Your Cooking Lesson

Advice, explanation, and in-depth information to help you achieve recipe success.

Mexican cuisine offers so much more than tacos and enchiladas—although these are some of my favorite foods! During my seven years as co-owner of a contemporary Mexican restaurant, I spent countless hours researching Mexico’s regional cuisines to bring authentic dishes to our mostly-American clientele. Although we were a high-end destination restaurant for many, we also valued our West Philadelphia neighbors and encouraged them to dine with us regularly by offering an inexpensive nightly prix-fixe menu. One of our most popular neighborhood entrées was Albóndigas al Chipotle: meatballs in a smoky tomato sauce spiced with chiles chipotles en adobo. Albóndigas is down-home Mexican comfort food, for sure. Often served en caldo (as a soup, the meatballs floating in a rich chicken-and-pork broth), albóndigas can also star as an entrée napped with a rustic sauce and served over rice.

Although the indigenous staple starch of Mexico is masa, a dough made from ground dried corn, rice arrived with the Spanish in the 1500s and is popular as both a side dish and as a course in its own right. In a formal Mexican meal, a flavored rice dish is served solo as a sopa seca (dry soup) after a first course of sopa aguada (fluid soup) and before the plato fuerte (a protein-based main course)—similarly to the pasta course in a formal Italian meal. In fact, a sopa seca can be a Mexican-style pasta dish, as well. The repertoire of Mexican rice dishes is vast, but they can be divided into four basic color categories: white, yellow, red, and green. The Oaxaca region even has black rice, colored with the broth of black beans! The color of the rice is determined by the ingredients that flavor it. Our green rice, or arroz verde, is enhanced with poblano and jalapeño chiles, tomatillo sauce, and cilantro. Delicious served on its own, or for brunch topped with fried eggs, green rice makes a nice contrast to the meatballs’ spicy red chipotle tomato sauce.

Keep the tomatoes and chiles steady by placing a cooling rack on the burner grid over a gas flame or on a grill. Position the vegetables over the flame, and turn them with tongs to achieve an even char on all surfaces. Tomatoes are done roasting when the charred skin begins to peel away. Chiles need to cook further to soften the flesh. When the poblano is lightly charred and blistered all over, wrap it in a foil pouch and let it steam in its own heat until it cools to room temperature.

The tomatoes are ready to work on as soon as they’re cool enough to handle. Remove the core, scrape off the charred skin, and cut them in half widthwise. Use your fingers to remove the seeds, then chop fine.

The substance that differentiates chiles (aka hot peppers) from bell peppers is capsaicin, a chemical compound that gives them a spicy-hot flavor and creates a burning sensation on sensitive parts of the body. If you’ve worked with chiles before, you know the effects of capsaicin! Unless you’re a veteran chile handler, it’s a good idea to wear foodservice gloves when working with them. Be sure to wash your hands thoroughly afterward, and don’t touch your eyes (or anywhere else…).

Unwrap the poblano, then scrape off the charred skin. It’s OK if a little bit of char remains on the flesh. You can wipe the poblano with a paper towel, but don’t be tempted to rinse it with water because that washes off flavor. Slit the chile open and cut away the seed ball, the stem, and all of the pale-colored membrane. Make sure all the seeds are removed. For this recipe, you’ll cut it brunoise (into tiny dice).

To make the sauce base, you’ll start by sautéing onions and garlic in lard or oil. To augment the smoky flavor, cook these to a deep brown color (but don’t let them blacken). Add the chopped roasted tomatoes and cook them down until dry. This concentrates the flavor and brings out the tomatoes’ natural sweetness. Add the stock and some tomato purée to deepen the color. Simmer, stirring often, until thick and flavorful.

Now it’s time to mix and form the meatballs. For best flavor and mouthfeel, I recommend a mixture of ground beef and ground pork, although you can use either one on its own. To stay firm and cohesive, meatball meat needs raw egg; to become light and juicy, it needs breadcrumbs. The amount of ground meat specified for the recipe portion size doesn’t neatly use up whole eggs, so you’ll need to beat the egg(s) and pour off the excess. Just “eyeball” the amount, and use your judgment as to the feel of the meat mixture. If there’s too much egg, the mixture will be too loose and it will be difficult to form the meatballs. After mixing, knead the mixture to create a meat emulsion and then use the “catcher’s mitt” technique of picking up and slapping the meat back into the bowl to firm it and force out air pockets. To evaluate the seasoning it’s best to poach, fry or microwave a tiny morsel of the mix before tasting. Form the meatballs by rolling between your palms; you need 5 meatballs per serving.

In Mexican-American restaurants we’re most likely to see plates garnished with shredded lettuce. But in Mexico, the crunchy element is far more likely to be cabbage, often pickled in a vinegary dressing. Our Mexican slaw begins with shredded cabbage accented with onions and carrots. You can fabricate these ahead of time and then mix with the dressing just before serving. If you don’t keep a bottle of our essential Apple Cider Vinaigrette in your ‘fridge, make some for this recipe.

Your prep is complete! Here’s your mise tray:

It’s dinnertime—let’s COOK!

You’ll begin by making the rice. Mexican rice dishes are prepared using the pilaf method—technically speaking, by braising. Aromatic vegetables (onion, garlic, and jalapeño chiles) are sautéed in lard or oil, and then the rice is sautéed with them. This preliminary dry-heat cooking in fat sears the outside of the grains, changing the composition of the exterior starch to result in firm, separate grains. Then the rice is cooked in limited liquid until the grains become plump and tender. As the rice absorbs the liquid, it takes in all the flavor of chicken stock, the aromatic vegetables, tomatillo sauce, and chiles.

Start by sautéing the aromatics, then sauté the rice. Add the stock, tomatillo sauce, and chiles, then cover and simmer until the liquid is absorbed. Finish in the oven for a few minutes.

While the rice finishes cooking, sauté the meatballs and simmer them in the sauce. Sauté lightly in lard or oil, rolling them or gently turning them to brown all sides. Then add the sauce and a little water, cover and cook for a few minutes only. Ground meat is already tender, so meatballs need to cook only until no longer pink in the centers. If you cook them too long, they’ll be dry and crumbly.

To dress the Mexican slaw, toss with our essential Apple Cider Vinaigrette, and then enhance the flavor with lime juice and Mexican oregano.

Now you’re ready to plate!