Mexico’s Old New Cuisine

Patricia Quintana stops short at the display of cut, red-fleshed watermelons in the giant La Merced market. “It’s beautiful,” she says, “almost like a Tamayo painting.”

Then she catches sight of a stall that sells field corn coated with huitlacoche, the fungus that Quintana refuses to call a fungus because that word is too ugly. “Corn truffle” is more poetic. “A gift from nature,” she says.

Some people show off a city through its museums and historic landmarks, but Quintana, author of 10 books, including four cookbooks published in the United States, demonstrates the richness of Mexico City, and the cuisine of Mexico itself, through its markets and restaurants.

Today’s tour will take us to three markets, one candy shop, eight restaurants and a fancy deli. And we eat everywhere.

Before our visit to La Merced, we stop, just after sunrise, at the Sonora market, a fragrant source of herbs for cooking, curing and, as some believe, magic. The lush bundles of greenery we spot--pepicha, papaloquelite, toronjil, epazote, albahaca--put to shame the stingy, expensive herb packets sold in U.S. supermarkets. Quintana, dressed for serious shopping in Armani jeans and a smartly cut black Tahari jacket, buys heaps of the herbs and hands them to Monica Solis and Erica Perez, two of her assistants who have accompanied us on this tour.

Next we head to a taqueria at La Merced for breakfast. We order two masa snacks: gorditas (“little fatties”) with chicharron (fried pigskin) mixed into the masa and huaraches--as in sandals--which is masa shaped like Shaquille O’Neal-sized shoes and topped with salsa, grilled Oaxacan cheese, squash flowers sauteed with epazote and, finally, grated an~ejo cheese.

Walking through the market, we see fresh walnuts for chiles en nogada; mixiote, a sheer membrane from the maguey plant that is used to wrap meats; banana leaves from Veracruz; habanero chiles and oregano from Yucatan. We learn that one stand’s tiny cloves of garlic, regarded as a curative, go in your pocket, not in your mouth.

We find fragrant guavas, just coming into season; pale-skinned pomegranates; pitahaya, with a gaudy pink rim and white center dotted with tiny black seeds, and the avocado-shaped, brown-skinned mamey with the peel stripped back to show the orange flesh.

Next stop is the San Juan market, more orderly than La Merced. We drink freshly squeezed grapefruit juice from one stall; taste cheese at La Holandesa, including a creamy sheep milk cheese from Guanajuato with a delicate caramel flavor; view pristine fish; and find the chicken counter lined with birds placed breast up as if they were soldiers at attention.

The abundance of fresh ingredients makes Mexico City a cook’s paradise. We’re not surprised when Quintana says it is now fashionable to become a chef. Recent years have seen the development of what many call alta cocina, the Mexican version of the nouvelle cuisine movement that took hold years ago in France and the United States. Mexican chefs, however, do not yet receive the adulation accorded their colleagues in the U.S.

From San Juan we walk to the Dulceria de Celaya, a candy store founded in 1874. The old-fashioned candies--aleluyas, jamoncillos, picones, ates and many others--are a delight to see, and we depart with sacks in hand.

A sidewalk organ grinder offers a serenade as we continue to the restaurant Bolivar 12, housed in an 18th century structure that was the home of Spain’s first ambassador to Mexico.

In the restaurant’s charming sunlit patio, we snack on pineapple-garnished fish tacos, chicken chalupas, ceviche tostadas and rabbit al mojo de ajo. Quintana points to fideos (vermicelli) as an example of a common dish presented in a new way. Along with the traditional sprinkle of cheese, the noodles are topped with thick crema, avocado and black pasilla chile.

Lunch is eaten at the packed Que Bonito!, a restaurant near Quintana’s home that blends the traditional with the new: mole sauce with raspberry, for instance, and a chipotle chile sauce that is as sweet as it is hot; nopal (cactus) is turned into a gelatin dessert surrounded by raspberry sauce. Crab-stuffed dried chiles, sweet from piloncillo (Mexican brown sugar) in the marinade, are even more impressive. The crunchy fried garnishes include beet shreds, green onion and parsley.

We have champagne, and Quintana stirs until the wine foams out of her glass. “I don’t like the bubbles,” she explains. She dabs a drop of the overflow behind each ear--a Mexican custom to bring good luck.

Dessert, a rose petal tart surrounded by creamy pale pink sauce, seems new and eclectic but is actually an entrancing dish from the era of Empress Carlota.

All over Mexico City and many other parts of the country, cooks and chefs are mixing the old with the new in the name of alta cocina. Quintana herself created many of the new-old dishes as consultant at Mexico City’s Cafe Pavillon at the Maria Isabel Sheraton.

“I am trying to use traditional things, but with a modern twist,” Quintana says. This, in short, is the thrust of contemporary Mexican cuisine: old dishes seen in new ways.

