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Huevos Borrachos by Gicela Morales

One of the star recipes submitted for my Recipe Competition was by Gicela Morales a wonderful Mexican woman who is fiendishly good with salsas. Eggs are a staple in Mexico and there is nowhere that you will eat a better breakfast. The green sauce on these eggs is as fiery as they come and perfect for blowing through the steamiest of hangovers. It is also incredibly good for you, a properly healthy start to the day. If you are looking for a way to blow away some cobwebs then look no further. Over to Gicela:

This is a hot green salsa with eggs for anyone with a hangover. It’s very easy to make and only requires very basic ingredients and a few green chilles.

You can make it as hot or as mild as you wish, but the idea is to make it as hot as you can stand it! Also makes a good brunch.

Ingredients (serves 2)

For the eggs

5 free range eggs
1 small onion
2 table spoons of good frying oil
Salt to taste

For the salsa

3 to 5 green chilles
1 small clove of garlic
1 cup of water

Method

1. Seed the chilles and roast them with the chopped garlic. Remove any burnt skin and put them in a food processor with the water until chopped roughly.

2. Chop the onion. Heat the oil in a frying pan and add the onion. Saute the onion and add the eggs; mix until scrambled.

3. Add the green salsa to the egg and mix it gently. Bring it to to boil and add salt to taste.

Serve and eat with fresh bread, a roll or on a taco with a strong mug of coffee. Depending on the extent of your hangover, you may not even feel the heat!

Enjoy!

This is a great dish for blasting away a hangover. Thank you Gicela for sharing it.

Stay tuned for more contribution to my Mexican recipe competition. And if you make this dish please let us know how you get on by leaving a comment.

Food & Drink > Food & Drink > Food Topics & Trends

Burrito tasting at Wahaca Canary Wharf

Last week we invited a group of Burrito lovers down to Canary Wharf to give us feedback on Wahaca’s burritos as we start to plan the take-away menu to launch in March. We had fun but also got some really helpful advice.

We started off doing a tasting of all the burritos we serve at the restaurant. We usually toast our burritos like the photo above but for take-away we are going to have to leave it with a soft tortilla so we wanted to see how they fare. Luckily we got some positive feedback on the soft tortilla burritos although there were a few who tried it toasted for the first time and really loved it!

Here is some feedback from our Burrito tasters:

“It was great to try the range of burritos at Wahaca and I was surprised by just how nice the toasted ones tasted! I was also very impressed by the hottest of the salsas. Usually I go for the chicken option so this tasting session was an ideal opportunity for me to try the other meats. The slow-cooked pork was particularly nice but sorry, pickled onions are not for me!”

Mark Jansen from London Burrito

“The slow-cooked pork burrito was heaven in a tortilla! The incredibly tasty shredded pork paired very nicely with fantastically zingy pickled onions and habanero chillies. Spicy!”

Elizabeth Dunne (AKA @eBeth)

“I really loved all the burritos – and it’s truly a tough choice for my favourite – but if I had to pick just one, I think I’d go with the char-grilled steak. Beefy, juicy and with the spice just right, I savored every bite.”

Chris Osburn from The Londonist

“It was really nice to see how much thought was going in to the takeaway burritos; if only I worked near the Canary Wharf branch! It was also good to have our suggestions trialled on the spot, and I think the final chicken burrito was much better for it. You were all very open to suggestions, as well as the decisions behind every aspect of the restaurant, particularly about the question of guacamole in the burritos. A tonne of avocados a week is rather a lot.”

Edd Hannay (AKA Burrito Safari)

The last bits were the most fun as we started playing with some ideas. Firstly we used a bit of Chipotle butter on a soft pork burrito – just brushed a little on the inside of the tortilla. The idea being to add some flavour to the edges of the tortilla. This was too naughty, too filling and just too much… for most of us but then a few thought it was just heaven.

I would definitely fall asleep at my desk if i had one of these for lunch… verdict was that it wasn’t right but a fun thing to try!

