Regional Cooking

The Sonoran hot dog is a perfect example of what happens when Mexican food culture meets a neighbouring food tradition and produces something that is recognisably both and completely its own. Origin: Hermosillo, Sonora, where it developed in the 1980s. A bacon-wrapped hot dog in a bolillo-style roll, topped with pinto beans, tomatoes, onion, mayonnaise, mustard, and salsa. It is Mexican in flavour and DNA but the format is American. I make a version at home: good pork hot dog, thick-cut bacon wrapped tight, grilled until the bacon crisps. Bolillo roll, split and griddled. Warm whole pinto beans (with their broth), fresh tomato, white onion, a thin line of mayo, a thin line of yellow mustard, a drizzle of tomatillo salsa. It is extraordinary and worth knowing about.

A year ago I started cooking Mexican food seriously for the first time. Here is what changed most in my cooking: My palate for acid. I had been under-using lime in almost everything. Now I finish almost everything with acid and the difference is significant. My dried chile pantry. I went from zero to six essential chiles. The ability to build flavour from dried chiles is the foundational skill I was missing. My bean cooking. I had been using canned beans for convenience. Beans from dried, cooked with aromatics and good stock, are a completely different ingredient. My tortilla skill. Making tortillas from scratch weekly has given me a hand sense for masa that cannot be taught from a recipe. If I were starting over, I would start with beans, then tortillas, then dried chiles. In that order. Everything else is combinations of those three.

I made this mistake for years: I used Mediterranean oregano (the kind in a jar at the supermarket) in Mexican recipes that called for oregano, and the flavour was always slightly off — more robust and herbal than it should have been. Mexican oregano (Lippia graveolens) is related to lemon verbena, not to Mediterranean oregano (Origanum vulgare). It has a different flavour profile: slightly citrusy, less intensely herbal, with a mild anise note. It is the correct oregano for Mexican bean dishes, chile sauces, and regional Mexican preparations. For anyone cooking Mexican food regularly: find a source for Mexican oregano and keep it separate from your Mediterranean oregano. They are different tools.

I had been making carnitas without sugar for years, following the traditional rendered-fat method. Then I read about adding a cone of piloncillo to the fat early in the cook and tried it. Piloncillo is unrefined Mexican brown sugar with notes of molasses and caramel. Added to the carnitas fat at the start, it caramelises slowly and coats the pork as it braises. The final product has a subtle, dark sweetness in the crust that is different from anything the fat alone produces. This is not a sweet carnitas — you would not identify it as sugar unless you were looking for it. It is a depth note, a caramelisation complexity in the exterior of the finished meat. I now consider it essential.

Ceviche is sometimes described as 'cooking' fish with acid rather than heat. The chemistry is accurate — the acid denatures the proteins in the fish and produces a change in texture and appearance similar to heat-cooking. But the food safety implications are different: acid curing does not kill pathogens the way heat does. For home ceviche: use the freshest fish available — sushi-grade if possible. The acid does what it does to texture and flavour but it is not a substitute for heat in terms of food safety. Short marinade time (10-15 minutes) for a ceviche that is still slightly tender in the centre; longer (45 minutes) for fully 'cooked' texture. The classic Mexican combination: white fish (sea bass, halibut), lime juice, white onion, serrano, cilantro, salt. Simple, direct, magnificent.

Barbacoa is traditionally beef cheek, tongue, or head meat cooked wrapped in maguey leaves in a pit for many hours. At home, the closest approach is a slow braise with a chile-tomato base in a tightly sealed vessel. The cut matters: beef cheek is the right choice for home cooking — it has enough connective tissue to become gelatinous and silky over a long braise. Brisket works as a substitute. Chuck roast is acceptable but less silky. The braise base: guajillo, ancho, chipotle, garlic, onion, cumin, oregano, apple cider vinegar. Blend to a paste, coat the meat, braise tightly covered at 300°F for 3.5-4 hours. The result should pull apart in long fibres with almost no resistance. The braise liquid reduces to a concentrated sauce that is the best thing to eat with the meat.

I live in northern Europe and for two years I worked with whatever the local supermarket called 'dried chiles' — usually some generic red thing, origin unknown. Then I found a reliable online source for Mexican-origin dried chiles and everything changed. What I now order: ancho, guajillo, arbol, pasilla, and mulato. These five cover most applications. I order in 250-500g quantities because dried chiles keep for a year in a sealed container away from light. The quality difference from the generic supermarket product is enormous. A good guajillo has flexibility — it should bend without cracking. A stale or poor-quality one is brittle and has almost no aroma. The aroma when you toast a fresh guajillo should be immediately obvious and complex. For Europeans looking for sources: many online Mexican grocery shops ship across the EU and UK. Worth finding one you trust.

Most people who discover Mexican cooking follow a northern path: burritos, carnitas, chiles, salsa. Yucatecan cooking is an entirely different tradition with different ingredients, different techniques, and different flavour profiles. Achiote is the central ingredient — earthy, slightly floral, with a distinctive red colour. Recados (spice pastes) are the technique: achiote with sour orange, garlic, and other spices form the base of most marinades. Cochinita pibil — pork marinated in achiote, wrapped in banana leaves, traditionally pit-roasted — is the dish that most introduces people to the style. The sour orange (naranja agria) is essential and not substitutable with regular orange. A mixture of orange juice and lime juice approximates it; sour orange concentrate imported from Mexico works well. This tradition is worth exploring after you have the basics of central and northern Mexican cooking.