The night before our eating tour, at Cafe Pavillon, during a dinner that went past 1 a.m. despite her early market wake-up call, Quintana presented a meal that showed just what she meant.

Red snapper came wrapped in anise-scented hoja santa leaf. Chicken was seasoned with roasted ground avocado leaf. Old-style aristocratic service inspired a creamy carrot soup, poured at the table over a pickled, cheese-stuffed ancho chile and a quesadilla filled with squash flowers.

Special margaritas were made with tamarind, jamaica (hibiscus flower juice), orange juice, mescal, Grand Marnier and tequila.

We nibbled on tiny tacos sudados (“sweating” tacos) nestled in a cloth-lined basket that held an even tinier clay dish of salsa. We tried pozole, the hominy and pork soup from Jalisco, and sampled tacos of cochinita pibil (achiote-marinated baked pork) from Yucatan.

But the night’s most arresting dish, the item Quintana insisted we stay and try even though the restaurant was almost deserted and it was past midnight, was a Nayarit-style stuffed chile. The fat roasted poblano was filled with crab and served cold with a mango vinaigrette. The dish was a perfect example of how Quintana and other Mexican chefs are serving traditional Mexican dishes with fresh ideas and an upscale presentation.

Quintana’s cooking career can be traced to her childhood, when she prepared imaginary dishes for dolls on a toy stove with miniature clay pots. As her cooking skills evolved (and actual food went on the plate), her files grew to contain thousands of recipes.

Her interests are as diverse as her ancestry, which blends Spanish, French, English and Mexican blood. She has described ancient Aztec cuisine in poetry that turns cooking into an act of reverence. (The long poem is part of an art book called “Festin en el Mictlan,” published in Mexico in 1992 and now a scarce collector’s item.) Next year, Quintana expects to complete a novel. And she has made a yet-to-be-seen culinary tour of Veracruz for public television in the United States.

At Quintana’s home in the fashionable Lomas de Chapultepec district, we rest briefly in the drawing room, which is furnished with a Chinese screen, Oriental rugs, heritage furniture and an enormous coffee table stacked with books, most by Quintana.

Her home is the nerve center of her operations; it is equipped with an office and a huge basement that houses enough cookware and serving equipment to stock a shop. We sip refreshing agua de pin~a (a pineapple drink) in the kitchen, where she has trained chefs and conducted cooking classes. Surprisingly, there is only one range. (Quintana plans to enlarge the room someday so she can add another stove and sink.)

We walk through the long dining room with its heavy crystal chandelier, immense table and “cupboards” that fool the eye--they’re only painted on the wall. Here, she caters lunches for the city’s elite with the help of her five assistants and three maids.

Now we head for Arroyo, a huge, sprawling restaurant with the ambience of a Sunday barbecue in the country. The mariachi music is lively, and the cinnamon scent of cafe de olla greets us as we enter.

“This is the roots,” says Quintana--traditional cooking--as we set to work on tlacoyos, oval masa cakes stuffed with beans and topped with cheese and green salsa. Then we tuck into lamb barbecued in maguey leaves. The dark sauce on the side is made of pulque and pasilla chile. Mixiote, the sheer membrane we saw in the market, wraps still more lamb, bathed in guajillo chile sauce. We also taste huazontle, a nubby green that vaguely resembles broccoli. It has been egg-coated and fried, as if it were a chile relleno, and topped with mole and tomato sauces.

From Arroyo, it is a big leap to the understated elegance of Vina Gourmet in the well-heeled El Pedregal district. The glass-fronted restaurant, which opens onto a deli and wine shop, is spare and contemporary. “There is nothing else like it in Mexico,” Quintana says.

The plates have arty garnishes, like the clever placements of vegetables and potatoes around a beef fillet with chipotle essence. A salad of watercress, blue cheese, pear, bacon and pistachios with mango vinaigrette could have come straight from West Hollywood. The desserts we see are studied arrangements of fruit mousses with painterly dabs of sauce on big plates.

In the deli are porcini mushrooms, extra-virgin olive oil and wines from both Baja and Alta Californias. Quintana’s influence is felt here too--her Gavilla dressings and marinades are displayed near the entrance.

It’s a short drive to Campanario, where Quintana wants to check on dishes that she has introduced. One is butterflied steak placed on a puree of blue and goat cheeses with a sauce of reduced chicken stock and squash flowers. The steak has side-by-side toppings of huitlacoche and squash flowers. A tiny tortilla basket alongside contains cheese, squash flowers and a deep-fried chile de arbol. Quintana discusses improvements for the dish with the chef, and we depart for La Taberna Del Leon.

