The Mexican Food Dream Team
There’s no doubt Mexican food is crowd-pleasing delicious, but it is more varied than you think. Stews, soups, salads, casseroles, deep-fried treats or baked goods, Mexico has a dish for every palate and occasion. Of course, some Mexican food items are more popular than others, so let’s talk about the dream team of Mexican cooking: tacos, enchiladas and fajitas.
You can top a tortilla with anything, and you’ve got yourself a taco. Tacos come in all sizes and flavors and can be filled with anything from chicken and steak to zucchini blossoms and mashed potatoes. Tacos go back to the beginning of times in Mexico, as corn tortillas are the country’s staple food. In a way, tacos are not a dish, but a lifestyle, where tortillas are the way of serving food as much as they are part of the meal.
What makes a good taco is the quality of the tortilla. When freshly pressed and cooked on a griddle, tortillas are deliciously soft and tender, and they make any meal better.
“There’s no doubt Mexican food is crowd-pleasing delicious, but it is more varied than you think.”
Concisely, enchiladas are tacos you eat with a fork and knife. Another way of thinking about this comforting dish is like a taco casserole, where several stuffed tortillas come together to create something greater than the sum of its parts. The first recipe for enchiladas was published in 1883, but the dish goes back to Aztec times.
Enchiladas are just that. Tortillas stuffed with anything, from scrambled eggs to shredded chicken, bathed with a sauce, and often finished in the oven. The sauce used defines the type of enchilada: a bean sauce makes bean enchiladas or “enfrijoladas,” and if using mole sauce, you get “enmoladas.” The most common, though, are red and green enchiladas, one based on tomatoes and the other on green tomatoes or tomatillos. Of course, then you have a wide variety of toppings to give color and texture to enchiladas.
Fajitas are a colorful and festive dish made with skirt steak or chicken cut into strips and tossed with veggies, onion and bell peppers. And although fajitas are a prominent Mexican dish, they’re not originally from Mexico but Texas, and they first appeared in print as early as 1971.
Legend says Mexican workers in the United States in the 1930s developed fajitas in the fields. Cattle ranchers gave the laborers the less desirable cuts of meat, who then grilled them with whatever they had in hand. The current version of fajitas, served on a sizzling plate, did not become the norm until the 1970s. And despite not being entirely Mexican, people worldwide have adopted the Tex-Mex dish as one of the country’s signature dishes.
Join the conversation!On our new Podcast episode “More Than Rice and Beans” with salsa composer Jan Rejinders. Latin music and Latin food are two sides of the same coin, so come learn some moves as we learn more about the talented musician’s career.
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