Chistmas Cooking in Mexico

CHRISTMAS COOKING IN MEXICO

Guava apples, nopal, maguey, corn, beans chili, avocado, vanilla, cocoa, pumpkins, chayotes, sapodillas, mamey, papaya, chocolate, tomato or turkey, just to mention some, are common products among us and a very significant part of international gastronomy. On our Christmas tables we enjoy dishes inherited from our native ancestors. Manchamanteles, moles de romeritos, tamales and his majesty: turkey. Along with them, we have all the tradition of mestizo cooking which has made of Mexican food one of the most precious ones in the world.

CHRISTMAS SALAD
Ingredients
4 big beets
½ lettuce, chopped
3 pieces of sugar cane
4 oranges with skin
3 plantains with skin
3 apples
3 limes with skin
3 clean and peeled jicamas
3 royal lemons with skin
1 cup peanuts
1 cup colacion (sugar candy)

Elaboration:
Slice the oranges, limes, plantains, lemons, apples and jicamas. Peel the sugar cane and make strips.
Cook the beets with a little sugar in 7 cups of water. Keep the stock. Slice the beets.
In a salad bowl, mix the fruit slices with the sugar cane strips and the beet slices. Pour one part of the stock in which the beets were cooked. Cool.
When you serve it, cover it with chopped lettuce, peanuts and sugar candy.

SURPRISE CHRISTMAS SALAD
Ingredients
6 apples with skin, cut in small cubes
6 cooked beets, peeled and cut in small cubes
4 peeled oranges, in slices with no skin or seeds
1 cup orange juice
4 jicamas, peeled and cut in small cubes
1 ½ cup peeled peanuts
½ kilo seeded grapes

Dressing:
3 cups whipped cream
sugar to taste

To decorate
12 small grape bunches
fresh Poinsetta flowers

Elaboration:
Put all the ingredients in a blown glass or clay salad bowl.
Prepare the dressing by sweetening the cream. Beat softly with a fork and pour it on the salad. Mix softly with the help of two spoons and put it in the fridge.
When you serve it, decorate it with grape bunches and fresh flowers.

MEXICAN CODFISH
Ingredients
½ kilo codfish
1 kilo tomatoes
1 big onion
100 grams raisins
100 grams almonds
100 grams olives
½ kilo pumpkin seeds
1 head garlic
canned bell peppers
2 fresh eggs
chiles largos

Elaboration:
Soak the codfish one day before, next day change the water and cook it. Drain it and cut in pieces. Beat the eggs, dip the fish pieces in batter and fry them in very hot oil. Place them on a tray.
Make a sauce with tomatoes, onions and garlic. Season it until it thickens and add pumpkin seeds, raisins, chopped almonds, olives, strips of pepper and the chilies. Pour over fish.


CODFISH A LA VIZCAINA
Ingredients
1 kilo good quality codfish
1 kilo cooked and peeled potatoes
4 garlic cloves, peeled and chopped
olive oil for frying
1 kilo ripe tomatoes, roasted, ground and strained
a pinch of sugar, salt and pepper
2 spoons chopped parsley
4 spoons olives
5 long pickled chiles güeros

Elaboration:
Soak the codfish for one night to get rid of its salty taste. Change the water several times. Next day, cover it with clean water and boil it until it is cooked; shred it and remove the bones.
In olive oil, crystallize the garlic and onion, add the tomato, cover it and let it boil on low heat until it is seasoned. Add the pinch of sugar, salt and pepper, one spoon of parsley, olives, potatoes cut in cubes and the pieces of codfish. Cook for 10 more minutes, adding some water if it is necessary.
Add the chilies, sprinkle the spoon of parsley left and it is ready to be served.
BACALAO, BACALLAO OR ABADEJO. A well-known fish which use is so common that it is called the “beef of vigil days”.

