You can use the search function of our website to find tasty recipes that suit the ingredients you may have in the cupboard. For example if you type flour tortillas into our search box on our main site you will find over twenty recipes that use those key words!

Many Americans will eat Mexican food at least once or twice a week, and although Mexican recipes are well loved in the US authentic Mexican recipes are often much healthier due to less fat and smaller portion sizes. The traditional Mexican foods contain a lot of vitamins and proteins, spices and fresh vegetables.

So again the question arises.. is Mexican food healthy for my kids? Well Authentic Mexican recipes are because they are normally low in fat. America however has given Mexican food a bad name in some respects by fattening up the dishes making them not such a great choice. If you are heading out to eat with your family try and find a restaurant that will serve authentically prepared and cooked dishes, not only is it healthier it will taste so much better!

In traditional Mexico the majority of people go for Breakfast Tacos, which are relatively soft tortilla tacos that are filled up with several different stews.

Another option we can recommend is that you try our Mexican Breakfast Burritos recipe - this dish stuffed with cheese, sausage and eggs will absolutely melt in your mouth!!

Certainly if stuck for ideas you can always pull out a tortilla, add in some refried beans and call it your breakfast ( and many do ). However why not add a little spice to life and go for some variety!

Most of our mexican dishes do call for chili in one form or another and it is a fact that most chillies are hot! It’s not always a good idea to leave them out as the recipe may rely on the strong flavor of the chili. Jarred or canned chiles and sauces are more often than not a little less potent than what some of the fresher versions may be.

If you love mexican food but don’t want it too hot there are some mild chili ingredients you can try..

• Chile powder
• Enchilada sauce (look for “mild” on the label.)
• Mild green taco sauce
• Green Tabasco sauce
• Canned green chiles

Tacos are a traditional and tasty Mexican dish that are more often than not composed of a wheat or maize tortilla, that is rolled or folded around some sort of filling. A Taco is normally served with some kind of garnish such as vegetables and a salsa. Vegetables used are generally onion, cabbage, lettuce, tomato or cilantro.

The base or “bread” that tacos are made out of generally consist of round, thin flour or cornmeal pancakes, that tend to be approximately 6 inches in diameter.

Forever popular for their zesty and spicy toppings, tacos have become somewhat of an emblem for Hispanic-styled cooking.

Chili peppers originally came from the Americas, particularly Mexico, and they are used worldwide today in different cooking styles.

Christopher Columbus took chilis back to the Old World over 500 hundred years ago and today more than 200 varieties of chilis grow around the world. The largest producer of chilis is India with Mexico being a clear second.

The “heat” in chili peppers is caused by an active compound, called capsaicin. Capsaicin is an irritant to mammals, including people, and it is believed that capsaicin developed as a natural defense mechanism for the chili peppers.

Capsaicin is found in the membrane of a chili pepper and this is where the seeds are also found. The seeds themselves do not produce any capsaicin, although the membrane capsaicin can leak out of the membrane and into the seeds. If you want to reduce the “heat” from a chili pepper then slice the pepper open, cut away the membrane, and seeds, and then discard them. This cuts the “heat” of a chili pepper to about 50% of what it would be if the whole chili were used.

You must take great care when handling chili peppers. I recommend that you wear kitchen gloves. You should certainly be wary of handling chili peppers if you have any cuts or abrasions on your hands, even if they are protected with sticking plasters, because the capsaicin can really make the cuts sting, sometimes extremely painfully. You should never, never, ever rub your eyes after handling chili peppers because the pain is excruciating.

The traditional measurement of the “heat” of chili peppers is the Scoville Scale.

The Scoville Scale is named after Wilbur Scoville who developed his scale of chili heat in 1912. He worked for a company that made an ointment for aching joints in which one of the important ingredients was capsaicin. The company kept getting different heat levels in the ointment when different chilis were used to supply the capsaicin and needed to know how to control this heat.

Wilbur Scoville developed a test where an exact weight of chili extract was diluted with a sugary water solution until a testing panel could not taste any heat at all. The amount of dilution required translates into a scale. The inherent weakness in this scale is that the taste test relied on people so the result was subjective and slightly inaccurate. But the scale was the first serious attempt at measuring chili heat and it survives, and is used, to this day.