Next was Simon and Gail’s feedback on our chicken burrito as they sent Tommi back to the kitchen with some instructions and recommendations! Rather than using our Chicken tinga, which is a traditional Mexican recipe, they wanted us to use the grilled chicken with a tomato salsa to make it more fresh tasting. (Click here for Gail’s great blog)

Tommi came back with a delicious creation which did taste a whole lot fresher and has got us thinking further about how we can improve it… watch this space!

Thanks to everyone for coming along. For other perspectives have a look at these three posts:

One Million Gold Stars
Londonist
London Burrito

What's Happening > Events at Wahaca > Food & Drink > Food & Drink > Food Topics & Trends > Food & Drink > Pairings > What's Happening

A Mexican wine evening

On Wednesday night Bibendum Wines & Wahaca got together a group of wine experts for a food and wine pairing with Thomasina Miers of Wahaca and Hugo D’Acosta – a Mexican wine pioneer.

Mexican wine to most people is a new discovery and for me it was an incredibly enjoyable one. I am not a “wino” at all and whether a bottle is good is measured by me wanting another glass or not but I found it very interesting to match it with food and enjoyed combining the flavours.

I am also very interested in anything mexican (obviously!) and the whole history of wine and the culture around it I found fascinating.

Hugo gave Wahaca a book on The Wine Valleys of Mexico which are based in Baja California – a very beautiful dramatic region of Mexico just near the border to the US. I am actually planning to go there in February so will definitely have a lot more to say and show on it while out there.

This book gives a little history of the origin of Wine in Mexico with it starting back in the 16th Century when the vines were brought over by the Spaniards and renewed themselves – achieving their own personality and essence. But some grapes did actually already exist in Mexico before the Spaniards arrived – a wild or Cimarron grape from which a juice was extracted and which the Aztecs mixed with honey and fruits to make a beverage called acachul which can still be found in Mexico using the traditional recipe. These grapes were not able to be made into wine though so the Spaniards quickly planted the European grapes Vitis vinifera and due to unbeatable conditions the vines were to be found in many different regions.

By 1595, the enormous production of grapes in Mexico became a big problem for the Spanish winemakers and also the owners and managers of the merchant fleets in Cadiz saw their wine producing business diminish so pressure was put on the King to pass a law which forbade more vines to be planted in Mexico. Many vineyards were burnt down as well.

This led later on in 1848 to Baja California being the centre for wine growing in Mexico as it was at this time not part of Mexico due to the war between the USA and Mexico and therefore enabled the missionaries to plant their vines without the threat of the law.

Can’t wait to find out more about this when I meet up with Hugo in Baja in a months time.

The wine experts at Bibendum have written a more detailed tasting blog on the wines which has got a couple of awesome videos in it as well.

It was a really great evening with Tommi creating dishes such as this delicous fresh ceviche and Hugo providing a wonderful selection of interesting and enjoyable wines.

To taste a very good example of Mexican wines come to Wahaca where Estacion Porvenir is served at the moment which is the only one of these wines available in the UK at the moment.

Here is the menu for the evening – we hope to see many of these wines over in the UK soon.

Guacamole and Tortilla Chips

Emblema 2008

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Scallops ceviche with tortilla chips

Piedra de Sol 2008

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Tostada

Black Bean

Herring

Kerubiel 2007

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Tacos

Mole Taco

Steak Taco w. cheese

Estacion Porvenir 2007

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Huitlacoche Quesadilla

Chorizo cheese Quesadilla

Ensamble Arenal 2007

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Churros

Maat 2007

If you want to read more about Mexican wine have a look at these great posts:

Bibendum’s Mexican Wine Night at Wahaca
Mexico’s Valley of Wine
A Toast to Mexico’s Undiscovered Wine Country
Trailblazers named Mexican Wine Persons of the Year

Food & Drink > Food Topics & Trends > News > Our News

Today in Trafalgar Square, Feeding the 5000

Tommi & Tristram - thrilled with the turnout today despite the cold and snow!

