VIA: ilhuicamina's Flickr

I'm posting images of sausage counters the world over each weeknight (and occasionally weekend) witching hour (until I run out), so please use the comments section to post links to your Flickr or personal site faves, and perhaps you'll see 'em posted here late some evening.

Previously -- Midnight Sausage: Polish Village, Chicago

Sausage Counter -- Oaxaca, Mexico

VIA: johnd atl's flickrstream

Previously - Midnight Sausage: Paris

I'm posting images of sausage counters the world over each weeknight witching hour (until I run out), so please use the comments section to post links to your Flickr or personal site faves, and perhaps you'll see 'em posted here late some evening.

Have you heard about this? I think this is one of the funniest stories I've heard all day. Absolut Vodka pulled an advertisement it was running in Mexico because it offended some people in the US.

According to Reuters, the ad shows a map of the US and Mexico from before 1848, when Mexico lost a war and lots of territory to the United States, with the text "An Absolut World." It seems that some Mexicans are still a little sore about this, so the advertising makes sense in that country. Still, if you know the history, I suppose I can see why Americans would be offended.

I think it's pretty funny. I don't really know the history very well, and to me what's done is done. I am having trouble seeing what all the fuss is about, but I'm pretty entertained by Absolut's advertising woes.

[Via Reuters]

This is a simple vegan take on Huevos Rancheros. It has all of the flavor and substance of the original dish, but is a great healthy alternative.

Mexican Tofu Scramble
From: Moosewood Restaurant New Classics
Serves: 3

You will need:
6 small tortillas
2 Tbsp. veggie oil
1 cup chopped onions
3 garlic cloves, minced
1 cup chopped red bell peppers
1 cup chopped green peppers
1 green chile, minced
1 tsp. ground cumin
1 tsp. ground coriander
1 tsp. salt
16 oz. soft tofu, pressed between two plates for 15 minutes, then drained
6 Tbsp. fresh cilantro, chopped
1 1/2 cups salsa


Wrap tortillas in foil and warm in a 300 degree F oven for 10 minutes.

Heat oil in a wok, and then saute onions for five minutes. Add garlic, peppers, chile, and all spices and herbs, and saute for two minutes more.

Crumble the tofu and cook for 5 minutes (don't stir) until moisture evaporates. Then, stir and cook for two minutes more.

Remove tortillas from oven and mound scramble in each shell. Roll them up, cover with salsa, and set in warm oven until serving time.

Back to home

Have you ever sat on your sofa late at night, maybe watching Dancing with the Stars, and you think to yourself, "hmmm...I wonder if there's a way to make skulls out of sugar?" Well, yes there is! And this can show you how.

Last year we told you about Day of the Dead chocolate skulls, but these are even more frightening, with their blank, white skull faces looking through you from a pile of molded sugar. The site has a real nice step by step tutorial, with pics.

[via Boing Boing]

"Taking the international sweet tooth by storm." Surely such a phrase could only have been penned by the a PR person for an ice-cream chain.

And so it has.

This gem comes from the press release announcing Cold Stone Creamery's expansion into Mexico and Southeast Asia. I'll admit it's a better turn of phrase than "taking the international sweet tooth by cavity." Full disclosure, I've never eaten the Creamery's ice cream, I suppose I should since there's one in a mall near my house.

The Scottsdale, Ariz.-based purveyor of fresh-made ice-cream that's blended to order with mix-ins on, you guessed it, a cold stone, started scooping up international markets back in 2005, when it opened its first overseas store in Tokyo. Since then Coldstone has opened 22 more stores throughout Japan, Korea, China and Taiwan.

Its first Mexican store will open in September. There's been no word yet as to whether the Creamery stores South of the Border will forgo the signature stone slab in favor of a gigantic molcajete y tejolote to mix the ingredients with the ice cream. The company's next international markets will be Indonesia, Singapore and Malaysia. I don't think it's gonna happen, but I'd love to see the Creamery's Southeast Asian stores use young coconut, jackfruit and some of the brightly colored gelatinous squiggles that are a staple of the region's frozen confections.

