Desserts

Mexican mandarin cake:A cinnamon chocolate cake with whipped cream,mandarin oranges and chocolate rain.








Coconut snowflake cake:A sour cream coconut cake with whipped cream smothered in coconut flakes.











Lemon Poppyseed Cake:A zesty lemon cake with poppy surprises and a lime cream cheese frosting and crushed candied walnuts.

At Breakfast

Plato de Frutas Mixed fruit plate,perhaps including banana,mangoes,melon,or papaya.

• Chilaquiles Tortillas stir fried with onions,spices and maybe chicken,topped with cheese and served with a sort of gravy.






• Huevos revueltos Scrambled eggs,often served with bacon or ham.

• Huevos a la Mexicana Scrambled with chopped tomato,onion and chilies.





• Huevos Rancheros Fried and smothered with a chili sauce,often hot.







• Huevos Motulenos Fried eggs on tortillas,covered with a sauce of tomatoes,chilies,peas and ham.Topped with cheese and served with refried beans.

Typical Dishes

• Ceviche Raw fish marinated in lime juice,often in a chopped salad.
  
  
  
  Chiles Renellos Large Poblano chilies stuffed with cheese or spicy meat.The chilies are mild,though the sauce may not be.
  


• Enchiladas Tortillas coated in a tomato and chili sauce,stuffed with vegetables,chicken or pork then folded and baked.Despite the chili content,enchiladas are often fairly mild.Enchiladas suizas are topped with sour cream.






• Huachinango Red Snapper,a common feature on the menus at coastal resorts. Often available'al gusto'or cooked in a choice of methods.

Quesadillas Tortillas stuffed with cheese,folded and grilled.A simple dish often served with beans or a little salad and suitable for those avoiding anything spicy.

• Mole sauce A wonderful rich sauce made with the unlikely combination of chocolate,chilies and many spices.It can be red or green depending on the ingredients and the moles of Puebla and Oaxaca are particularly famous,hence 'mole poblano' or 'mole oaxaqeno'.The sauce is often served over chicken,though turkey is more traditional.

• Tacos Tortillas fried until they are crispy and served with various fillings.

Tortas Mexican sandwiches,often large rolls with generous fillings.

Tostadas Thin and crisp tortillas served loaded with guacamole,sour cream,chilies,chicken etc.

The Basics

Tortillas The staple food of generations of ordinary Mexicans,tortillas can be made of flour or maize. Often served alongside a meal as bread would be, tortillas are also used in many typical dishes-rolled and baked for enchiladas,fried for tacos or grilled for quesadillas.

• Frijoles (beans) A good source of protein, beans of different varieties are most commonly boiled and then fried. They can be a main ingredient in a meal or served almost as a garnish.






• Chilies In general, the bigger the chili,the milder the flavor.Large Poblano chilies are stuffed and served as a main course,the small habanero is ferociously hot. To ask if a dish is spicy,say 'es picante?'-though hotel menus will often specify dishes that might offend tourist palates



• Guacamola Avocado mashed with onions,chilies and cilantro.Served as a dip or as a garnish.





• Salsa A salsa is actually just a sauce, although it is most commonly associated with the red or green mix of tomatoes,onion,chili and cilantro served on your table as a relish or a dip.Beware of 'salsa habanero'in innocuous bottles like small jars of ketchup and always try just a little salsa first as a precaution.



• Tequila This infamous spirit is most commonly served to tourists in the form of a margarita-mixed with lime juice in salt-rimmed glasses.It is actually derived from the maguey plant- a spiky bush often seen growing in fields.Mezcal is a cruder form of Tequila traditionally served with a worm in the bottle- the worm should be eaten when the bottle is finished!

Introduction

Mexican food is a style of food that originated in Mexico.
Mexican cuisine is known for its intense and varied flavors,colorful decoration and its variety of spices.Mexican gastronomy,in terms of diversity of appealing tastes and textures,is one of the richest in the world in proteins,vitamins,and minerals,though it is characterized by some as excessively spicy.Most of today's Mexican cuisine is based on pre-hispanic traditions,including the Aztecs and Maya,combined with culinary trends introduced by Spanish colonists.Quesadillas,for example,are a flour or corn tortilla with cheese,beef,chicken,pork and so on.The indigenous part of this and many other traditional foods is the chile pepper.Foods like these tend to be very colorful because of the rich variety of vegetables and meats in Mexican food.There is also a sprinkling of Caribbean influence in Mexican cuisine,particularly in some regional dishes from the states of Veracruz and Yucatan.The French occupation of Mexico also yielded some influences as well:the bolillo,a Mexican take on the French roll,certainly seems to reflect this.Mexican food varies by region,because of local climate and geography and ethnic differences among the indigenous inhabitants and because these different populations were influenced by the Spaniards in varying degrees.The north of Mexico is known for its beef production and meat dishes;southeastern Mexico,on the other hand ,is known for its spicy vegetable and chicken-based dishes.Veracruz-style is a common method of preparing seafood.

THE SYMBOL OF MEXICAN KITCHEN:TORTILLA

Tortilla,takes its name from the Spanish word 'torta'that means 'round cake',is a little sized,thin and round wafer,made from corn or grain flour.It can be eaten in every meal instead of bread.It's the symbol of Mexican kitchen like the bread of Turks or the rice of the Chinese.Tortillas also used as pizza by decorating its top with various kinds of materials.Tortillas history is going back to 12000 years ago.According to Mayan legend,the first tortilla was made by a villager to satisfy the hunger of the king.Tortilla also can be eaten by filling inside various stuff and folding.So your tortilla gains new names and occurs in your plate as tamale,flauto,buritto or quessadilla by roasting the stuff inside it.

A MEXICAN KITCHEN CLASSIC:FAJITA

Fajita,originally means aspecial of a cow meat in Spanish;can be made from meat,chicken or shrimp.It serviced with meats,chicken,shrimp,vegetables that fried in hot pans,fried onions beside,guacamole and sour cream.This meat food eaten by rolling with tortillas.Cheese is not used in Fajitas.