This green tomatillo version of the table salsa mexicana seems even more commonplace in Mexicos snack parlors and street stalls than the red tomato onepartly, I suspect, because the cooked tomatillos make it more a sauce than a relish, and because it has a tasty puckeriness that deliciously heightens the flavor of whatever it goes on. The sauce is frequently within easy reach in cafeterias, too, paired with a hot red-chile sauce or salsa picante. They all get sprinkled on or stirred in, like the salt and pepper on our tables. This fresh green tomatillo sauce is a particular favorite in Central Mexico.

If the flavors of this picante red-chile sauce are well blended, the heat will have been rounded out with a little softening tomato flavo...

This homemade hot sauce recipe shows you how to make hot sauce with dried peppers. Recipe by Rick Bayless.

This everyday Mexican salsa verde is green from a delicious native berry (tomatillo) that frequently bears the name of its very distant r...

In spite of its being called a salad, this cactus-paddle preparation is actually used more like a condiment—like a coarse salsa mexicana ...

It isn’t uncommon to see three or four buckets of cream in Central, West-Central and Tabascan markets: from thin, sweet and fresh to well...

Jicama—the large, bulbous, woody-looking root vegetable—has something of a raw potato texture and a slightly sweet apple taste. And when ...

The simple Mexican flavors of this west-coast specialty are clean and invitingly uncomplicated. The soup is substantial—just the kind of ...

One of the most important ingredients in a really good fish soup or sauce is a well-made fish broth. This version that I’ve developed is ...

Portable, butane-fired griddles show up at dusk in parks and on street corners through most of the country, penetrating the outdoor odors...

Here is a recipe for the classic Mexican enchiladas, the ones that combine a flavor that is traditionally tart and piquant with the mealy meatiness of corn tortillas, the tenderness of chicken and a sharp, salty adornment of aged Mexican cheese. Theyre rolled up and sauced in cafeteras (especially the new, bright chain restaurants) everywhereand with above-average fervor in the heartland sections of Central and West-Central Mexico. Theyre simple to make, easy to enjoy and attractively filling.

This dessert is softer and more cinnamony than our baked rice pudding. The flavors are simple and close to home, but its easy to develop a thoroughgoing love for it, spoonful after spoonful. Mexican people everywhere serve it as regularly as they do flan its creamy and, in its own way, light and soothing. This is an especially pretty and tasty recipe, based on one from Zelayarans Las 500 mejores recetas de la cocina mexicana.

Ive written the main fruit-ice recipe using prickly pears simply because preparing the fruit requires a little more explanation. Ices made of more common fruit follow the same general procedure, as detailed in the variations. Prickly pear ice is delicious with the nontraditional addition of 1 tablespoons Cointreau.

Mariano Dueñas’ small pamphlet on the modern variety of Mexican refreshment praises the “delicious and nutritive licuado” as the salvatio...