ROMERITOS EN REVOLTIJO
Ingredients
1 ½ cleaned romeritos
¼ kilo dry shrimp
100 grams breadcrumbs
6 fresh eggs
1 teaspoon baking powder
½ kilo small potatoes
10 cooked nopales cut in strips
3 spoons toasted sesame seeds
¼ cup toasted almonds
7 chiles anchos
3 chiles pasilla
3 chiles mulatos
one little piece of fried tortilla
one little piece of fried bread
pork lard or olive oil
one stick of cinnamon
salt as needed

Elaboration:
Clean and wash the romeritos with plenty of water to remove the soil from them.
Cook them in boiling water with salt and drain. Shell the shrimp and ground them with the bread until they are a fine powder.
Beat the egg whites and then add the yolks, ground shrimp and baking powder. Form a paste taking spoons of it and fry them in very hot oil on low heat so they don’t burn and they rise. Fry golden brown and drain.
Clean and cook the nopales in boiling water with salt and a piece of onion. Drain and let them cool.
Toast and seed the chilies and soak them in hot water.
Toast and ground the sesame seeds with cinnamon, tortilla, bread, almonds and salt.
When everything is ground, add a little cold water so it is not so thick and add the rest of the ingredients. Season with salt and let it boil on low heat for about half an hour until everything is incorporated and the broth has lightly consumed.

It is a very common dish in Mexico served with tortillas. In province houses tortillas are still made on comales and are served warm.

ROMERITOS: the plant grows wild, it is not cultivated. It has that name for the resemblance it has with rosemary and it is only eaten mixed with pipian and potatoes, nopales, shrimp and torta de aguahutle.

“BALENISTA” TURKEY
An exclusive recipe from the Belenista Association of Mexico.

Ingredients
1 turkey of 8 or 9 kilos
½ cup oil
50 grams butter
300 grams chopped bacon
2 cups finely chopped onion
1 cup peeled and chopped carrots
8 chopped chicken livers
½ kilo ground veal
½ kilo ground beef
1 kilo ground pork
2 cups chopped jam
3 cups tomato sauce
1 ½ cups almonds, with skin, fried and chopped
2 cups raisins with no seeds
2 ½ cups peeled and chopped bananas
1 cup chopped olives
2 cups white bread, cut in squares and fried
1 cup natural oats
10 eggs
1 cup white wine
3 peeled carrots cut in sticks

1 big onion cut in four
3 celery stalks
salt, pepper, and nutmeg

To decorate:
6 cooked, peeled and sliced beets
1 bunch of clean Chinese parsley
6 sliced oranges

Elaboration:
Stuffing: Heat the oil and fry the bacon with onion until they are crystallized. Add the chopped livers and fry for two minutes, add the meat, mix and season with salt and pepper. Continue frying for 15 minutes and add the rest of the ingredients, but the eggs, wine, carrots, onion and celery. Let it cook on low heat until the meat gets soft, take away from heat and let warm down.
Lightly beat the eggs and pour them on the meat with the wine, mixing well.
Stuff the turkey and sew the opening with a needle and kitchen thread. Put it in a deep oven tray, spread butter on it and sprinkle salt and pepper. Pour two cups of water or chicken broth in the tray and add the carrots, celery and onion.
Put it in a pre-heated oven at 220 Celsius degrees, cover it with aluminum foil and cook for 8 or 10 hours approximately. Spray it every 30 minutes with cold water and with its own juice and uncover so it gets brown.
Take it out of the oven and let it rest for 20 minutes. Place in a turkey tray and decorate the breast and around the tray with beet flowers on orange slices and bunches of Chinese parsley.
Serve it with its sauce.

TURKEY DE LOS PASTORCITOS
Ingredients:
1 turkey of 6 or 7 kilos
4 big onions
2 cups lemon juice
1 cup water
salt and pepper

Elaboration:
Wash and dry the turkey. Sprinkle with salt inside and out. Place it on a deep oven tray.
Blend the onion with the lemon juice and water, baste the turkey with the blend. Let it rest for 3 hours.
Bake at 220 Celsius degrees from 6 to 7 hours spraying it every 20 minutes with cold water and when it starts getting brown, baste it with its own juice. It must be brown and with little liquid.
Take it out of the oven, place it on a big tray and serve it with apple sauce.