The upscale restaurant, which occupies the owner’s mansion, is part of a complex of shops that was once a paper factory. We are too full to eat, but then some tempting appetizers arrive. A casserole of wild mushrooms cooked with cream and epazote and topped with goat cheese is wonderful. Tiny circles of crisp masa are the base for pickled oysters combined with nopales. Tortillas cut into canape bases hold beans and fresh sardines or cream cheese, onion, salmon and a drizzle of olive oil.

After this final (finally) meal, Quintana drives us to our lodgings, playing the opera CDs that help her relax.

In one day, we have eaten an astonishing amount of rich food. Yet Quintana is a tiny woman, slim and inexhaustible. We learn that she works out for an hour each day, walking briskly through her large house. For breakfast, she has only a mixture of juices and a glass of water. Once in a while she fasts for three days, consuming a single fruit and liquids. If her pressured schedule induces a headache, she cures it with water, juices or herbal teas; she never takes medicine, she says. Massages, steam baths, meditation and an occasional day in bed help too.

Quintana travels constantly. She was in California last month to consult on regional specialties that the El Torito restaurants will introduce in November.

As a student of archeology and Mexican history, Quintana rejoices in the direction of Mexican alta cocina toward old traditions. It’s a trend she encourages with a nonstop flow of ideas. “I don’t know [where they come from],” she says. “They just come.”

GRAND MARNIER MARGARITA

1/3 cup orange juice

3 tablespoons lime juice

1 1/2 ounces tequila

3/4 ounce Grand Marnier

2 teaspoons sugar

Ice cubes

1 chunk pineapple

Combine orange juice, lime juice, tequila, Grand Marnier and sugar in cocktail shaker. Add ice cubes and shake until well blended. Turn into cocktail glass and garnish with chunk of pineapple speared on toothpick.

*

1 serving. Each serving:

225 calories; 1 mg sodium; 0 cholesterol; 0 fat; 21 grams carbohydrates; 1 gram protein; 0.08 gram fiber.

POSTRE DE YUCA

Quintana makes the sauce for this recipe with dark red cactus flower jelly, which she buys from a hacienda in the state of Guanajuato. We substituted golden cactus and agarita jelly from Texas; prickly pear marmalade or jelly would also work. (See Cookstuff, Back Page.) The color is golden, not red, but the flavor is pleasingly tart-sweet, just what is needed to balance soft, bland yuca.

3 pounds yuca, peeled and cut into chunks

Water

1 tablespoon salt

1/3 cup flour

Sugar

3 egg yolks

1 egg

1/2 pound filo dough

1 1/4 cups (2 1/2 sticks) butter, clarified, plus extra for greasing baking sheets

2 (10-ounce) jars cactus-and-agarita jelly or prickly pear marmalade or jelly

2 tablespoons lime juice

1/2 cup whipping cream plus extra for garnish

* Cook yuca, covered, in boiling water to cover by 2 inches and 1 tablespoon salt until tender, about 2 1/2 hours. Drain, then return to saucepan over low heat to evaporate any remaining liquid. Mash with potato masher.

* Remove from heat and add flour, 1 cup sugar, egg yolks and egg. Beat well. Return to heat and cook to make thick, spongy puree, 3 to 5 minutes. Remove from heat.

* Remove 2 sheets filo dough and stack. (Keep rest of filo dough covered until ready to use to prevent drying.) Cut double-layer dough into 3-inch squares and place on buttered baking sheets. Repeat with rest of dough. Bathe each dough square with clarified butter and sprinkle lightly with sugar. Bake at 400 degrees until crisp, about 5 minutes.

* Put jelly in skillet. Stir in 1/3 cup water, lime juice and cream. Bring to boil while whisking and immediately remove from heat. Cool.

* For each serving, arrange 1 filo square on plate. Cover with 1 tablespoon yuca puree. Top with second filo square. Spread with more yuca puree. Top with another filo square. Cut another filo square into quarters. Place small dab whipped cream at 1 edge of square and use to anchor quartered filo dough square decoratively at angle. Spoon cactus sauce around edges. Repeat for each serving.

*

20 servings. Each serving:

344 calories; 520 mg sodium; 91 mg cholesterol; 15 grams fat; 50 grams carbohydrates; 4 grams protein; 1.56 grams fiber.

NAYARIT-STYLE STUFFED CHILES

The sweetness of fresh mango and the slight spiciness of fresh poblano chiles go together in a wonderful way. The surprise: The dish is served cold.

