Retro kitchen magic with Mexican cuisine

Do you enjoy Mexican cuisine and like to cook? Does your mouth water at the prospect of a vibrant salsa verde, a tortilla fresh off the griddle, or a subtly flavored mole? Do you favor traditional culinary methods? If, as for me, your answer is a resounding “yes” to all of the above, you will appreciate the talents of Maria Laura Ricaud of San Miguel de Allende, Mexico.

Last month, I had the pleasure of not one, but three sessions in the kitchen of Marilau Mexican Ancestry Cooking School, learning the basics of Mexican cuisine in a kitchen delightfully reminiscent of my grandmother’s. I came away with new techniques to try at home, as well as greatly enhanced food memories of my visit to San Miguel.

Unexpected salsas

Our first session was devoted to salsas. Not chip-and-dip salsa, mind you, but richly flavored, slow-cooked sauces based on fresh or roasted chilis. These sauces—all six (!) of them—tasted divine as dressings for simple taquitos.

Marilau’s gift was to show me how each could be enhanced, or in a couple of cases, combined, to elevate the magic. She also gave me a lesson in chili nomenclature: I never knew that jalapenos become chipotles when dried and smoked, as many times as I’ve eaten them. Anyway, I now have a whole kit-bag of salsa preparations; I just have to source the chilies.

Mastering corn

On our second day together, Marilau taught me how to make corn tortillas—integral to Mexican cuisine, and a long-timed favorite of mine—three ways. Two of the methods involve masa harina, but the first, most authentic, way to mash up dough for tortillas, involves a product used by Mexican cooks—and almost unheard-of elsewhere: Nixtamal. This water-and-lime mixture for removing the skin from corn kernels produces evenly cooked, flexible tortillas that scream “corn” (Nixtamalization increases the nutritional value of tortillas, as well). Since I am unlikely to score a sack of Nixtamal, or make it myself, Marilau made sure I learned the properties of the other two methods.

Majestic mole

The most complex salsas in Mexican cuisine are moles, following recipes developed in the convents of Puebla. They contain many ingredients, with the most famous “exotic” ingredient often—but not always—being chocolate. Moles are time-consuming to prepare, put together in a prescribed order, and complex in flavor. Until my day with Marilau, I had never appreciated moles, often finding them too heavy in a restaurant meal. When she topped a piece of poached chicken with the mole we made and a garnish of slivered onion, though, I changed my tune.

I am now an official missionary for the goodness of mole! As a sidebar to our mole session, I also learned to deep-fry (yes!) long-grained rice according to Mexican tradition, and was surprised at the texture and flavor this produced.

A World-Heritage cuisine

It was a flavor-filled leap from the Tex-Mex platters of my university days to the diverse regional cuisines in Mexico, when I lived there a few years later. Over time, and learning from cookbooks, such as Diana Kennedy’s ground-breaking Cuisines of Mexico, and the works of Rick Bayless, I have enjoyed exploring the richness of Mexican cooking.

In 2010, traditional Mexican cuisine was inscribed on Unesco’s Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. Thanks to Marilau, who is on a mission to share the time-honored traditions of her Mexican culinary traditions, I now have an enhanced appreciation of the ingredients and techniques involved.

Do you share my interest in learning more about its subtleties and origins? If you find yourself anywhere near San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, consider joining a lively class in the Marilau’s home-style kitchen. She will happily tailor sessions to the interests and expertise levels of participants.

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Thanks to Marilau Ricaud for graciously sharing the kitchen of Marilau Mexican Ancestry Cooking School with me for three fun-filled days, and to her husband, Arturo Belendez, for wielding his camera while we chopped and stirred.