FOOD del Yucatan--my favorites

Hola amigos! So here are a couple of my favorite dishes that I've had here in Mexico (only a couple, because there were soo many good things that I couldn't remember the names of). This may be a very long post, as I plan on putting anything and everything I discovered about food for the last six weeks in here. Bear with me, and hopefully you'll find some gems that you can search for if you ever go to the Yucatan yourself. :)


First, I got a few recipes from my mama, Elisa, of food that I've only ever seen in our house. I don't have exact measurements, so it's all to taste.

Elisa’s Tortilla Lasagna

This definitely ranks as one of my favorite meals that Elisa made for us, aside from her many different kinds of fajitas. I don't really know how to describe it except as so dang delicious. It's like a lasagna, in that it has layers, but it uses tortillas instead of lasagna noodles.

•  Make layers with totillas harinas--flour tortillas, carne picadillo (carne molida), salsa verde, and crema
• For the top layer, you only need the tortillas, salsa, and queso (more is always better!)
• Salsa Verde
•  Green tomatoes (or tomatillos), cilantro, ajo--garlic, salt, limón , and chile if desired
• What's in the Picadillo
• Carne (pollo, puerco, o como quieres), pimiento--pepper, chile, cebolla--onion, ajo, papas, y limón  

Lemonada Pitaya--Dragon Fruit Lemonade

Talk about a divine drink. Wow I love this. If you have heard how much I love Aloe juice--which is muchisimo--then you must know that this drink ALMOST BUMPED ALOE OFF from the top of my favorite drinks. Aloe still ranks first, but only just by a string. Here's how Elisa makes it:

• For about 1 lb of wáter: azúcar--sugar (cuanto quieres), limones (3 o 4 de los grandes), y pitaya
• With the pitaya, just peel it, cut it up a little, then you can seperate it with your hands to as small of pieces as you want. It's okay if the seeds are in the juice. The seeds taste fine, and if you don't like them they are pretty easy to avoid, as they sink to the bottom.

Fruity Flan Dessert  

This was the treat that Elisa made for Rebecca's birthday. It's an interesting combination of textures. I liked the icecream and fruit part, but was a little thrown off by the flan, as could be expected. But Rebecca enjoyed it a lot! 

Here's a picture of it; it's layered with flan, icecream, fruit (Elisa used canned cocktail fruit), and topped with chocolate sauce

The following are foods that I liked, but didn't get their recipe:

The links take you on a tour of some delicious-looking pictures of each food :D

Frijol con puerco

   Black beans with pork, in a soup that you could die for. I'm not usually a fan of soup, but anytime this was served, I was most pleased--even on the hot days. The rice that is served with it has SO much flavor. Our mama was describing what they put in it, but I can't remember exactly. You put the rice in the soup, along with roasted or grilled tomatoes, cilantro, onions, lime juice, and anything else you want in there.

   Also, for normal rice, I do know that putting ajo in it makes it very flavorful. We thought for sure the rice had salt but when we asked, Elisa surprised us by saying it only had garlic.

Tacos al pastor

   I got this almost every time we went to a taco place, which we did a lot. One of our groups favorite things to do was eat tocos together. In fact, one night we even went on a taco tour, trying tacos from three different places in a row.
   Taco al pastor is on a small corn tortilla (or flour if you choose) with pork cooked on a roaster. See picture to the right. The meat is fantastic, and the staple is to serve the tacos with pineapple. You put your sauces on, like green salsa, tomato salsa, salsa picante, habanero, or whatever the restaurant has, add some lime juice, and let your mouth water over it. 
   It really is important to try a lot of dirrenent restaurants, and find the one that serves it the way you like best. Los Taquitos was one of our favorites. :)

Tres Leches postre

   Tres Leches is a cake that literally seems to dissolve in your mouth. It is full to the brim with sweet moisture, making any cake you have afterward seem sadly dry in comparison. Definitely one of the best, although you can't have much of it if you have any sense of a "too sweet" stop sign for your body.

Cochinita pibil 

   This is another pork dish (Mexicans eat pork most often--it's the cheapest meat). I had no idea how it was prepared until I looked on Wikipedia, but after seeing how it's made, it makes it look even better! Meat cooked in citrus juices? Come on, don't tell me that doesn't sound good.

Mole

   I've already talked about this in another post (Sweet Sunday) so I won't say much about it. But yeah, it's a meat dish with chocolate sauce. Need I say more?