Tommi and I just got back from the freezing conditions and snow in (of all places) Trafalgar Square, where Tommi was giving a cooking demonstration as part of the feed the 5000 event.

Please click here for link to an article in the Daily Mail.

Tommi in action

Tommi handing out some of Wahaca's chilli seeds to those who came along to watch.

It was a great event and an amazing cause – we were so thrilled to be involved. We look forward to doing more on this in the future.

Food & Drink > Food & Drink > Food Topics & Trends > News > News > Our News

Feeding the 5000, Trafalgar Square December 16th

Pop by Trafalgar Square on Wednesday 16th December to witness the Feeding of 5000 between 12-2pm for some lunch. Tristram Stuart has organised with a partnership of campaigners, charities and other supporters to serve lunch to 5000 members of the public to highlight the problem of food waste, and the many practical ways to solve it. Wahaca’s Tommi Miers will be doing a live cooking masterclass between 12-2pm to show everyone how to best use their leftovers or food that would otherwise be thrown away.

Rich countries like the UK currently waste up to half of their food supplies therefore all the food handed out on the day to passers-by will be made from fresh and nutritious ingredients that otherwise would have been wasted.

The menu will include a winter-busting curry made from vegetables cast out because they are not cosmetically perfect and freshly-made fruit smoothies, pressed on the day by customised bicycles.

Organised by the author and food waste campaigner Tristram Stuart, Feeding the 5000 will highlight the work of the partner organisations, Save the Children; ActionAid; This is Rubbish; and FareShare.

The organiser Tristram Stuart explains:

“Feeding the 5000 is a wonderful partnership including food companies, farmers and charities. The aim of our lunchtime feast is to highlight how food waste can be avoided by putting food to good use i.e. feeding people.”

A few facts:

There are 4 million people in the UK who are unable to afford a healthy diet. Food is a basic human need.  There is plenty of it in this country and FareShare works with the food and drink industry to ensure quality surplus food – that would otherwise go to landfill or be recycled – is given to the vulnerable people who need it most.

UK households waste 25% of all the food they buy. This is Rubbish works to raise awareness of how individuals, as well as retailers, can reduce the amount of food waste they produce.

According to Save the Children, 3.1 million children die from hunger every year while billions of pounds of food are wasted. The average UK family wastes around £480 worth of food a year. For that price three children could be saved from malnutrition. Rich governments should be encouraged to make combating hunger a priority and ensure that resources saved by reducing food waste are put into feeding hungry people around the world.

Hope to see you there! For more information click here. Also worth checking out Tristram’s book on the subject called Waste: Uncovering the Global Food Scandal by clicking here.

Food & Drink > Food & Drink > Food Topics & Trends > Food & Drink > Supplier Articles

Local chilli expert becomes a regional food hero!!

Matt from Market Kitchen and Joanna Plumb outside Edible Ornamentals shop

Big Congratulations to one of our chilli suppliers, Shawn and Joanna Plumb at Edible Ornamentals who are the East Anglia winners of the Local Food Hero Award.

We think its great that a chilli grower won this and hope more and more people will grow chillies or buy chillies and then use them at home in their Mexican recipes.

The criteria for Local Food Heroes are businesses that provide the very best in food quality and service, have commitment and passion together with a strong connection to the local area. Food lovers across the nation were asked to nominate their favourite business which help put food onto our plates, that meet these criteria whether they be growers, farm shops or restaurants.  Viewer’s voted on the Good Food website, and the most popular 10 businesses in each region were assessed by a panel of experts, with the best three selected to appear in the new TV series on the Good Food channel’s Market Kitchen.

Go Shawn and Joanna and thank you for growing such great chillies for Wahaca.

Click here to find out more about Edible Ornamentals and their great produce.

What's Happening > Contributor Competitions > Food & Drink > Food & Drink > Food Topics & Trends > News > News > Our News > What's Happening

The little chilli growing competition…

To all those lucky people in Canary Wharf who received one of these lovely little pots…

We want you to put together a special guide on how to grow your chillies – whether your secret trick is dancing, singing, hugging or that special concoction of vitamins that you’ve been giving your plant.

