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Wahaca – Mexican Food at Home

Over the past 5 years we’ve had countless queries and requests from people wanting to recreate our magical Mexican street food in their own kitchen. We like their style. So with these hungry people in mind, Tommi has been compiling a book of her favourite recipes since we opened up our doors on Chandos Place and it hits the shelves on 21st June.

Just like the restaurants, the book is inspired by Mexico’s markets, cantinas and a love of parties, and it’s stocked full of recipes made using ingredients easily found in Britain so you can create authentic Mexican food without having to schlep across the Atlantic.

It has everything from breakfasts bursting with energy, hearty and healthy dinners, sensational puddings and zingy cocktails. There are little plates for sharing and larger dishes that are perfect for scooping up with a warm corn tortilla and a splash of your favourite salsa. And yes, it does have the much sought after secrets of our juicy Pork Pibil.

Having given away over 4.5 million packs of chilli seeds since we opened, there’s also a page dedicated to chilli growing with photos provided by the green-fingered readers of this very blog. A special thanks to everyone who entered our competition and sent in a photo (you’re on page 223!).

The book will be for sale in all of our our restaurants as well as in any bookshop worth its salt, but if you just can’t wait, you can order your copy online now.

Wahaca, Mexican food at home is our way of encouraging you to spread the word of Mexican food far and wide. We hope you’ll join in the fun.

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Contributor Competitions, Food & Drink, News, Our News, Recipes & Cooking Tips, Uncategorized, What's Happening

Win a trip to Mexico City

*This competition is now closed*

Together with our friends at Lonely Planet and to celebrate the launch of their new book The World’s Best Street Food, we’re offering 2 of our customers the chance to fly to Mexico City to discover where our love of street food first began.

Wahaca and Lonely Planet, making streetfood dreams come true.

The winners will be guided on a street food tour of the city and have the chance to experience the sights, sounds, tastes and smells of the neighbourhoods that are home to some of Mexico’s best street food. There are also 10 runners up prizes of copies of Lonely Planet’s new book. To enter all you have to do is fill in your email address below.

If you’re not one of the lucky winners, fear not, friends of Wahaca can buy The World’s Best Street Food at a special rate of just £10 (incl. P&P) by visiting shop.lonelyplanet.com and entering the code STREET10 at the online checkout. The book explores 100 must-eat dishes from across the globe, where to find them and how to recreate them at home. We’re pretty confident that you won’t need to look much further than the Mexico section to find the most delicious recipes though!

Terms and Conditions
The competition commences at 12am BST on 26 March 2012 and closes at 11.59pm on 25 April 2012. To enter, simply provide your name and contact email address in the competition entry section above. Entry is free, and you can only enter once. One winner will be selected randomly from all eligible entries on 30 April 2012. The winner plus one guest will receive a 7 day/6 night stay in Mexico City (including return flights and accommodation based on twinshare) and two places on Eat Mexico’s Street Food tour (approximate retail value GBP2500). Flights must be booked no later than 30 July 2012 and the date of departure must be no later than 31 December 2012. Prize winner(s) will be notified by email. By submitting your entry, you agree that these conditions of entry apply to your entry. Full terms and conditions are available here. Lonely Planet respects the privacy of others, and your personal information will only be used to tell you if you’ve won unless you have opted to hear more information above. See Lonely Planet’s privacy policy at www.lonelyplanet.com/privacy/. Wahaca may also email entrants once in a while with newsy updates from the world of Mexican Market Eating.

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News, Street Art, Uncategorized, What's Happening

Street Sketchbook Book launch

We were really excited to be contacted by Tristan Manco, author and general force-for-street-art-good, who let us know about the launch of his new book, Street Sketchbook – Journeys.

In the book Tristan explores the secret world of sketchbooks by tracing artists creative journeys, from the initial idea to its development. He features work by the most innovative street and graffiti artists from around the world, and unsurprisingly it contains a large proportion of work from the growing number of Mexican artists pushing the boundaries of street art, both in the UK and at home in Mexico.

To find out more and see a selection of the work from the artists featured, including Daniel Acosta, Daniel Berman and Uriel Marin, check out the exhibition running at the Pictures on Walls gallery, 46 – 48 Commercial Street, from Friday 1st October 6pm. For full details, check out their events page.

If you do go along, we’d love to hear what you think – just leave a comment below.

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Contributor Competitions, Food & Drink, Recipes & Cooking Tips, What's Happening

Smoked Haddock Ceviche with Corn & Sweet Potato Pancakes by Alicia Fourie

Alicia’s recipe is a deliciously alternative idea for Pancake Day. Using smoked fish is inspired and goes beautifully with the sweet potato and corn pancakes which might be a little too sweet for normal ceviche. The pancakes are also outrageously good with streaky bacon and slow-cooked tomatoes for breakfast. You can use either smoked pollock or coley for a more sustainable option.