Burritas

   These are actually just quesadillas, but with cheese AND meat. It sounds good, and when it has real meat in it, it IS. But oftentimes it was a kind of lunch meat which I wasn't a fan of. These were a simple dinner that we would have all the time: a little tortilla harina, cheese, lunchmeat, green salsa, and crema. 

Sadly, I didn't keep track of the food that I ate very well. I'm more the type that just says "oh this looks good" and then eats it--no question as to what it's called or how it's made. 

However, I DID pay attention to the icecream. And we ate icecream--almost every other day! It was one of the best things. The icecream in Mexico isn't the same as what United Staters think of as rich. While they do have the more creamy kinds in Mexico, it's more common to see REAL fruit icecream.





So, to explain more about this, I will devote a chunk of time to the Ice-cream

First of all, they have some GOOD flavors there. I'm all about the fruity kinds; I tend to gravitate toward the Sherbet in the States. And you'll find all sorts of fruit In Mex. that you can't find over in the Utah/Idaho area. My favorites? Let's just say all of them. I did take a picture of a bunch side-by side:

Here you've got (starting top left) Guanabana, Dragon Fruit, Caramel w/Sea Salt, Mamey, Mango, and Lime. 

For those of you who don't know how these taste.... I'm sorry for you. Really, I am. Because there's no way I could describe them in words anyone would understand. I will say this: Guanabana is a very sweet and rich fruit. Pitaya is sweet, but a little more subdued. Caramel Sea Salt was an interesting one--the first time I had it I though it was heavenly, but the second time it was way too bitter for my taste (I think it had a lot to do with the campanion flavor I combined with it. Pitaya was a perfect compliment; Guanabana made it bitter). Mamey reminded me of persimmon, but slightly more earthy and much more grainy. Mango and Lime, I assume you know those fruits well enough to imagine. 

One other flavor that I never got the courage to try, but wish I had was Corn. That's right, they have corn-flavored icecream. Our professor tried it and said it wasn't his favorite, which is probably why I never had it. But we saw it everywhere. <----- One place even did a great job of showing it off, don't you think?









As for the best places to get ice-cream, we had some regulars: 

1. El Colon, a chain place that you can find just about anywhere. This place is pretty cheap, charging only around 15 pesos for the perfect amount of icecream, and they have the BEST postres around. There is this cone-shaped pastry (only 10 pesos) that is like Tres Leches. It is sooo sweet, and filled with so much moisture that it melts in your mouth. Ohhh so good. Though it is too sweet to have more than a couple bites at a time. 
2. Janitzio Home Made Icecream. This shop is right next to Dairy Queen in el centro, and it is SO worth going to. Everything is homemade, and they've got a lot of great flavors there. I liked their popsicles, especially the strawberry kiwi one.  I also had the sweetest mango icecream at a place like this by El Progresso beach, though I'm not sure it was the same store or not. But man, that icecream was made from some of the ripest mangoes you could ever find. 
3. Pola, also found close to el centro. This is a great place, though a little more expensive than the other ones. It's smaller and less visited though, and where I took the picture of the flavors featured above. This was the only icecream shop that had the Caramel flavor, so if you want to try it, look for the sign in the picture to the right. :)

I also focused a bit more on the drinks (I'm a thirsty person, and appreciate a good juice) so I'll tell what I found. 

I had this amazing Pineapple Kiwi drink
at who knows where, that I want to find again.
If you ever see this drink on the menu, try it!

Indeed, it's Guanabana juice! Remember how
sweet I said this fruit is? The juice is delicious.

Surprisingly, I liked this juice even MORE
than the Guanabana one!
Guava for the win!

And lastly, we are enjoying a Pina Colada SIN alcohol at Los Taquitos!
I wish I had ordered another one.

That's all folks! The only thing left is to state a few more interesting facts that didn't find a place to fit in with all the other things. 

• It's true what they say about Coke in Mexico. It's everywhere, everyone drinks it, there's often only Coke as a beverage option (or Pepsi). It's just a thing. I even took a picture of an aisle in a store, because it struck me how much of the aisle was just full of Coke. I never noticed a difference between the taste, because I'm not an avid Coke drinker, but all of my classmates said that there definitely is a difference in taste between the Coke they have in United States and the Coke they have in Mexico. Apparently, if you buy it in Mexico, it's a lot better. 
• They have Flan in stores, in little pudding-like containers. Man, if I could just go to the store and buy Flan pudding, I would be so happy. And may they do have it in the US, but I've never seen anything like this before. That's all flan.