Delicious Food Recipes In Mexico

Mexican cuisine is one of the healthiest cuisines in the world. It is strongly influenced by the cuisines from the foreign countries such as North America, France and Spain. The main meal in Mexico begins with a soup course, known assopa aguada. The next course includes a rice or pasta preparation, known assopa seca. The traditional Mexican meals consist of the beans, rice, fresh tortillas and fresh vegetables. The main dish includes pork, chicken or beef, which is served along with beans.

Mexico is popular for its corn, tomatoes, avocados, jicama, beans, squash, chili peppers and a variety of spices. Tequila, mescal and margaritas are the traditional beverages of Mexico. The Mexican cuisine is world-famous for its colorful presentation, its mouth-watering flavors, unique spicing and seasoning. Most traditional Mexican recipes include quesadillas, salsas, guacamole, burritos, tostadas, tacos, fajitas and enchiladas. Chilies, tomatoes, onion and garlic are quite common flavorings in Mexican cuisine. You can prepare these detectable Mexican recipes for your special cocktail party or family get-together. Well, given below are some of the authentic popular food recipes in Mexico that will keep you busy for the next weekend!

Traditional Mexican Chicken Enchiladas Recipe

Ingredients
3 cooked chicken breast halves, shredded
12 corn tortillas
½ cup chopped fresh cilantro
½ cup chopped green onions
¾ cup minced onion
1 cup of sour cream
2 cups chicken broth
¼ cup all-purpose flour
¼ cup butter
4 oz chopped green chilies
12 oz shredded cheddar cheese
Vegetable oil for frying

Preparation
Preheat the oven to 350F. Heat 2 tablespoons of oil over a medium high heat in a large frying pan and fry the tortillas for about 5 seconds per side until they become flexible. Drain the tortillas on paper towels and keep them warm. Spread the chicken, 10 oz of cheese and onion over the tortillas. Make their rolls and keep in a greased baking pan with the seam side down. Add the whisk and flour to the melted butter in the pan. Allow it to boil over a medium heat. Add the broth with a continuous stirring. Then add sour cream and chilies and stir occasionally. Don’t allow the mixture to boil. Pour this mixture over the enchiladas when it is thick and hot. Bake these Mexican chicken enchiladas for about 20 minutes. Cover the top with the remaining cheese and bake it for about 5 minutes. Use cilantro and green onions for garnishing.

Postre de Limon
It is a cold vegetarian fruit dessert.

Ingredients
12 oz white sugar
8 egg yolks
4 egg whites
Grated zest and juice from 2 large lemons
8 fl. oz whipping cream

Preparation
Whip together sugar, egg yolks, grated lemon skins and lemon juice in a medium saucepan. Cook it on a low heat until it becomes thick. Don’t boil it. Pour it into the bottom of a serving dish and chill it for about 4 hours. Whip the egg whites in a large mixing bowl until it becomes stiff. In another bowl, whip the cream until it becomes soft. Gently add the egg whites to the cream and then spread it over the chilled egg yolk mixture. Refrigerate it for about one hour before serving.

Mexican Red Rice

Ingredients
350 g long-grain white rice
60 ml corn oil
2 garlic cloves
2-3 plum tomatoes, chopped
½ onion chopped
75 g frozen sweet corn kernels
75 g frozen green peas
780 ml water
Salt

Preparation
Cover the rice with hot water in a bowl and keep aside for about 20 minutes until it gets cooled. Meanwhile, make a smooth paste of garlic and tomato in a food processor. When the rice becomes cool, rinse it under cold water until the water runs clear. Then, drain it well. Heat the oil in a large saucepan and add the rice with continuous stirring. Then add the onion and fry for about 5 minutes until the rice turns golden. Drain the excess oil from the pan and then add a mixture of garlic and tomato. Cook it for about 5 minutes over a medium heat. Add some water, adjust the flavoring and bring it to boil. Reduce the heat and cook uncovered, until almost all the liquid is absorbed. Then add the sweet corn and frozen peas, cover it and cook for about 5 minutes. Then remove it from the heat and allow it to stand covered for about 10 minutes. It should be served hot.

Healthy Chinese Food To Choose

Are you searching for some healthy Chinese food options? Well, you can rely on the following article to find some really healthy Chinese food options...

America is sometimes referred to as a fast food nation, which is not an exaggeration at all! Astonishingly, one out of every four Americans eat fast food on a daily basis and most of the fast food dishes that we tend to consume are Chinese! The food that we generally find at the Chinese restaurants looks tempting and it tastes delicious as well. It is commonly believed that the Chinese food recipes are unhealthy and must be avoided if one is aiming for weight loss. In my opinion, it's not fair as far as the Chinese delicacies are concerned.
When thinking about the Chinese food, we tend to imagine only about the deep-fried dishes, heavy meat chucks and calorie loaded sauce covered noodles! Right? Well the authentic Chinese food can give a huge blow to this imagination. Actually, there are quite a few healthy Chinese food options, that we are clearly neglecting. As a matter of fact, you can always order many healthier recipes, without your health!

Healthy Chinese Food Options
The authentic Chinese food, which I was referring to, is actually one of the healthiest foods you can have. Chinese food is good for you, if you know what to order! Chinese cuisine employs a lot of vegetables and various types of rice, hence, you must always try to capitalize on this point. Secondly, the Chinese food comes in larger serving sizes, hence, you must order smaller meals and ask for extra vegetables (without hesitation)! Well, here are some tips for you to make healthy Chinese food choices.

Lean MeatHowever outlandish it may sound, but avoid meats and replace them with vegetarian recipes for healthy Chinese food options. Most of us believe that the Chinese food is all about healthy lean meats, but they conveniently forget the red meats of pork, beef, lamb and chicken, which are extremely high in cholesterol and saturated fats. If you just cannot live without that Peking duck, then go for the smaller serving sizes and restrict it to 2 oz to 3 oz!

