Mexican Bean Burrito Recipe with Corn Elote

Apparently there has never been a burrito recipe on Cooking in Mexico. I had to actually use the search feature on my own blog to confirm this. This came up after after chatting with my friend Angie about what to write up for the next post. She suggested a burrito, telling me about the Buc-ee’s burritos she had while in Florida. Angie described a burrito filled with refried beans, rice, and corn. This sounded like a traditional combination, using ingredients foundational to Mexican cooking, and something a street vendor in our little town of Mascota would offer.

First I had to figure out how to prepare the corn, and corn elote came to mind. This is a beloved way of serving corn in Mexico as a street snack. Ears of corn are grilled, slathered with crema or mayonnaise, and seasoned with cotija cheese, chile and lime juice. You get the idea, and a recipe is below if you need it.

The refried bean part was easy. I always have pint cartons of cooked beans in the freezer, usually black beans. And brown rice gave me an opportunity to use the instant pot. Salsa was easy, too. Maybe you can make salsa without a recipe, but here is one if you need it for salsa ranchera.

I didn’t expect the tortilla part to be a problem, but for me it was because I’m a stickler for whole wheat tortillas. They are in the stores here in town, but only 8″ in diameter, and traditional burritos need 10″ or 11″ tortillas. The large ones are sold here, too, but only made with white flour. The larger tortilla is needed to fold the ends in, but we don’t have to be traditional all the time. I made a properly folded burrito with a white flour tortilla, and used the smaller whole wheat tortillas for rolled burritos.

Burritos have the same flexibility as quesadillas in that fillings can vary, though it seems bean burritos are common, as are burritos filled with carnitas — braised pork. Left-overs are good filling possibilities. How about a meatloaf burrito? There is some in the fridge from the other night. I’ll have to try it in a burrito.

Bean, Rice and Corn Burritos, 4 servings

• 1 cup refried beans, heated
• 1 cup salsa
• 1 cup brown or white cooked rice, heated
• 1 cup corn elote (see recipe below), room temperature
• Strips of roasted, peeled poblano chile (optional)
• 4 large or 8 smaller tortillas, whole wheat or white flour

1. Warm tortillas briefly on a hot griddle until they are pliable, 2 or 3 minutes.
2. Stir 1/4 cup salsa into rice.
3. For large, burrito-sized tortillas, spoon 1/4 cup each of rice, refried beans, and corn along one half, leaving room at the ends to fold in (see photo below)
4. For smaller, 8″ tortillas, use 2 tablespoons of each filling.
5. Add a few strips of roasted poblano if using.
6. For 10″ tortillas, roll the tortilla over to encase the filling, fold in the ends, and roll again to completely enclose the filling. For smaller tortillas, roll up or fold over in half.
7. Return to hot griddle to brown tortilla slightly. This is optional, as the tortilla is already cooked.
8. Serve salsa on side.

Corn Elote, makes 2 cups

• 2 ears of sweet corn
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 2 tablespoons lime juice
• 1/4 cup crema or mayonnaise
• 1/2 teaspoon chile powder, or to taste
• 1/2 teaspoon salt

1. Grill corn over medium heat until slightly blackened.
2. When cool enough to handle, cut kernels off ears.
3. Mix with remaining ingredients, adjusting any of the other ingredients to taste.

Notes

~ As with many culinary origins, burritos’ beginnings have more than one explanation. One is that a food vendor in Mexico City during the Mexican Revolution would wrap his offerings in flour tortillas to keep the food hot. He went around on a burro, and the wrapped food became known as a “burrito”, named after his little donkey. Another origin story is of food being wrapped in a flour tortilla in Sonora, a wheat growing state. This tortilla wrapped food was easily carried by travelers, the donkey or burro being the main animal of transportation, hence, “burrito”, named after another little donkey.

~ Crema is a slightly fermented, spoonable cream product. Mayonnaise is just as often used for elotes.

~ Burritos are not usually re-heated on the griddle after being filled and rolled. This is optional to get it piping hot and to crisp up the tortilla. A soft tortilla folded around the filling is more traditional.

