Mexican Food Site
	Isabel Hood BellaOnline's Mexican Food Editor

Autumn gold and squash blossoms
The markets of Mexico are splashed with gold and the time of year has arrived when every stall is decorated with armfuls of flamboyant courgette/zucchini and pumpkin flowers, a truly seasonal treat.

Celebrate 5 de Mayo with a fajitas fiesta
5 de Mayo, 5 May, is a date dear to Mexican hearts and a cause for celebrations, fiestas and general jollity, especially in Puebla, where a memorable battle was once fought. No specific dishes are served on 5 de Mayo but fajitas are real fiesta food and an appropriate way to mark the occasion.

Easy Chicken Tacos Recipe
This easy recipe for chicken tacos makes soft tacos with authentic Mexican flavor in just 30 minutes.

Mexican Antojitos - Sopes
The “sope” family is vast and convoluted, difficult to track, but whatever a sope’s origin, regional designation or topping may be, it is definitely a member of the clan. Name aside, it is simply a container or tartlet made of masa which acts as a base or plate for a delicious, savoury topping.

Mexican Antojitos - Tacos
Tacos are perhaps the best known Mexican dish outside the country, and the simplest to prepare. The easiest way to describe them is as a corn tortilla wrapped around a filling – but this does not even begin to illustrate their diversity and exuberance, let alone their potential for complexity.

Mexican Antojitos - Tostadas
Tostadas are rather like an open sandwich: a crisp, crunchy tortilla topped with anything from refried beans to smoked tuna and halibut, shredded pork and chicken to scrambled eggs with chorizo - as with most Mexican antojitos, the topping is up to the cook, and what is in season and available.

Plantain, Fruit and Vegetable
Faintly sweet, decidedly starchy, inedible raw, rich and voluptuous when cooked, a fruit which is eaten as a vegetable and can be ground into a flour to make bread and turnovers – this is “plátano macho”, the “male banana” of Mexico.

Prawn Turnovers Veracruz Style Recipe
The word empanada translates as breaded and therefore implies the use of bread or at least a dough made of wheat. When it comes to the very Veracruzana Empanada de Camarón, however, a pre-Columbian dough made of corn (and a bit of post-Hispanic flour) provides the wrapping.

The Chillies of Mexico - El Chipotle
The smooth and glossy jalapeño chilli loses much of its looks when it is transformed into one of Mexico’s most popular and widely used dried chillies, the chipotle, but its flavour, far from deteriorating, thrives on this transformation.

Tortas, Part of Everyday Mexican Life
Tortas are an institution in Mexico, a part of every day life and an essential constituent of Mexican cuisine – there are even annual festivals in their honour. They are eaten by everybody at any time, and “torterías” are found on virtually every street corner.

Tortillas, the bread of Mexico
Corn tortillas are quintessentially Mexican, intoxicatingly fragrant and utterly addictive. They take centre stage in the national cuisine as the “bread” of Mexico, and no meal is complete without this truly pre-hispanic food which is eaten daily in every household.

Veracruz - Molotes a la Veracruzana Recipe
Plump, torpedo-shaped and decidedly carbohydrate rich, the molote’s main characteristic is its pastry, which is more often than not a mixture of pre-Hispanic masa harina or corn flour and post-Conquest wheat flour often with the addition of mashed potatoes or, in Veracruz, mashed cooked plantain.

Veracruz - Pambazo Recipe
Tortas, huge, satisfying and nourishing sandwiches, are an essential part of Mexican gastronomic culture. While the bread traditionally used is a flat roll with a good crust known as a telera, in Veracruz a soft doughy roll is preferred for the local and very regional torta, El Pambazo.

Veracruz - Pellizcadas Recipe
The unattractively named Pellizcadas – pinched ones – of Veracruz are bumpy and dimpled, their surface a landscape of miniature hills and valleys to trap a topping and hold it firmly in place.

Veracruz - Pellizcadas Recipe
The unattractively named Pellizcadas – pinched ones – of Veracruz are bumpy and dimpled, their surface a landscape of miniature hills and valleys to trap a topping and hold it firmly in place.

Veracruz - Picadas Recipe
The Veracruzana Picada, like its sister, the Pellizcada, is a very regional member of the vast clan of Mexican antojitos – snacks based on corn, cooked, served and consumed mainly on the streets and in the markets.