STUFFED CHILES

6 (1/4-pound) poblano chiles, roasted and peeled

Vinegar

1 tablespoon butter

1 tablespoon olive oil

1/4 small onion, finely chopped

1/2 pound cooked crab meat or 1 (6-ounce) can crab meat, flaked

2 tablespoons chopped chives or green onion

1/2 pound mangoes, peeled and finely chopped

Salt, pepper

*

VINAIGRETTE and ASSEMBLY

2 mangoes

1 1/2 teaspoons cider vinegar

1 1/2 teaspoons nonfat chicken stock

1/2 cup canned mango nectar

1 small clove garlic, roasted and chopped

Salt

Freshly ground black pepper

3 tablespoons plus 3/4 teaspoon olive oil

1/8 teaspoon sugar, optional

6 sprigs thyme

STUFFED CHILES

* Make slit in 1 side of each roasted chile. Remove veins and seeds carefully without tearing chiles. Soak chiles in water to cover with few drops vinegar while preparing filling and vinaigrette.

* Heat butter and 1 1/2 teaspoons olive oil in saucepan. Add onion and cook until tender, 2 to 3 minutes. Add crab meat and 1 tablespoon chives and cook 1 minute.

* Heat remaining 1 1/2 teaspoons olive oil in skillet. Add chopped mango and saute until softened, 2 to 3 minutes. Add crab mixture and stir to blend. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Cool.

* Drain chiles. Stuff each with about 1/4 cup filling.

VINAIGRETTE and ASSEMBLY

* Peel mangoes and cut into chunks. Puree in food processor or blender. Place in saucepan and cook over low heat, stirring, until thickened, 5 to 7 minutes. Remove from heat and cool.

* Blend thickened puree, vinegar, stock, mango nectar, garlic and salt and pepper to taste in food processor or blender until smooth. Gradually add olive oil, blending until emulsified. Check seasoning and add sugar if needed. Chill.

* Place spoonful of vinaigrette on 6 chilled salad plates. Top each with Stuffed Chile. Bathe chiles with additional vinaigrette. Sprinkle remaining 1 tablespoon chopped chives over all and decorate each with 1 thyme sprig. Dust with freshly ground pepper.

*

6 servings. Each serving:

228 calories; 1,414 mg sodium; 20 mg cholesterol; 12 grams fat; 25 grams carbohydrates; 9 grams protein; 1.09 grams fiber,

JALISCO-STYLE RED POZOLE

The Times Test Kitchen modified Quintana’s recipe slightly to make it easier to prepare. The original version calls for pork head, leg meat with fat, pork loin, pig’s feet and bones for stock. We compromised by using just one cut of meat, pork butt, along with neck bones, and we used canned hominy rather than cooking dried corn. Guajillo and puya chiles are available in Latino markets.

POZOLE BROTH

32 (8 quarts) cups water

1 small head garlic, halved

1 small onion, halved

2 pounds pork butt, cut in large chunks

1 pound pork neck bones

2 chicken wings

Salt

*

CHILE

6 guajillo chiles

2 puya chiles

2 chiles de arbol

1/2 pound plum tomatoes

1/2 onion

1 clove garlic

3/4 teaspoon oregano

Salt

*

ASSEMBLY

1 (29-ounce) can hominy, drained

Finely shredded romaine

Finely shredded cabbage

16 radishes, thinly sliced

1 large onion, finely chopped

Ground chile piquin

Crushed oregano

16 toasted or fried tortillas

8 limes, halved

*

POZOLE

Boil water in Dutch oven. Add garlic, onion, pork meat, neck bones, chicken wings and salt to taste. Boil until liquid is reduced to 3 quarts, about 2 hours. Remove from heat. Cool meats in stock, then drain and shred, discarding chicken skin. Skim fat from stock and reserve stock.

*

CHILE

Wash guajillo, puya and de arbol chiles and remove stems, seeds and veins. Soak in water to cover 1 hour. Puree chiles, tomatoes, onion, garlic and oregano in food processor or blender. Strain to eliminate peels. Season lightly with salt.

*

ASSEMBLY

Heat chile and Pozole Broth to same temperature and combine. Add reserved shredded meats and hominy and heat to serving temperature.

Serve in large individual bowls. Arrange romaine, cabbage, radishes, onion, chile piquin, oregano, tortillas and limes in individual bowls and serve as garnishes to add to pozole as desired.

6 to 8 servings. Each of 8 servings, without garnishes:

246 calories; 375 mg sodium; 65 mg cholesterol; 8 grams fat; 21 grams carbohydrates; 22 grams protein; 1.22 grams fiber.

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Cook’s Tips

To clarify butter, as required in the Postre de Yuca, heat it in a small saucepan over low heat until it melts and separates. Spoon off any foam on top. Spoon off clear, clarified butter, leaving milky residue in pan.

Books by Patricia Quintana “The Taste of Mexico” (Stewart, Tabori & Chang, 1986)

“Feasts of Life” (Council Oaks Books, 1989)

“The Cuisine of the Water Gods” (Simon & Schuster, 1994)

“The Best of Quintana” (Stewart, Tabori & Chang, 1995)

Other books by Quintana, including a lavish study of the cuisine of Puebla, were published in Mexico.