~ Burritos can be eaten out of hand as is, or topped with salsa and/or guacamole.

~ To freeze, wrap in foil or plastic wrap, and freeze in a zip-lock bag.

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Mushroom summer

For most of the year our mushrooms come from the grocery store. The rainy season has changed all that in an exciting way. Exciting, because it’s possible to find tasty, edible mushrooms right in our front yard or down the driveway under a pine tree. Of course, you have to know what you are doing, and unquestionable identification is mandatory.

The little town of Mixtlán in our state of Jalisco just held their annual mushroom festival. It is always a feast of sight and taste, offering wild mushroom dishes and displays of fungi collected in the nearby forests. A mycology professor and students from the Univerisity of Guadalajara conduct early morning walks into the woods to collect hongos, as wild mushrooms are known in Spannish.

While an exuberant mariachi band played on the plaza, we lunched on wild mushroom quesadillas at one eatery on the plaza, went on to another stall to try their mushroom quesadillas, then back to the first place to have mushroom soup. The prized wild mushroom, Amanita Caesarea, not to be confused with Amanita muscaria, the red polka dot mushroom of fairy tales and somewhat poisonous, was featured in both quesadillas and soup. This mushroom remains my holy grail for mushroom foraging.

The quesadillas, while very good, skimped on the mushrooms. We were told that the great number of forest fires this year decreased the wild mushroom growth, a sad consequence of our heating planet.

I had my eye on two large mushrooms that appeared in our yard after heavy rains. One is pictured at the top. Large and white, they were tempting to use for quesadilla filling. But were they edible? I tentatively bit into one. It smelled and tasted similar to a grocery store white button mushroom. Was it safe? The mycologist at the festival assured me it was fine to eat, identifying it as Macrolepiota macrosporae, non-toxic and edible. We also have an area filled with smaller mushrooms, also tasting and smelling of white button mushrooms. Isn’t that the test, to bite into one? If it’s bitter, spit it out. Nope, not anymore. This myth has been debunked. And those smaller, non-bitter mushrooms, which I bit into but didn’t swallow, were declared toxic by the mycologist.

So that no one has a meal of wild mushrooms that turns out to be their last meal, here is a translation of the above poster that was helpfully displayed by the table of poisonous mushrooms.

Myth: Poisonous mushrooms have striking colors. Truth: deadly mushrooms have both bright and light colors.

Myth: You can tell if it’s poisous if you boil it with garlic or a coin and they get stained. Truth: Only experts can tell if a mushroom is edible or toxic.

Myth: Poisonous mushrooms have an unpleasant smell and taste. Truth: poisonous mushrooms can smell and taste very good.

The above poster ends with a cautionary note. “To avoid possible poisoning from misidentified mushrooms (from stomach pain to death) we recommend never to consume mushrooms that have not been identified by a mycologist or traditional mushroom collector.” With these words to the wise, buen provecho!

So with this knowledge, we will have mushroom quesadillas made with our certified-safe, front yard, wild mushroom, Macrolepiota macrosporae, and for those of you who aren’t collecting and cooking wild mushrooms, a recipe for quesadillas made with baby bella mushrooms from the grocery store follows.

Mushroom Quesadillas with Baby Bella Mushrooms

• 1/4 cup chopped onion
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 8 ounces/227 grams baby bella or white button mushrooms, sliced
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 2 poblano chiles, roasted, peeled and sliced
• 1 minced garlic clove
• 6 whole wheat flour tortillas
• 6 ounces/227 grams thinly sliced Oaxaca cheese

1. Heat olive oil in skillet over medium heat.
2. Saute onion until translucent, about 3 minutes.
3. Add mushrooms, minced garlic and salt, stirring to distribute salt.
4. Cover and cook over low heat for 5 minutes.
5. Remove lid and continue cooking until liquid evaporates.
6. Divide mushrooms among tortillas, placing on one half of tortillas.
7. Divide cheese evenly on top of mushroom filling.
8. Fold tortilla over on filling and cook on a heated griddle until quesadillas become toasty brown.
9. Place quesadillas on a cooling rack to allow cheese to firm up, about 2 minutes.
10. Cut each quesadilla in half and serve.

