October 2021 – My Slice of Mexico

Golletes – A Less-Known Day of the Dead Bread

October 31, 2021November 7, 2021by Irene3 Comments

Pan de muerto (literally, bread of the dead) is sweet bread that is almost always included in Day of the Dead offerings, and traditionally eaten on November 2nd, observed in Mexico as El día de los fieles difuntos, or Día de los muertos (Day of the Faithful Departed, or Day of the Dead.) In previous years, I have shared two types of this bread: the best-known version, a round bread decorated on top with dough bones and tears, and coated with sugar; the second is known as Pan de yema, a type of egg bread topped with sesame seed, from the Mexican state of Oaxaca, which is baked all year round, but decorated in a very special way for the Day of the Dead. This year, I have tried making Golletes, a less-known but very traditional Day of the Dead bread recipe, prepared mainly in Central Mexico. Golletes are more compact compared to the other two types; they are shaped as rings, and coated with granulated sugar coloured in a bright shade of pink ... click on title for more

Ingredients, snack, appetizer

Crazy Snacks for Halloween – Dorilocos and Tostilocos

October 27, 2021October 29, 2021by Irene7 Comments

For Halloween treats, I have bought a variety pack of individual-sized bags of chips, and they made me think of a kind of popular snacks that started to appear as a street food in Mexico back in the 1990s; after the plain bag of chips is opened on one side (as opposed to the top), and heavily loaded with toppings, seasonings and lime juice, it becomes a “crazy” snack ... click on title for more

Ingredients, snack, appetizer

Vegan Red Aguachile

October 24, 2021November 3, 2021by Irene15 Comments

Aguachile is a dish of shrimp partially cooked in lime juice, then mixed with veggies. Since I am allergic to crustaceans (lobster, crab, shrimp), and inspired by my previous post, I thought of making a batch of shrimp-less aguachile using shirataki noodles (konjac) ... click on title for more

Ingredients, snack, appetizer

Cueritos (with Vegan Option!)

October 22, 2021October 26, 2021by Irene11 Comments

In Mexican cuisine, cueritos are fresh pieces of pork skin, which have been separated from the meat and fat, and may be either fried with other parts of the pork (carnitas), or as in this recipe, boiled and pickled in vinegar, often mixed with pickled jalapeños and carrots (escabeche.) As a bonus, although it might seem impossible to conceive this dish without pork rind, the flavour of cooked fresh pork rinds is mild, and its texture, chewy, so it was not very hard to think of konjac as a vegan substitute with similar characteristics ... click on title for more

Desserts, Ingredients

Fresh Corn Squares

October 15, 2021October 19, 2021by Irene16 Comments

In Mexico, the word maíz refers to the grain, so a bread made with nixtamalized corn flour (masa harina) or cornmeal, would be called pan de maíz. On the other hand, elote is the name used for fresh corn, either on the cob, or the corn kernels (granos de elote); some dishes made with fresh corn that come to mind are: fresh corn cake (pastel de elote), fresh corn bread (pan de elote), and fresh corn tamale (tamal de elote), to name just a few. My favourite fresh corn bread is a sweet rendition, so moist and creamy from the fresh corn kernels, that tastes almost custardy; the original recipe has no flour, but because fresh corn in Canada generally has a lower starch content compared to Mexican corn, I added some corn starch to prevent crumbling, and, as a bonus, the recipe remains gluten-free ... click on title for more