I would say there are two categories regarding Mexican Food, like real Mexican food, not including texmex because that’s another story.
First we have the culturally traditional, fancy if you want, complicated recipes, known by every Mexican such as Tamales, Cochinita Pibil, enchiladas, sopes, Mole, Chile en Nogada and much more which are internationally known and admired in the gastronomical world. These are eaten on special occasions such as independence day, Christmas maybe and other celebrations. These are the meals I miss and try to eat at least once every time I am in Mexico as cooking them outside is hard cause you need lots of very local ingredients. But then you also have the home traditional meals, regional and different for every state and city in our country. The ones, your mom used to cook cause are passed on by generations, the ones that vary from one family to the other even though it’s the same recipe and they don’t stop from being real Mexican food.
The recipes Im sharing and adapting to the dutch ingredients or better said to ingredients that can be easily found here are in this last category. They are Mexican, but not the kind you will always find in a restaurant but the ones our people truly eat at home regularly, for instance like picadillo.
And the recipe I’m sharing today, my dear readers, is my favorite… Well, one of my favorites to be fair. It is called Pastel Azteca, which translated literally would be Aztec Cake. It’s like a Mexican lasagna.
My friend Diana, requested this recipe and I have to say, it is not very easy to find all of the ingredients here but thanks to the internet you actually CAN find them all and I’ve got you covered if you want to give it a try cause I will mention every seller who has said materials. Click on the links to find out.
Let’s get started.
Ingredients for 4 to 6 people.
16corn tortilla (the real ones not the ones from the supermarket)
3 chicken breasts boiled and shredded.
4 puntpaprika cooked and cut fajita style. (the original recipe is with poblano pepper)
2 small onions sliced
Lots of cheese to your taste
Tomatillo sauce or in case of not finding it, then use tomato sauce made by boiling and blending 3 tomatoes, 1 small onion and 2 garlic cloves with salt.
Optional: sour cream and corn
Don’t forget the salt and pepper to taste.
Preparation:
This time I didn’t have my tortillas made so I had to make them from scratch by using Maseca and following instructions in the package. You need a special device to make them flat and round and a pannenkoek pan in case you don’t have a real ‘comal’.
And also the punt paprika is prepared in advance by burning the skin, then setting them in a bag to steam for about 10 minutes and then clear them from burned skin, take off the stem and the seeds and slice. After that, saute the onions in a pan together with the punt paprika and you are ready to go.
When you have all the ingredients ready the steps are quite easy. Set a bed of tortillas in a baking bowl like in the picture. Then spread a layer of chicken, the punt paprika-onions and cheese. Here you can also add a bit of cream and corn if you like and cover in some of the sauce. I used two packs of sauce for this recipe. Then add more layers in this order, tortilla, chicken, punt paprika and onions, cheese and sauce until you end up with only tortillas and cheese and cover up in sauce.
Put in the oven covered with foil paper until the cheese melts and not burn like mine (baby was crying so I left it a bit longer and forgot the foil paper but still good, only the top cheese was burned 😂)
When you take out of the oven, cut it as if it was a lasagna and enjoy. If you are like me, I add more cheese and more sauce at the end and put it 30 seconds in microwave to melt the last layer of cheese. I love everything super cheesy. That’s it.
Please let me know if you made it and what do you think. I would love to read your comments. Tot ziens!
unaregiaenbicicleta 