Notes

~ Use any mushroom, any cheese. Portobello mushrooms. Cheddar or Monterey Jack cheese. Ricotta cheese. Any vegetable, leftover or freshly cooked, such as cooked, sliced potato. Quesadillas are like sandwiches. Any tasty filling works, though they need cheese as the “glue” to hold everything together when the quesadilla is picked up.

~ Poblano chiles can be sauteed without roasting and peeling. Just treat as you would a bell pepper.

~ A mushroom collector in Mexico is known as an honguero, from the word hongos, meaning wild mushrooms.

~ The mushrooms in Mixtlán are collected in baskets to allow spores to sift out through the basket openings, providing for next year’s fungal growth.

© 2009-2024 COOKING IN MEXICO ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

All photos and text are copyright protected. Do not copy or reproduce without permission.

Small batch, low sugar jam

I like jam on the tart side, which means supermarket jam is too sweet for me. One of the joys of making jam is having complete control over the level of sweetness. More sugar, less sugar. It’s up to you.

If you start with very sweet fruit, as ripe as can be, little sugar is needed. That was the case with homegrown plums we were given by a friend who lives in the Sierra Madre Mountains of Jalisco. Even though they were refrigerated, over several days they became too soft — a little squishy — but the flavor was still excellent. Just sitting in the fridge, they were trying to turn into jam. It didn’t take too much more to complete the job by adding half a mango, also very ripe, and a bit of sugar.

I tried to cut the flesh off one plum — they weren’t freestone — just to see if it was doable. It really wasn’t because the plums were too small and it would have been tedious and messy to remove the pits. Instead, I cooked them whole, first scoring the plums several times so that the skin would break up more easily in the jam. The mango was chopped, not too finely. One quarter cup of sugar was tossed in with the fruit, which drew out the juice. Two tablespoons of lime juice were stirred in to add pectin. Here in Mexico, lemons are rarely seen unless you are at a large supermercado in a large town, so in Mexico limes are the go-to citrus when a lemons are called for.

To digress a bit, our little town of Mascota now has its own supermercado, Bodega Aurrera, a big box grocery store. An Auto Zone is going in right next to it. We can only hope Mascota can retain its small town charm as chain stores encroach. No doubt the prices are lower at Aurrera because they buy in volume, and some town folk will appreciate lower grocery bills, but its arrival wasn’t greeted with joy by everyone. We checked out Aurerra Bodega and they didn’t carry lemons. In fact, they didn’t have any produce at all. We will continue to give Abarrotes Pepe, our locally owned and well-stocked grocery store, our business as long as it can hold out.

In past years, we have sometimes encountered sidewalk vendors outside of Pepe’s selling local plums, but not this year. So it was especially welcome to be given these plums, small, purple, and bursting with flavor as only homegrown fruit can be. Sixteen small plums and half a large mango added up to four cups of fruit. Perhaps one quarter cup of sugar would not be sweet enough for your taste, or perhaps the fruit you have on hand isn’t as sweet, so adjust the sugar accordingly. Or add stevia. Twelve drops of liquid stevia added at the end of cooking brought the sweetness level up without adding additional sugar. This jam is not for long-term shelf storage. It doesn’t have enough sugar to preserve it, nor will it be processed in canning jars. It is just a small amount of jam to use up a small amount of very ripe fruit.

Baking sourdough bread this week timed perfectly with jam making. A carton of local requesón — ricotta cheese — added up to a tasty trifecta. Are any of you sourdough bread bakers? If so, I recommend Pantry Mama’s Whole Wheat Rye Sourdough Bread recipe. Step-by-step instructions produce a perfect loaf. And if you are up for making your own (cheater) ricotta, here’s a recipe I posted in 2018. Honestly, I only made it that one time. Any number of stores here sell fresh, ranch-made requesón that is so good. And I don’t have my own cows anyway to have the requisite 10 gallons of whey to make the real thing.

