Pati Jinich is host of the popular Emmy and James Beard nominated PBS series Pati's Mexican Table, author of two cookbooks, and resident chef at the Mexican Cultural Institute in Washington, DC. This is her official website where she shares recipes from her show and new recipes in her blog, plus upcoming events, recent news, and more.
You want whipped cream that is foamy, airy, and delightful with gorgeous waves? Here are some tips: Make sure that your heavy cream is really cold. Use a bowl and beaters that are clean and dry. Same goes if you choose to use an electric mixer, or if you beat the cream by hand with a whisk. It is a plus if you can chill them for a half hour before beating the cream. But don’t sweat it if you couldn’t spare the time!
Crepes can be found in Mexico in both sweet and savory forms. And oh how much they are loved. Inherited from the short reign of Maximilian and Carlota in the 1860s, French cuisine has had a big influence on Mexico’s kitchens. My sister Alisa, who is a French trained Mexican pastry chef, shared her favorite recipe with me. I have found it to be the very best, and I am sharing it with you, in turn…
You can use almost anything to serve ice cream. We love ice cream so much around here that we have collected all sorts of ice cream scoops! Just as you can use many kinds of scoops to serve, there are many ways of making ice cream at home. The best part of making your own ice cream is that you can choose whatever flavor, whatever consistency and whatever mix.
You can make a vanilla bean go a long way. You can extend its exuberant properties and multiply its uses by flavoring other basic ingredients with it. My favorites are salt, sugar, simple syrup, oil and vinegar. In turn, the resulting vanilla salt, vanilla sugar, vanilla syrup, vanilla oil and vanilla vinegar can be used for long periods of time and in so many ways.
There are so many ways that you can have and enjoy tortillas de harina at home. You can make them the traditional way, the fast-track-modern way (if you have an electric tortilla maker such as the REVEL…), or buy them ready made at the store. Different from corn tortillas, which rule Mexico’s south and are made with a base of nixtamalized corn, flour tortillas rule Mexico’s north and are wheat flour based.
We’ve all heard that word here and there: “emulsify.” Why do we need to emulsify a vinaigrette? It is simple, emulsify is just a sophisticated word used for saying that you are making ingredients that would not naturally mix together, like water (or vinegar or wine or citrus juice) and oil, come together.
Are you tired of the clumps and lumps when you make your own flavored Jello? Yes? No? What?! You don’t make your own flavored Jello? You should! It is healthier than the already flavored ones sold at the store and you can decide what ingredients go in it! It is tastier, exactly for the same reason, since you can choose your flavors, you can choose your own favorite ones.
For years, I’ve managed to turn every Mexican vacation into a working trip. As soon as I touch Mexican soil, I set up interviews, plan research tours, library searches, cooking adventures, all the while trying to tweet and instagram. And facebook, pinterest and blog too… My appetite expands outrageously as if giving me a chance to try all that my eyes can see and my mind can gather. Even with the best of intentions to relax and disconnect, they only last so long.
It’s true you can always buy frozen puff pastry at any grocery store. But, in less than the time it takes for the frozen puff pastry to thaw, you can make your own from scratch. I have a simple recipe I learned at L’Academie de Cuisine in Maryland, that is the one I turn to time and again. I just adapted it to make a larger quantity and also to give you a bit of a more detailed description.
Cleaning and cooking nopales can seem challenging if you are not familiar with the ingredient. Truth is, cleaning them, can be a bit daunting at first. That’s why I CANNOT wait for cleaned and diced fresh nopales to be readily available in grocery stores here in the US, just like they are in Mexico. But while that happens, let me give you some tricks.