By Annette Hinkle
This is the time of the year when the football season heads into the highlight zone. As the final four teams vying to win the Superbowl gear up to play their division championship games this weekend, many fans will gather around the flat screen to watch the action with friends and plenty of good food on hand to keep their energy up.
Among the favored culinary offerings at many of these gatherings will no doubt be south of the border offerings — guacamole, chips, burritos, quesadillas. And for good reason — there’s something about Mexican food that just lends itself to watching football. Maybe it’s the fact that many of the dishes are self-contained and can be picked up and eaten without a knife and fork (and hold together while football junkies are jumping up and down screaming at the TV). Maybe it’s the spices within that get the blood flowing and the fans going.
Or maybe it’s because, whether our favorite team wins or not, Mexican cuisine is just good, familiar comfort food.
With a border and a history that spans miles and centuries, it’s no surprise that Mexican cuisine has a firm place in the palates of Americans. Before the mid-1800s, the southwestern United States was, in fact, northern Mexico. The melding of north meets south culture along the border region eventually gave rise to 20th century Tex Mex cooking — the Mexican style fare most familiar to Americans — which blends ingredients available on the U.S. side of the border with traditional preparation methods from Mexico.
Chili con carne, nachos, giant burritos, fajitas — are all popular examples of Tex Mex cuisine and these days, Tex Mex relies heavily on ingredients such as Monterey jack or cheddar cheese, chili beans, beef, olives, sour cream or lettuce.
But authentic Mexican recipes tend to be much simpler and very regional — made from ingredients that can be found nearby. Tamales are typically Mexican, as is mole — a sauce made from a combination of spices, chocolate and chilies. It’s a popular dish in southern Mexican towns like Puebla and Oaxaca where an inordinately large number of chile peppers grow and both fresh and dried varieties, including guajillo, ancho, mulato and chipotle, are used in making a range of flavorful moles.
At Cilantro’s, the take out Mexican market in Sag Harbor, Chef Josue Jauregui understands the range of possibilities in Mexican cooking. As a chef, he has been trained to cook many international cuisines (he comes to Cilantro’s from Pierre’s French bistro in Bridgehampton where he was a chef for seven years). But as a native of Venezuela, Mexican dishes were not what he grew up eating or cooking. So when Chef Jauregui set out to learn how to make authentic Mexican food, he went to, of all places, Atlanta, Georgia.
“I learned from an old grandma there,” confides Jauregui.
Tonight, Thursday, January 19, Chef Jauregui and Cilantro’s owner, Luis Fernando, will be the featured guests at the East End Chefs class at the Old Whalers’ Church in Sag Harbor. Just in time for this weekend’s games, Jauregui and Fernando will share their secrets and cook up some Mexican favorites that participants can make at home. The menu will include chili beans, pico de gallo (a Mexican condiment also known as salsa fresca which is a combination of tomato, onions, lime juice and cilantro), guacamole, Mexican salad and quesadillas (beef or chicken for the meat eaters and cheese for the vegetarians).
Just as in French cooking where chefs begin the process with a mirepoix of sautéed celery, onions and carrots that becomes the basis for a number of dishes, so too does Jauregui start his recipes with Mexican aromatics to get things started.
“It’s cilantro, garlic, cumin and spices,” he explains. “I’ll also use onions and peppers. It’s really simple.”
From there, Jauregui is able to branch out and build on the base to create whatever food he is making. He can also spice up the dish, or keep it mild depending on the preference of the person who will eat it.
One of Jauregui’s simplest, yet tastiest, offerings are tacos. While on the American side of the border, tacos are typically dressed up with ingredients like lettuce, cheese, sour cream or salsa, for those who prefer them, Jauregui also makes tacos that are much simpler and authentically Mexican.
“Real Mexican tacos are a soft corn tortilla with beef, shrimp, steak, or whatever meat inside, topped with just chopped onion, cilantro and a little bit of lime juice,” he explains.
Other authentically Mexican dishes Jauregui enjoys making are quesadillas, flautas (tightly rolled and lightly fried tortillas filled with meat) and enchiladas.
“We put different flavors in the enchiladas — we’ll do vegetable enchiladas with corn, onions, and cheese using queso Oaxaca,” he explains. “It’s a type of Mexican cheese, or we’ll use Monterey jack and cheddar, which is more Tex Mex.”
Another of Jauregui’s specialties is the chimichanga — meat and spices inside a fried tortilla which he tops with jalapeño cheese sauce. It can best be described as a much larger version of the flauta, and while technically a Tex Mex invention, a similar dish has been known in parts of Mexico for decades.
One of the Mexican herbs Jauregui uses in his bean dishes is epazote, which has traditionally been used to calm the stomach and the digestive system.
“It’s like basil or parsley,” he explains. “The old woman in Atlanta put it inside the beans. It has a good flavor and it makes you feel good.”
When it comes to authenticity, an important aspect of Mexican cooking for Jauregui is freshness. As in Mexico where dishes have traditionally been made using ingredients sourced locally, so to does Jauregui design his weekly specials around what is seasonally available.
“Everything fresh is better,” notes Jauregui. “For our population here, fresh is important. I do a pork chop for winter — in the summer, it’s more fish. One week we’ll have a new sauce, every week there’s a different kind of salad, or we’ll do a mole poblano.”
“I change it based on what I find,” he adds. “It depends on the season and the market. “Sometimes I come in and we have spinach, so I’ll make a spinach quesadilla which people like, or portobello mushrooms.”
“In Sag Harbor a lot of people like healthy options,” says Jauregui. “We know the customers now. I know what they like.”
The East End Chefs class at Old Whalers’ (44 Union Street, Sag Harbor) begins at 6:30 p.m. tonight, Thursday, January 19, 2012. The cost is $30 which includes wine. To reserve, call Lillian Woudsma at 553-1615. Proceeds benefit the Community House Fund at Old Whalers’.
Top: Chef Josue Jauregui at Cilantro's with a few of his signature dishes including tacos, pulled pork quesadilla and chimichanga. (Michael Heller photo).