Low Sugar Plum-Mango Jam (2 half-pint jars)

• 4 cups total whole plums and peeled, chopped mango, or any other jam friendly fruit
• 1/4 cup sugar, or to taste
• 2 tablespoon lemon or lime juice

1. Simmer fruit with sugar and lemon or lime juice for 30 minutes over low heat, breaking up the plums with a potato masher or the back of a spoon and stirring occasionally.
2. If you would like the jam a bit thicker, simmer 5 or 10 minutes longer to allow water evaporation and thickening, stirring every few minutes.
3. Pick out plum pits with a fork, or remove them when you spread jam on toast and they are easy to see and remove.
4. Spoon hot into 2 half-pint jars and cap tightly.
5. Refrigerate for up to two weeks or freeze.

Notes

~ Liquid stevia will add more sweetness without adding its characteristic bitterness if used sparingly. I added 12 drops to the pot after it had cooked.

~ Stone fruit pits add flavor and pectin to jam. It was surprisingly easy to pick them out of the finished jam, so don’t hesitate to cook the plums whole. Remove the pits with the flick of a fork when you spread jam on your toast.

~ As the fruit and sugar mixture simmered, the plums and mango fell apart into a pleasing jam texture. I chose not to use a food mill, as I like the lumpy texture, but be sure to remove the pits before eating!

© 2009-2024 COOKING IN MEXICO ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

All photos and text are copyright protected. Do not copy or reproduce without permission.

Sunday breakfast in Navidad

We had a lovely, leisurely breakfast this past Sunday with friends in Navidad, a mountain town in our state of Jalisco. The thirty-minute drive from Mascota offered views of steep rock faces, the valley below, corn and agave fields, and grazing cattle. Many of you may never visit Mexico, so here is a virtual visit with photos of a Sunday slice of la vida en México, our home and our life.

Navidad has only one restaurant, Terraza Mi Lupita, and it was busy with Sunday morning diners. With a typical Mexican menu, but a cut above in quality, Lupita’s is a restaurant I wish each one of you could experience.

The decor was as interesting and delightful as the menu. Artifacts from bygone ranching days decorated the walls. There were implements of all kinds, but the forge blower and wooden vice caught Russ’s eye, bringing back memories of his past life as an architectural ironworker in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

After checking out the the wall curios, we got on with the business if ordering. I opted for my favorite huevos rancheros with salsa roja. As if two tortillas, two eggs, and refritos — refried beans — were not enough, it also came with a quesadilla. No, I couldn’t finish it. The top photo is of Susan’s chiliquiles, also an ample plate. Daniel had tacos with barbacoa. Sorry, no photo of his plate, but it looked great. Ron got creative and ordered chilaquiles with machaca, and Maly had machaca with eggs. Each plate was enough for a ranch hand.

The tortillas were hecho a mano, made by hand. La tortillera, the woman who makes tortillas, is often showcased at Mexican restaurants to let the patrons know these tortillas are the real deal, not commercially made or even made yesterday. But we could tell that from their tenderness and flavor. Shely told us the corn for the tortillas was locally grown and nixtamalized, soaked in an alkaline solution of food grade lime to soften the hull, then ground into masa. She spends three to four hours at the metate and tortilla press, which must add up to hundreds of tortillas each day.

Machaca was Russ’s choice, a hearty plate of shredded, spiced beef with eggs and chile, also served with refritos and a quesadilla. In years past, before refrigerators were common, beef was shredded and dried to be rehydrated later for this traditional Mexican dish. Now everyone has a fridge, and the beef does not need to be dried to preserve it, though some cooks still follow tradition, air drying the beef (or pork) for machaca recipes.

You can find Restaurante Terrazas Mi Lupita on Facebook for more photos and information. There is also a restaurant with the name Terraza Lupita in Guadalajara, but don’t confuse it with this gem in Navidad. Google Maps will guide you to it. It’s right across from the church.

