillas, with the
sound of the tríos playing in the background.
My aunt Martha likes to tell this story of how I learned to
read at a very young age: One day when I was around four in a
fancy restaurant on the U.S. side of the border—where lobster
has a much heftier price tag—I told my grandfather I wanted
one of those orange things with the claws on it. He said they
didn’t have any and that he’d take me to Puerto Nuevo next
Sunday. I grabbed a menu, pointed at it, and said “Aren’t they
called lobsters? Because here they are.” And they got me my
lobster.
We’re all foodies in my house; it’s in our blood. My
maternal grandfather, Eugenio Rodriguez, was Belgium’s
honorary consulate in Tijuana, which had him often traveling
abroad to Europe. He’d come back with suitcases full of French
cookbooks and attempt to cook from them with local
ingredients. He was working on fusion cuisine way before it
became trendy! The most cherished memories I have from my
childhood are from the holidays spent at his house and with
the food he’d prepare. Sometimes it would be traditional food,
like tamales, puerco en pipian, and flan de coco—and sometimes
he’d whip out Beef Wellington! He’s the best cook I’ve ever
known and he passed down his love and respect for all cuisines
to me.
My biggest inspiration, though, has to be his youngest
daughter, my aunt Marcela Rodriguez. When she went to study
cooking at the California Culinary Academy in San Francisco, I
thought she was just about the coolest person in the world.
Fourteen years younger than my mother, she already seemed
more like a cooler older cousin than a tía. She earned the right
to cook in my grandfather’s kitchen. Like any good Mexican,
she wanted to show off her family, so she would invite her
cooking school instructors down to Tijuana and they’d all
prepare veritable feasts. Hungry and ambitious, she soon
opened up a cooking school of her own in Mexico and gave me
my first job. And that’s where it all began professionally for
me.