Tex-Mex

For more than fifty years, Min’s two family branches, the Merrells and the Almys, have been eating at the Cortez Cafe in Carlsbad, New Mexico. The food is straightforward Tex-Mex and always finishes with a round of sopapillas and honey. Back in the ’70s, the family thought nothing odd about beginning meals with bowls of fiery green salsa scooped up with saltine crackers. The Cortez has since switched to tortilla chips and you may prefer them as well, but the Merrell-Almy clan retains its hot spot for salsa and crackers. Pining away in Nashville for that distinct Cortez flavor, Min thinks she’s figured it out—it’s mostly fresh jalapeños. Min’s cousin Eric, knighted Sir Cortez by the clan, now brings his version of Min’s Cortez Salsa recipe to every family dinner—with sleeves of only the freshest saltines, of course.

There’s a certain romance associated with skillet cooking in American cuisine. It conjures campfires or rustic wood-fired ovens, where the cooking vessel must be sturdy enough to withstand the heat. Cast-iron pans fit that bill and more. I routinely use three cast-iron skillets of different sizes to accommodate different types of dishes: a small one for cooking up sausage samples for tasting or for frying up a couple of burgers; a medium size for cooking plate-size pancakes or a fat, juicy steak for two; and a large one for searing meats or fish fillets before finishing them in the oven or for making this skillet tamale pie. Cast-iron skillets offer two more advantages: they are widely available anywhere that carries kitchen equipment, from hardware stores to gourmet cookware shops, and they are modestly priced. The drawback to cast iron is that it is not serviceable for dishes that include tomatoes, wine, spinach, eggplant, or the like, because it turns the ingredient unpleasantly bitter. Romance aside, cooking the tamale pie in a cast-iron skillet offers one more advantage. It saves on pots and dishes: brown the sausage in the skillet on the stove top, spread the corn bread topping over the sausage, pop the skillet in the oven to bake, and then serve directly from the skillet. The quick, few-ingredient sausage is also good for tacos, topping pizza, Mexican-style spaghetti and meatballs, or in place of chorizo for egg preparations. The corn bread batter can be cooked into a tender, light bread without the sausage; use an 8-inch skillet in this case.

A glory of black beans, in addition to such qualities as their beauty and healthfulness, is that they don’t need to be presoaked: they easily yield to softening when boiled straightaway. Then, they are ready to accept all manner of embellishments, such as sausage, Mexican spices, and sweet-sour-hot chipotle cream.

Quick: Fire up your slow cooker for a filling and healthy winter feast. "The low heat preserves more nutrients than grilling, frying or boiling, and helps prevent the formation of carcinogens," says Jonny Bowden, Ph.D., nutritionist and coauthor of the 150 Healthiest Slow Cooker Recipes on Earth. We're loco for this Crock-Pot treat.

Chili powder, chocolate, and cumin are often combined in Tex-Mex cooking, and this turkey chili stays true to those roots. The recipe makes a large yield, so you can serve some chili right away, then freeze the rest to enjoy later.

WHY IT’S LIGHT This low-calorie Tex-Mex meal uses top round steak, a very lean cut of beef; you can also use other lean cuts such as eye of round or top sirloin. Corn tortillas have fewer calories and more nutrients than flour tortillas.

WHY IT’S LIGHT This rendition of a Tex-Mex favorite uses lean chicken breasts, corn tortillas, and just enough Monterey Jack cheese to create a luscious topping. The gentle, moist heat of pan steaming keeps the chicken breasts juicy and tender without any oil.

Despite its name, this is not a tamale (it’s closer to polenta). It has neither the taste nor the texture of a real tamale, and, strictly speaking, it isn’t even Mexican, unless you remember that Texas is as Mexican as it is American. That being said, tamales are complicated, and this, at the very least, combines the earthy flavors of corn and pork. It’s a true Tex-Mex dish, dating back at least a century. Serve with rice and beans.

Serve this brightly colored, layered tortilla pie with salsa and sour cream on the side. You can assemble the dish ahead of time, then bake it just before serving.

Taco seasoning can cover all manner of sins, but when I first saw textured vegetable protein, I was a bit apprehensive: could it possibly taste any better than driveway gravel? As it turns out, it’s pretty amazing stuff. In water, it expands to more than twice its original volume, and it picks up the flavors of whatever you combine it with. It has the texture of ground beef, but it’s way cheaper. This all makes it perfect for these classic tacos in a crispy shell, which are usually filled with seasoned ground beef. You can buy it at your local produce market or natural foods store in the bulk food section.

