On Food & Culture
fish, seafood, huachinango, mexican cooking recipes, Mexican seafood recipes
Special shout-out to intrepid, passionate cooks who like a challenge. This salad requires a bit of skill, but it’s really fun. I’ll be serving this ensalada compuesta, a composed smoked trout salad, at a gala dinner in San Antonio next month during which I will …
Last night I dreamed up this roasted cascabel chile shrimp recipe, with an underlying hint of anise, because I did not know what to cook, worrying about the immigration debacle happening at the Tijuana-San Diego border, with so many families fleeing death threats and torture …
This fish fry menu includes a rich sauce and a salad. Fish fry is traditional in the southern US, although the actual frying technique, well, not so recent. The Spanish brought it with them “Between A.D. 900 and 1500 most Native Americans living in Texas …
Shrimp Etouffee always reminds of me how chiles are beloved all over the world. Cajun cuisine adopted Mexican chiles, creating new tastes, and the results are inspired. Chile dulce (bell pepper) is essential to cajun cuisine. Because it has no capsaicin, chile dulce (sweet chile) …
Paella is Spanish for friendship, right? Well, it should be. Friendships seem to surround Spanish paella, both making it and eating it. Although it’s famous all over Texas and Mexico, it’s still a Spanish paella, not Mexican. In the late 1800s and through the 1900s, …
Grouper is a very large, some would say gigantic, fish that can be found in the Gulf of Mexico, close to Texas and Florida. The Spanish name for grouper is mero. It has a distinctive but mild taste and here I serve it with a …
My amá (mom) served these powdered shrimp cakes regularly during Lent, especially on Good Friday because we were following the Catholic practice of doing penance by not eating meat. We rarely had meat at our table, so the penance part of this was always a …
I grew up with my ama’s (mom) Texas Mexican cooking. Texas Mexican cooking just like Oaxaca Mexican, Puebla Mexican and all the other regional styles of Mexican cooking, is best described as comida casera home-style-cooking. Enjoyed by Mexican American families today, this unique cuisine has …
Nopalitos shrimp gorditas evoke two very different landscapes of the Texas-Mexico food region: the Gulf coast and the semi-dessert. The map shows the region of south Texas/northern Coahuila, Nuevo Leon, Tamaulipas sharing the Gulf of Mexico. It remains a cohesive culinary region, sharing the same …
Here’s my twist on the classic Louisiana Gumbo dish. “Cultural Appropriation” this is not. Why? Because I’m naming boundaries and giving them their due. Also, because cooks are always exploring, always re-imagining dishes, and that’s how cuisine evolves. This recipe is long on technique, so …