STUFFED TURKEY
Ingredients
1 big turkey (8 to 10 kilos)
¼ kilo raw chopped ham
5 chopped gizzards
4 chopped livers
3 spoons finely chopped onion
1 kilo ground pork
2 ground garlic cloves
2 spoons vinegar
200 grams finely chopped olives
3 eggs
3 spoons finely chopped parsley
4 big tomatoes, ground and strained
100 grams finely chopped bacon
3 cooked, peeled and smashed potatoes
2 hard boiled eggs, shelled and chopped
3 spoons butter
one piece of bread soaked in milk and ground
salt and pepper

Elaboration:
The turkey, after it has been cleaned, is sprinkled with salt and pepper inside and out. Butter is spread on it and it is stuffed with the following stuffing.
Put in a pot one spoon of butter and when it is melted add onion and bacon so they crystallize. Add the ham and saute. Season with salt, pepper, gizzards and livers. Add parsley, garlic, tomato, bread and potatoes. Let it boil for a while on low heat. When everything is cooked and it is not on heat, add the raw and cooked eggs, vinegar and bread. Mix it all and stuff the turkey. Sew it so the stuffing does not come out, place it on an oven tray and in a baking bag, spread with butter, sprinkle it with some more salt and pepper and put it in the oven at 280 Celsius degrees one hour for each kilo. Take the sauce left in the bag and serve it in a sauce bowl.

MANCHAMANTELES
Ingredients
¾ kilo sliced pork loin
2 ripe bananas or plantains
3 slices of fresh pineapple
½ onion
½ garlic head
1 cinnamon stick
6 black peppers
4 spice cloves
½ spoon sugar
chile ancho
oil
salt

Elaboration:
Fry the meat and sliced banana and put them apart.
Roast garlic, onion and chilies, soak them and when they are soft blend them with the spices, garlic and onion. Fry the blend on low heatin a pot until it seasons.
Put the meat back in and add ½ cup of water, sugar and salt. When the meat is almost cooked, add the pineapple cut in small pieces and fried bananas. Leave it there for 10 more minutes.

BUÑUELOS DE PASCUA NAVIDEÑA
Ingredients
2 ¼ cups flour, sifted three times
2 cups peeled and finely chopped pine nuts
4 spoons white sugar
2 spoons green lemon rind 1 spoon baking powder
4 fresh egg yolks
4 egg whites, beaten
plenty of frying oil

Elaboration:
Beat the yolks until they rise. Add the lemon rind, flour (previously sifted with the baking powder, mixing it with the egg whites and the pine nuts) a very thick paste must be formed. If the paste is loose, add some more flour.
Pour plenty of oil in a pan and when it is hot, take spoons of the paste and fry them on low fire, covering them with oil so they rise.
Drain the grease and sprinkle with confectioner´s sugar.

BUÑUELOS EN CANASTA NAVIDEÑA
Ingredients
15 skins of green tomatoes
2 fresh eggs
4 cups flour
2 spoons sugar
2 spoons lard
2 cups brown sugar
1 spoon frying oil.
anise
Elaboration:
Boil in one cup of water the tomato skins with some anise. Take away from the heat, cool and strain.
Sift the flour and form a fountain. Put in the center sugar, eggs and lard. Mix it all and add little by little the water where the tomato skins and anise boiled. Mix well and hit the dough a little bit until air bubbles are formed in it. When the dough is ready, cover it with a napkin or cloth and let it rest for two hours. Flour the dough and rolling pin. Make little dough balls with your hand, stretch them a little with the rolling pin. Form the buñuelo on an spherical surface (it can bee your knee covered with a napkin).
Fry the buñuelos in hot oil until they get brown. Take them out and drain them on paper towels.
Serve them with brown sugar syrup on.

SYRUP
Boil the brown sugar in water, anise, one stick of cinnamon and one tejocote skin. Let it boil until it thickens, take away from heat and let it cool. Serve it cold on buñuelos.
BUÑUELO. Flour fry, big and round, often sweetened with syrup.


CAPIROTADA DE NAVIDAD
Ingredients
4 sliced bolillos (Mexican rolls)
2 brown sugar cones
½ cup peeled peanuts
½ cup raisins
1 cup añejo cheese diced
1 cinnamon stick
1 spoon color sprinkles
frying oil

Elaboration:
Boil the brown sugar with cinnamon in 2 cups of water to make syrup. Fry the slices of bread in oil and remove the grease excess placing them on a paper napkin.
Put one layer of bread slices in a pot, cover it with raisins, peanuts and pieces of cheese. Then put another layer of bread, raisins, peanuts, etc. Pour syrup on it.
Put the pot in a double boiler for half an hour to soften the bread. Decorate with color sprinkles.