Please send through photos (to loswahacos@wahaca.co.uk) along with your commentary showing the whole development of your chilli growing and your advice for everyone else out there wanting to grow chillies. The winner will get a free dinner at Wahaca for up to 6 people. It can be funny, very serious or slightly bizarre, we don’t mind as long as it gets a mighty fine chilli plant to hold up as an example to all the fellow Wharf chilli growers! All entries (within reason) will be put on our blog.

Send your entries through by the end of January and we’ll get judging. Can’t wait to see what the Wharfers have been up to!

In the meantime, remember to bring your chilli pot in this January (with the pink “Little chilli give away” sign) and show us how your going for that free pot of guacamole & chips.

(Don’t worry you may not have any chillies by the end of January but you won’t be far off and will have done very well looking after your plant through its early days).

Either send us pictures of your chilli plants via email to loswahacos@wahaca.co.uk or add them to our Flickr group

Food & Drink > Food & Drink > Food Topics & Trends > News > What's Happening

Blaggers Banquet… the review!!

On Sunday night Mark and I went to the Blaggers’ Banquet event at the Hawksmoor Restaurant  - all to raise money for Action Against Hunger. It was taking the pop up restaurant to a new level with a team having never worked together blagging food from all over the country, creating a menu using these products and then cooking and serving the food to 50 rather fussy and well eaten individuals. An amazing feat for anyone and annoyingly they made it seem far too easy!

I will leave the true art of restaurant blogging to those who, with relative ease, did a pretty good job of running a restaurant on Sunday night but thought I would drop down a few reflections on a delicious meal.

Mathilde from Mathilde’s Cuisine was our waitress for the evening with Denise from The Wine Sleuth serving us some delicious wine – we were met by warm happy smiles all round which gave the evening a great personal and friendly feeling.

Each course was matched with a different wine but I stuck to the delicious Portugese wine from Casa Leal, called Quinta Lagoalva De Cima, for most of the evening which was incredibly enjoyable… mmm yes I was feeling a little weary on Monday morning thanks to the Wine Sleuth’s efficient pouring!

Ok so i’m not going to go through the whole menu but i took a few photos of my favourite parts.. starting with these canapes made of deep fried crispy chicken skin (or were they roasted)… a similar idea to our pork scratchings (but i think ours may be a lot healthier!) we would really love to put something like this on our menu.. such a treat to have alongside a drink – in fact i would have been satisfied if that was all i was given for the whole evening!

Lancashire Hot pot is the next thing I want to tell you about as it is such a school dish that gets ruined time and time again but this was so tender and flavoursome that I had seconds and thirds of it  - despite also having a melt in the mouth buffalo steak and a tasty beef stew, which was all soaked up with some good fresh bread blagged from St Johns.

This was all followed by a gooey chocolate fondant cake and some extraordinary “Titillating jellies” which the man i was sitting next to was finding hard to cut up! Cheese, coffee, wine, more wine and auctions (brilliantly led by Tim Hayward) followed which brought us all back to why we were all still there! We have donated and created for this one off occasion a voucher for a cooking class with Tommi for eight people and no more at one of the Wahaca restaurants. Two tickets were in the raffle, two were auctioned off and 4 more are to go online – click here to check out the auction list and it should be going up over the next week.

This is a great and different christmas present for any friend of relative who is interested in Mexican food or just food in general so make sure you all get bidding.

We are secretly hoping the bloggers set up permanent shop somewhere soon, however from the tired faces showing when we left on Sunday night i think they might revert back to blogging… will have to wait until next year!

Food & Drink > Food & Drink > Food Topics & Trends > What's Happening

Food Blaggers’ Banquet

Niamh, from Eat Like a Girl, and a group of fellow food and wine bloggers are hosting The Food Blaggers’ Banquet at Hawksmoor in order to raise money for Action Against Hunger. Participating bloggers have blagged all the produce and supplies from generous companies and will be also be cooking and serving the guests.