Steamed RiceChinese cuisine utilizes rice in its various forms and it is not difficult to find the healthier one of them all. Preferably, go for brown rice or steamed white rice. The brown rice contains more than 3.5 gm healthy dietary fibers, while the steamed white rice contains 1gm of it. The fried rice, on the other hand contains 14gm of fats in an 8 oz serving size! This means, that you will have to stop consuming fried rice, totally! What you can do is, go for the brown rice and in case the restaurant doesn't have it, then you can always settle on the steamed white rice!

Stir Fry + NoodlesStir frying is one of the healthier Chinese cooking methods, which utilizes smaller amount of cooking oil. Basically, the noodles are loaded with refined carbohydrates, which you must always be watchful for. The stir fried recipes, which emphasize on steamed noodles (instead of fried noodles) and heaps of vegetables, is a better choice, that takes care of those additional carbs. If you are wondering whether the brown colored noodles are made of brown rice, then let me clear that those noodles are loathed with the heavy oils, which are used for cooking!

How To Make Sushi Rolls Without A Sushi Mat

Food historians generally credit chef Manashita Ichiro and his assistant, Mashita Ichiro, of the Tokyo Kaikan restaurant in Los Angeles (located on the corner of 2nd and San Pedro) with “inventing” the California roll in the 1970s. The chef, realizing that many Americans did not like the though of eating raw fish, created the now famous California Rolls made with crab, avocado, and cucumbers.

Making sushi at home is easy to do. Ingredients and equipment can be found at Japanese and Asian foods stores as well as at most large food or grocery stores. I did a large amount of reading on how to make sushi rolls before attempting my first ones. Sushi making does requires a small amount of initial practice. Don't be afraid to try!

You can use the techniques for making the California Rolls to make other variations with different fillings as sushi rolls are extremely versatile and you can make endless varieties. Think of a sushi roll as a sandwich and it's sure to get your imagination rolling as to what to fill it with. Be creative! 

It’s a very simple bento really, which is probably why I never got around to posting it here. (I only post a fraction of the bentos I actually make and eat…I should probably post more!) It has a plain tamagoyaki made with 2 eggs, some leftover stewed beans, and fruit. The star of the bento is half of a fat sushi roll made with brown rice that is filled with some decidedly non-traditional things: lettuce, cucumber, raw carrot, ham and cheese, and the end bits of the tamagoyaki. (The rolls are a bit misshapen because I pushed the cherry tomatoes in around them.)

The salt, sugar and vinegar that are used to flavor sushi rice is perfect for summertime bentos. These ingredients help to keep rice fresher for a longer time, and the flavors are a great foil for all kinds of fillings. As a matter of fact, I avoid using brown rice in bentos on the very hottest days, unless I turn it into sushi rice or put an umeboshi pickled plum in to help keep it longer. Fat sushi rolls are just as convenient to eat as onigiri rice balls, and faster to make too, since one roll will produce 4 to 6 portions.

Many people who don’t know any better claim that ‘real’ sushi has to have raw fish. If you’ve been reading Just Bento and Just Hungry for a while, you know that that’s BS. Sushi refers to the rice, not whatever goes in or on top of it; as I explained previously, some areas of Japan don’t even have a tradition of raw-fish sushi. In any case, most fat sushi rolls or futomaki traditionally do not contain raw fish, so filling them with cooked food and vegetables is perfectly legit. And in any case, you should never use raw fish in a bento that is made several hours before it’s consumed.

Of course ham and cheese are not traditional sushi fillings, but they have been used for decades in Japanese homes, way before the invention of American sushi roll combos like the New York roll (smoked salmon, cream cheese and onion). Sashimi or sushi-grade raw fish is expensive in Japan as it is elsewhere, so homely ingredients make more sense for everyday meals. By the way, I find that milder cheeses go best with sushi rice, such as young Gouda or Emmenthaler (Swiss), or a fresh Mozzarella. A well aged Cheddar or Stilton clashes a bit.

I have some more ideas for non-traditional sushi roll fillings in my ehou-maki (lucky sushi roll) article over on Just Hungry, where I also describe how to roll a fat sushi roll the traditional way using a bamboo sushi rolling mat. But let’s say you don’t have a sushi mat for whatever reason. You can still make sushi rolls! Here’s how.

Method: Making fat sushi rolls without a sushi mat
What you need:
    A sheet of nori seaweed
    Properly cooked and prepared sushi rice. It should still be slightly warm, not stone cold, for maximum stick-together-ness.
    Fillings of your choice
    A clean, non-fuzzy kitchen towel
    A sharp kitchen knife
    A bowl filled with water with a little vinegar in it
    Impeccably clean hands
Moisten the kitchen towel and then wring it out tightly. It should just be moist, not dripping.

Lay down the kitchen towel flat. Put the nori sheet shiny side down on the towel; the long edge should be on the edge of the towel. (You put the nori sheet shiny side down because that side has a slightly less tendency to split, and also for aesthetic reasons.)

Moisten your fingers with the vinegar-water. Place a fairly thin, even layer of sushi rice on the nori seaweed, up to about an inch (2 cm) away from the far edge of the nori.

Place the fillings in the middle of the rice, starting with any flat ingredients like lettuce or shiso leaves, then following up with the other things like julienned vegetables.

Now you’re ready to roll! Re-moisten your fingers with the vinegar water. Grab the edge of the towel with the nori and roll it over the filling, holding in the filling with your fingertips. Be brave here - quick and decisive movement will have better results than hesitation.

Here’s the end of the roll that I actually used in the bento above. You can tuck in the raggedy end bits good side up in a bento, or just pop them in your mouth as you make them!