CAPIROTADA MEXICANA DE NAVIDAD
Ingredients:
7 fried bolillos (Mexican rolls)
1 kilo brown sugar
1 tomato
2 onion stalks
200 grams peanuts
200 grams pine nuts
¼ kilo grated añejo cheese
4 spoons oil
3 spoons butter

Elaboration:
Boil the brown sugar with tomato (cut in half) and the onion stalks. Add enough water to form a syrup. Slice the bread in small pieces and fry them in oil, brown and drain. In a chinaware container put one layer of bread, then one of raisins, peanuts, pine nuts, raisins and cheese. Pour strained syrup, then put another layer of bread etc.. Pour again syrup and put pieces of butter on top. Put in the oven at 250 Celsius degrees until it gets brown and some of the syrup is reduced.
Serve warm or cold.
CAPIROTADA A dish created for using old bread. It is sweetened with brown sugar and enriched with fruit and spices.

CHRISTMAS CAKE
Ingredients:
2 ¼ cups wheat flour, sifted three times
4 cups pecans in halves
4 cups pitted dates
¾ cup brown sugar
4 fresh eggs
3 spoons baking powder
2 spoons powdered clove

Elaboration:
Put on heat 2 cups of water and clove to make a syrup. Beat the yolks until they get foamy, add the sifted flour with the baking powder. Always beating. Also add the syrup (cold), dates, pecans and beaten egg whites.
Mix everything and pour the mix in a poundcake dish previously greased with butter and covered with wax paper. Put it in the oven at 300 Celsius degrees and cook it for half an hour. Stick a straw or tooth-pick in it and if it comes out dry and the bread is lightly brown, take it out of the oven. Turn it over and remove the paper carefully.
Make a light syrup with ½ cup of sugar and a little water. Take it away from the heat and let it cool. When it is warm, add 2 shots of cognac or brandy. Prick the bread with a tooth-pick, which by that time must be almost cold.

ROMPOPE NAVIDEÑO ESPECIAL PARA POSADAS
Ingredients:
4 egg yolks
6 cups milk
1 cup sugar
½ cup almonds
rum

Elaboration:
Soak the almonds in boiling water, peel them and blend with some milk until it does not have any lumps.
Boil the milk and add sugar and the blended almonds. Move it constantly with a wooden spoon until it gets a little thick. Take it away from the heat.
Beat the yolks with the rum and add little by little without stopping moving until they are completely incorporated to the milk. Let it cool and put in a glass bottle.
Serve it in wine glasses with a Poinsetta flower.

PRUNE PUNCH
Ingredients

12 pitted prunes
2 orange skins
1 cup rum
1 pinch cinnamon powder
½ cup sugar
the juice of 2 oranges and one lemon

Elaboration:
Boil the prunes in 6 cups of water for about 15 minutes. When they are smooth, add the rest of the ingredients in boiling water. It can be drunk hot or cold.

POMEGRANATE PUNCH
Ingredients
3 pomegranates
1 cup grenadine syrup
1 cup tequila
1 cinnamon stick
100 grams chopped peanuts

Elaboration:
Boil 6 cups of water with the syrup and cinnamon. Add tequila. Put in a jug some peanuts, pomegranate and pour the punch in.

OTHER RECIPES

CHRISTMAS PUNCH
Ingredients
26 tejocotes (a variety of haw)
16 guava apples
½ cup raisins
4 apples
½ bottle red wine
6 cinnamon sticks
sugar
rum

Elaboration:
Wash and cut the tejocotes. Wash and slice the guava apples and apples. Boil the cut fruit in 25 cups of water with sugar and cinnamon.
When the fruit is cooked, take away from heat, pour the wine and rum as wished. Serve it hot.

PUNCH
Ingredients
25 tejocotes
15 guava apples
3 oranges
½ cup raisins
4 apples
½ bottle red wine
6 sticks cinnamon
2 cloves
brown sugar

Elaboration:
Wash the fruit, slice the apples and guava apples, cut the tejocotes (if you want you can peel them, they taste better).
Boil 25 cups of water with sugar and cinnamon in a pot (it is better if it is a clay one). Add the fruit. When the fruit is cooked, take the pot away from heat and add the wine. It is served hot in a cup with a slice of orange at the bottom, if you wish, you may add some rum.
To peel the tejocotes, heat some water, when it boils put the tejocotes in, turn off the heat and when the skin is softened peel them. The water you use in this can be added to the punch.