© 2009-2024 COOKING IN MEXICO ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

All photos and text are copyright protected. Do not copy or reproduce without permission.

Smoothie Bowl with Mexican Pitaya

I didn’t know a smoothie bowl was a thing until I got online to learn what to do with pitayas, the fresh cactus fruit we bought from a sidewalk vendor. In my defence (of my ignorance) I’m not up to speed with everything new on the horizon, living as we do in a small Mexican town that is more into salsas than smoothies. We are more likely to see huevos rancheros and chiliquiles on a breakfast menu here in Jalisco than a smoothie bowl. But today was shaping up to be another hot one with cicadas already buzzing. A cold smoothie bowl sounded like a good way to start the day.

I learned that there are two pitaya fruits, the one called dragon fruit, which you may see in the stores in the U.S., and the local pitayas that are for sale on the sidewalks here in Jalisco. Both are fruits of cacti, and both are from southern Mexico, with dragon fruit now being grown commercially in Asia. You may never encounter pitaya unless you visit Mexico in the summer, but I wanted to share this wonderful fruit with you.

Unless you are in Mexico, you will have more success finding dragon fruit at the store than pitayas. I see on the internet that dragon fruit is sometimes referred to as pitaya, and pitaya is sometimes called dragon fruit. They can be used interchangeably, but that shouldn’t make their names interchangeable. They are two different, but similar fruits from two different species of cactus. I’m making a smoothie bowl with pitaya, but you can substitute dragon fruit for this colorful, healthy breakfast or snack.

I don’t think you will find pitaya in your local store for two reasons. The really ripe ones start to split open, plus they are a challenge to clean, maybe more threatening than nopal (opuntia cactus pads). You could say they are the hedgehogs of the fruit world. Russ thought the pitayas were pricey, about 50 cents each. I’ll gladly pay that to have this delicious and interesting fruit already cleaned without suffering numerous punctures. See the photo below? Those aren’t hairy protuberances; they are serious spines.

The Mexican pitaya is very similar to dragon fruit, though I think it has much more flavor and color. For this recipe, I’m using the local pitaya, though dragon fruit is a good substitute, as would be any brightly colored fruit.

For my smoothie bowl, I blended frozen pitaya, banana and mango. The toppings were dried coconut, cacao nibs, blueberries, chopped pecans (purchased while driving through northern Mexico recently), dried cranberries, and pepitas — pumpkin seeds. Enough of each for crunch and color. Of course, the toppings can vary: granola, any nuts, seeds, dried fruits that you have. The color of the fruit puree in the photo is really a true color. The blending of pitaya and mango produces an almost neon color.

Pitaya Smoothie Bowl (serves 2)

• 1 pitaya or dragon fruit, cut into 1″ cubes, frozen
• 1 banana, sliced and frozen
• 1 mango, cut into 1″ cubes, frozen
• 1/4 cup or more of cold almond milk
• 2 tablespoons each: chopped nuts, dried cranberries, cacao nibs, dried coconut, fresh or frozen blueberries, pumpkin seeds

1. Let fruit thaw slightly, about 3 minutes.
2. Blend fruit until smooth in food processor, adding almond milk if necessary to make a smooth puree
3. Divide among 2 bowls.
4. Place toppings on fruit puree and serve cold.

Notes:

~ If you have a Vitamix, there is probably no need to thaw the fruit slightly before you puree it. I let the frozen fruit soften slightly for a few minutes so as not to wreck my 8-year old Cuisinart food processor. A Vitamix is on my wish list.

~ This is a very versatile recipe. Any frozen fruit can be used for the base, and any toppings that strike your fancy. I used granola one time to make it more “breakfast-y”, though Russ said it was still like eating a dessert. Any milk (almond, coconut, oat, dairy), or even yogurt, to adjust the consistency, would be fine.

~ Cacao nibs, also labeled cocoa nibs, are fermented, cracked cocoa beans. They are sold roasted or unroasted, and contain small amounts of caffeine and theobromine, both stimulants. They impart a chocolate flavor without sweetness.