There is a blog about the Scoville Scale on our associated Curry Focus website. The blog is called “The Scoville Scale of Chilli Heat”.

There is wide range of heat produced by different chilis. The mildest is the Bell Pepper that has a rating of zero and one of the hottest is the Habanero.

Chili peppers are one of the most well known cooking ingredients. If you want to find out more then you can find a huge number of articles about them on the internet.

Masa is a dough made out of maize (corn).

In dough form masa is called “masa de maiz” and in its powdered (flour) form it is called “masa harina”.

You can buy masa from your local Mexican, or Latino, store or good supermarkets (one of the leading brands is called Maseca).

You can substitute other flours for masa but you may have to experiment a little until you get the correct consistency in your dough with the substitute. The most popular substitutes are bread flour, all purpose flour and mixtures of corn flour and all purpose flour.

If you are finding it hard to find masa in your local store, you can always buy it online. Check out the Amazon.com link (at the start of this blog) for a range of suppliers.

If you buy masa and it is labeled “masa preparada para tamales” then the masa has been prepared to make tamales. If this is the case, then the masa may already contain baking powder and salt – check the packaging to see what the masa contains.

Try making tamales with masa – they are delicious.

The highly aromatic and flavorful seed Cumin (cuminum cyminum) is used both ground and whole in a range of Mexican soups and meat stews as well as being used in Indian and Middle Eastern dishes.

Mexican oregano is different from its English counter part and has a different taste altogether. Unlike Mediterranean oregano, Mexican oregano is best if used dry. You can normally purchase it in either powder or flake form, and be careful because the powder is generally stronger than the flakes so you may need to adjust accordingly. You should be able to find Mexican oregano in the spice aisle of your local store.

Cilantro (coriandum sativum) is also better know as Coriander and is a self-seeding annual that has a tangy flavor. Used in a great range of Mexican dishes Cilantro is the main ingredient that makes the dish taste like Mexican.

Make your next Mexican meal authentic and try some of tasty Mexican Recipes.

You are aiming for a water content of around 40% moisture when completed - this is crucial to ensuring the tortilla skins will be soft and pliable. When you eventually bake the tortilla make sure that it puffs as it bakes. If air bubbles begin to form in the dough or if it is overly wet and pasty - or even to dry and burns the tortilla will be ruined.

You can see that it is not easy to create the perfect tortilla, the best way is to get lots of practice, over time you will begin to be able to pick the perfect timing on the various steps.

If you live in the United States lets try and put some extra taste into your thanksgiving turkeys this year so why not try something a little different - we have found a great Mexican thanksgiving dish and of course it includes turkey!

Some call this one of Mexico’s finest dishes - it is known as Mole Poblano de Guajolote which loosely translates to Turkey in Chocolate Chile Sauce.

Mole poblano is a popular sauce and one unproven story about how it came about suggests that it was created by the nuns of Santa Clara and was intended to impress visiting officials to Mexico back in the 17th century. There is no proof of this however and there are plenty of other stories that suggest there were other events around the creation of this tasty recipe.

One of the most popular meals that uses the Mole sauce is of course the mole de guajolote which is now widely regarded as Mexico’s national dish.

The taste of this dish is so great that rumor has it that people have been known to make a special trip to Puebla (The home of this delicious dish) just to sample it.

Well to save you a long journey we have a Mole Poblano de Guajolote recipe - why don’t you try it. Rice, beans, tortillas and Guacamole are the traditional accompaniments.

Guacamole is a snack food native to Mexico, however popular around the world. Often served with meat servings to enhance the flavor of foods like Arepas and potatoes.

Although avocados are the primary ingredient, additionally Guacamole normally includes tomatoes, salt and occasionally Lime juice which can be added for further flavor.

Health Benefits of Guacamole

Avocado being the main ingredient is where we look to when establishing the health benefits of Guacamole and the news is good. They are fatty, yes, but it’s UNSATURATED fat….the good stuff.

Avocados are an excellent source of vitamins C and A,potassium, and folic acid. Additionally avocados contain oleic acid which is a monounsaturated fat that may help in the lowering of cholesterol levels.

There is also evidence that Avacados may help in combating and prevention of cancer, especially oral and prostrate cancer. The news just gets better all the time!

Why don’t you try out our delicious Guacamole recipe!