CHRISTMAS TURKEY
Ingredients
1 turkey of 6 or 7 kilos (for 15 people)
1 kilo ground pork
6 slices chopped bacon
½ cup chopped ham
1 onion
3 chopped garlic cloves
2 chopped celery stalks
½ cup prunes
½ cup peeled and chopped almonds
4 peeled and chopped apples
½ cup white wine
½ cup sweet sherry
frying oil
salt and pepper

Elaboration:
Wash the turkey, dry inside and out, sprinkle it with salt and pepper. Tie its wings and join the legs. Put it in a big pot in water with salt until it boils for a few minutes. Drain it.
For the stuffing, fry the onion and garlic in oil, add first the bacon and brown, then the meat until it is cooked. Then the ham, almonds, prunes apples and celery. Add ½ cup of sherry and let it boil until it dries.
Then inject the turkey with ½ cup of white wine. Untie the legs to stuff it. Tie it again and cover the breast with whole bacon slices. Wrap it in aluminum foil and put it in the oven at medium heat for six hours (one hour for each kilo). Baste it once in a while with its own juice. If it is dry, add water or white wine with al little bit of orange juice. That will help it to get brown. When it is cooked and you open it : yummm!
Put it on a plate and decorate as you wish.

MEXICAN CHRISTMAS TURKEY
Ingredients
1 natural turkey, aprox. 6 kilos
1 ½ cups white wine
8 medium tomatoes
4 garlic cloves
2 chiles pasilla
½ cup olive oil
salt
chicken consommé

Elaboration:
Pre-heat the oven at 180 Celsius degrees. Inject the turkey several hours before with the white wine.
The tomatoes are cooked or lightly roasted with the seeded chilies. Peel the tomatoes and grind those two ingredients. The onions are finely chopped and the garlic is crushed. Put a pot on the fire with the olive oil, when it is hot, add the garlic and the onion until they fry. Once they are fried add the tomato sauce, salt, pepper and consommé. Let it boil on a low heat until a smooth paste is formed.
When the sauce is ready, it is spread on the outside of the chicken. It is put in the turkey tray inside a baking bag and is baked from 4 to 5 hours at 180 Celsius degrees.
Serve with the juice it released while being cooked.

PULQUE BREAD
Ingredients
750 grams butter
750 grams sugar
1 kilo flour
18 liters pulque
15 eggs
2 spoons baking powder

Elaboration:
The egg whites are separated and beaten with pulque. This is done with a wooden spoon because it gets hard. Sugar is added little by little, sifted flour with the baking powder and at the end the butter is added, melted but cold. It is mixed to incorporate the ingredients.
It is poured in greased and floured molds, put in the oven at low heat (250 Celsius degrees). It is pricked with a fork and when it comes out clean it is taken out of the oven and cooled.
This bread can be found in fairs and town parties with legends decorating them saying things like :”for my mother-in-law”, “I am my owner’s”, “love”, etc.

CHRISTMAS BUÑUELOS
Ingredients
1 kilo flour
3 fresh eggs
6 green tomato skins
1 spoon baking powder
1 spoon lard
some anise
oil

Elaboration:
Boil the tomato skins with the anise in water. When it has boiled for a while, strain the water.
Pour the flour on a kneading board and make a fountain in the middle. Put in it all the ingredients but the water which will be spilled little by little as needed to incorporate all the flour.
Knead and hit the paste until it comes off the board. Cover and let it rest for one hour before making the buñuelos.
Make small balls and stretch them with your hands on a napkin and fry in hot oil. Drain and let them cool. Serve them with honey or brown sugar syrup.
Syrup:
Boil brown sugar in water with anise, one cinnamon stick and one tejocote skin. Let it boil until it thickens, take away from the heat and let it cool. Serve it cold on buñuelos.

HAPPY NEW YEAR PUNCH
Ingredients
3 liters water
1 cup pecan shells
4 cups peeled grapes
1 cup sweet sherry
1 liter rum
sugar

Elaboration:
Boil the pecan skins in three liters of water for three minutes and strain. Add the grapes and sugar, mix until the sugar is dissolved. Boil for 5 minutes. Add the sherry and the rum. Serve in jarritos (clay cups).