In addition to the dinner there will be auction where you can bid to get your mitts on some fantastic lots, with the best one being a cooking lesson from none-other-than Tommi! Apparently there will be some items auctioned on the night and then the bidding will continue online for the following week or so.

So if you want to come along, visit the eBay store where you’ll find a few tickets are still on sale. We are going along and are looking forward to a fantastic evening.

Food & Drink > Food & Drink > Food Topics & Trends > News > News > Our News

Mexican Food at the British Museum

We are thrilled to have Mel from Travels with my Fork writing a guest blog for us on the exciting talk that took place at the British Museum last week. If anyone else out there wants to write a guest blog for us do just let us know.

Last night, myself, Kelsie (the other half of Travels With My Fork) and dozens of people converged at the British Museum to hear a panel discussion about Mexican food. This was a rare opportunity to hear from some people I personally really admire talk about a subject near and dear to their hearts.

Moderating the panel was Fay Maschler, food critic of the Evening Standard. She was joined by Wahaca’s very own Thomasina Miers, as well as Fiona Dunlop who has recently published Viva la Revolucion! , Chef Enrique Olvera who runs the prestigious Pujol a restaurant in Mexico City and my hero when it comes to Mexican cooking, Diana Kennedy.

The talk traversed a wide range of topics, including these highlights:

Diana Kennedy giving a ‘tip of the iceberg’ description of the mostly unknown regional differences in cooking and ingredients.  She spoke about how there are many varied bio-regions which have led to these regional differences and sounded a warning call against big agribusiness which has the potential to wipe out these micro-crops.

FIona Dunlop describing the recent rise in visibility of a new generation of Mexican chefs who are propelling Mexican food to international recognition.

Enrique spoke at great length about the balance between maintaining traditions and their natural evolution.  I was particularly impressed by how he described a shift in cooking from obtaining legitimacy from European influences to honouring the well developed classic techniques from within Mexico itself.

Thomasina described how what she and the Wahaca team are doing is a challenge directly tied to the availability of produce and ingredients that are only found in Mexico.  She also described the different ‘races’ of corn available in Mexico and sees, with the lime slaking technique used there, the opportunity to develop corn as the next superfood.

Following questions from the audience, I learned about a ‘magic’ rock used by one woman’s grandmother when making beans that imparts a unique flavour.  There was a very animated discussion about the difficulty in reversing most UK people’s association of Mexican food with that of stodgy, sour cream laden Tex-Mex abominations to the wealth of flavours and ingredients that Mexican food truly is.  A question about tamales, got Diana really excited and she was ready to spend another two hours discussing all the different varieties she has come across.

It was a great mix of viewpoints and experiences and as the evening wore on I was hoping it would never end.

An apt closing question asked each panelist to talk about a memorable experience or memory of Mexican food.  Both Fiona and Thomasina described Mexican versions of ‘Underground Restaurants’ with their meeting women who sold their specialities from the front of their homes.  In the case of Fiona it was Mole sauce, and in the case of Thomasina it was empanadas.  Enrique spoke about his grandmother’s food which has had a lasting influence on his cooking and described her dish of Frijoles Puercos (pork and beans).  And finally,Diana described an expedition to find a particular nut that is only found in a small area.  After travelling and searching she found the bush only to be informed by a local woman that all the nuts had been eaten that morning by a flock of parrots.

And if the talk were not enough to get our appetites going, the Wahaca folks laid on a spread of food afterwards with a selection of Mexican beers and Margaritas to complement the food.

It seems clear from this experience that Mexican food is finally getting the recognition it deserves for being a rich, well-developed classical cuisine of it’s own right.

Viva la revolucion of Mexican food!

PS: I was extremely honoured at the end of the panel discussion to meet Diana Kennedy and ask her to sign my 20-year-old foodstained and dogeared copy of The Cuisines of Mexico.  She urged me, as she had urged the audience throughout the evening, to pick up a copy of her new release Essential Cuisines of Mexico.

Check out Tommi making a Mole on the British Museum website here.

Thanks to Mel for a fantastic Guest Post.

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