Feeds 4 as a light main meal

Ingredients:

For the ceviche:

300g undyed smoked haddock fillets
1 serrano chilli
1 red shallot
Juice of a lime
Tabasco (optional)

For the pancakes:

120g coarse cornmeal
1 red shallot
1 serrano chilli, grated
Zest of a lime
Kernels cut from 2 cobs of corn
200g sweet potato, grated
2 whole eggs
About 100ml milk
2 egg whites
Stems from a big bunch of coriander
Salt & pepper
Sunflower oil for frying

To finish:

Juice of half a lime
Splash of olive oil
1 ripe avocado
Leaves from a big bunch of coriander

Method:

Remove the skin from the smoked haddock and cut it into thin slices, across the grain. Place the sliced chilli, sliced shallot and slices of fish in a non-reactive dish and pour over the lime juice. Sprinkle on a little Tabasco if you like it really hot. Leave for 45 minutes to cure.

In a large bowl combine the cornmeal, diced shallot, diced chilli, lime zest, corn and sweet potato.. Stir through the whole eggs and the finely chopped coriander stems. Add enough milk to make a thick batter. In another bowl, whisk the egg whites to soft peaks and fold through the corn and sweet potato mixture. Season with salt & pepper.

Fry pancakes gently in oil (about 4 minutes a side – the first one inevitably falls apart and it takes a long time to cook out the sweet potato) and keep them warm.

When ready to serve, drain the fish from the marinade (discarding the juices but retaining the sliced shallot and some of the chilli slices) and combine with the coriander leaves and scoops of avocado. Dress with the lime juice and a splash of olive oil. Correct the seasoning.

Serve the hot pancakes topped with cool, fresh ceviche.

Alicia’s recipe is very special indeed. The contrast of textures, temperatures and acidity make this a real joy. The corn and sweet potato pancakes are so good that you should make a large batch so they you can enjoy them for lunch the next day with a zesty topping of prawns and guacamole.

Thanks to everyone who entered my competition. For more Mexican recipes, including the winning recipe from Steve Gale you’ll have to buy my book – Mexican Cooking Made Simple!

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Contributor Competitions, Food & Drink, News, Recipes & Cooking Tips, What's Happening

Tommi’s recipe competition results

Thank you so so so much for all the recipes that you sent in for my recipe competition in August.  The winning entry was submitted by Steve Gale, a delicious tostada salad using the sweet-sour flavours of the chilli salt mix that Mexicans use on the streets of Mexico to season mouthwatering slices of mango, pineapple and jicama.  His recipe will be published in my new book, ‘Mexican food made simple’ which comes out at the beginning of March next year (yikes).

But there were quite a few other delicous recipes that we felt we had to publish too.  I particularly loved the delicious green sauce on eggs that Gicela Morales entered – this recipe is a sure fire way to beat any hangover and perk up the tiredest of parents, teenagers or kids on a weekend morning.  Try this recipe this weekend and tune in next week for more competition runners-up…

Gicela Morales’ Huevos Borrachos

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 chillies, depending on your tolerance…
1 small clove of garlic
240ml of water

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 or roll and a strong mug of coffee. Depending on the extent of your hangover, you may not even feel the heat!

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Contributor Competitions, Recipes & Cooking Tips, What's Happening

Tommi wants you*

*to send her your recipes…

I have been learning so much about chillies from Mexicans, fellow food lovers and general chilli nuts that I thought it would be a fun, if slightly mad-capped idea to publish someone’s best ever Mexican recipe which uses chilli in my cookbook, ‘Mexican Food Made Simple’ , due out next April.

The idea is that anyone out there in cyberspace sends me their favourite Mexican recipe using chilli.  The recipe has to be easy to follow, not too complicated and use ingredients that you can get in the UK (even if that means sending off for a Mexican chilli by mail order).  If the recipe is good enough, the winning recipe goes into my book (as judged by Hodder, my publisher, some mystery chefs and me), whilst if there is a runner-up, they will be published in Wahaca’s “Ola London”, which we hand out to 10,000 people a week at Wahaca and several hundred journalists.

For all the cynics out there, I have now written most of my book which has to be handed in by the beginning of September, so time is of the essence!  If you are keen, send recipes to loswahacos@wahaca.co.uk before 4th September.

I am waiting with baited breath to see recipes!  Let’s start the British Chilli Revolution here!

Happy cooking….

Tommi xxx

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