Lou Lambert, another one of my chef friends who grew up on a ranch, now owns two Texas restaurants—Lamberts Downtown Barbecue in Austin, and Lambert’s steak house in Fort Worth. Lou got the idea for his seared chickpeas when he was a kid growing up on the family ranch near Odessa. “We had a camp cook who would make hominy loaded with chili powder and garlic. I adapted his dish with chickpeas. I originally put this on the menu at the first Lambert’s on South Congress, and it has been a mainstay at all the restaurants since.” I’ve been coveting this recipe ever since I first tasted it at Lou’s first restaurant. Now that I have it, I know it will become a mainstay for me, too, especially when I have some entertaining to do.

Years ago, during my catering days, we served a Tsingtao beer sorbet in hollowed-out lemon halves for a Chinese New Year celebration. I remembered the idea recently as I brainstormed potential desserts for a Tex-Mex dinner. If it’s good with Chinese beer, it ought to be better with a Tex-Mex beer, I reasoned. I grabbed a couple of Coronas and a handful of limes and went to work. Corona Sorbet starred at my next party and it was everything I’d hoped—lively and refreshing, sweet and tangy, just the sort of dessert I crave after a Tex-Mex feast.

Beans and rice create an unassuming but essential backdrop for the quintessential Tex-Mex meal—leave them out and you’ll probably hear about it. Rosa Albiter Espinoza, who has worked for more than seven years in the Rather Sweet kitchen, makes her Mexican rice regularly for our lunch specials. She prefers Adolphus rice, a long-grain variety native to Texas. When I’m preparing a Tex-Mex spread for a party, I make sure to serve a pot of rice and plenty of refried black beans.

I make batches of these in mini muffin pans, wrap them well, freeze them, and keep them on hand for last-minute parties. What a relief it is to have a dessert ready and waiting for an impromptu dinner. The only problem: I know where they are, and sometimes, especially late at night, I can’t resist unwrapping a few and eating them. (Yup, they’re pretty good frozen.) Before long, my party stash has dissipated, and I have to make some more. (Pictured on page 164, center tray.)

Beans and rice create an unassuming but essential backdrop for the quintessential Tex-Mex meal—leave them out and you’ll probably hear about it. Rosa Albiter Espinoza, who has worked for more than seven years in the Rather Sweet kitchen, makes her Mexican rice regularly for our lunch specials. She prefers Adolphus rice, a long-grain variety native to Texas. When I’m preparing a Tex-Mex spread for a party, I make sure to serve a pot of rice and plenty of refried black beans.

Puffy tacos have become modern-day icons of the San Antonio food scene. You can find the meat-filled, deep-fried corn tortillas throughout the Alamo City and—believe it or not—on the baseball field, too, where Henry, the Puffy Taco, serves as a mascot for the San Antonio Mission, a minor league team. I propose a build-your-own puffy taco party, where guests crowd into the kitchen to feast on hotfrom-the-skillet tacos stuffed with bison chili, a dab of guacamole, and whatever other fixings you set out. Ask friends to act as revolving fry cooks, so nobody gets stuck by the stove for too long, and in the meantime, assign others to shake up batches of Silver Bullet Margaritas (page 175). Diana Barrios Trevino, friend and the restaurateur behind San Antonio’s La Hacienda de los Barrios, gave me permission to use her famous puffy taco recipe. It was the recipe that beat TV chef Bobby Flay in a puffy taco “throwdown” staged for Flay’s popular Food Network show. If you can find fresh masa dough, use it to make the tortillas. Otherwise, dried masa mix will work just fine.

My mom was a veteran entertainer, and the Mexican décor of her home often influenced the menu. She insisted on doing things ahead and served a favorite casserole she called “sopa” at informal dinner parties. I never understood why she used the Spanish word for soup as the name of her casserole, but after browsing through several Texas community cookbooks, I discovered that a commonly used ingredient in a similar chicken tortilla casserole was condensed soup—cream of chicken, celery, or mushroom. Frankly, my inner chef’s code of conduct means I’d sooner come face to face with an ornery Texas longhorn than serve a casserole with a condensed soup base to my guests. But I remember loving my mom’s party sopa, and since she didn’t leave me her recipe, I created this meal-in-a-dish in her honor. I’ve nixed the soup shortcut, but I’m all for picking up a rotisserie chicken from the local market to ease the workload. Best of all, the casserole can be made ahead and refrigerated or frozen—on party day, just slide it in the oven.