Before we get into Happy Hour recipes for the celebrations this weekend, I wanted to draw attention to this non-alcoholic Mexican drink that admittedly sounded strange to me until I tried it - now I am hooked.

Though there are drinks under the name Horchata in other cultures, the Mexican version is made from blended rice. It looks (and even tastes) like a milky drink, but there is absolutely no dairy in the recipe. It is rumored that this drink helps to cure hangovers, so you may want to whip up a batch if you plan on indulging at all this weekend.

If you want to try the drink but don't want to go to all the effort of making it yourself, Rice Dream apparently makes a version that is already prepared, though I've never tasted that myself. You can find the full recipe after the jump.

A Mexican man, Manuel Quiroz, loves chilies with a passion. Perhaps disturbingly so. Not only can he "down dozens of Mexico's spiciest chilies," but he can "rub them on his skin and even squeeze their juice into his eyes without so much as blinking." Why on earth anyone would want to do that on a regular basis - or how they came up with such a bizarre idea in the first place - remains to be seen, but Manuel to showcase his unusual... talents. He believes that he can eat more chilies than any person on the planet and wants to prove his claim with a title. Unfortunately, there are no contests to crown the "World Chili-eating Champion" just yet, so Manuel will have to wait. With the popularity of eating contests, however, he many not have to wait long. The International Federation of Competitive Eating (IFCoE) seems like they are always keen to add new events and if they can get any of their current champs to agree to participate, you can bet that they'd be willing to sponsor such a contest.

Kobayashi vs. Quiroz, anyone?

A Texas-based pizza chain, Pizza Patron, is now accepting pesos at all of their 59 nationwide locations. Many of the stores, particularly those in Texas (others are in California, Nevada, Arizona and Colorado) are located in primarily Latino neighborhoods and, according to the director of restaurant operations for the company, "many of [the] customers travel back and forth to Mexico regularly, and sometimes they end up with pesos left over... [so] now we also welcome the currency of our homeland. We want to make Pizza Patron a better choice for our customers than any of our competitors." The program is a trial one that will last from now until at least the end of February, although it could be extended if it is met with a positive reaction from the customer base.

Even though it has only been in place for a week, the plan has not met with a warm reception. The company has received "hundreds of e-mails," most of them critical. The fact that 10% of sales this week in the chain's five primary stores were in pesos, however, is probably enough to keep the plan in action for another few weeks.

Nancy Zaslavsky is a James Beard Award winning writer that loves Mexican food and shares her passion for and knowledge of authentic, regional techniques and flavors from across the country in Meatless Mexican Home Cooking. Every dish is vegetarian and many have been collected directly from home cooks, not just adapted from meat-based recipes.

Like any book that is intended to give an overview of a whole cuisine, this one starts with a thorough introduction to chilies before getting on to the recipes. And even once you get to the recipe section, it starts with the simple techniques for tortilla-making before jumping into slightly more complex, although not difficult, dishes. The recipes are arranged in chapters that include sauces, tamales, soups, main dishes, egg dishes, desserts and drinks. For the convenience of anyone unfamiliar with the cuisine (or with Spanish) each recipe comes with a translation of the name, so Rajas con Crema also lists "roasted chilies with onions and cream" for clarity. Other dishes include Salsa Chile Habanero ("neon-orange liquid fire salsa"), Tamales Dulces ("sweet tamales"), Huevos Mexicanos ("scrambled eggs with fabulous flavors") and Chocolate-Chile Mole Brownies.

Radishes are a nice, crunchy addition to salads, lending a peppery flavor and some color to whatever they're combined with. In Oaxaca, they take full advantage of the versatility of the vegetable by celebrating la Noche de Rabanos, or "the night of radishes," on December 23rd. The annual festival showcases the radish carvings, made from extremely large radishes (up to 10lbs). The carvings are often extremely elaborate, shaped as dancers, animals, village scenes and parts of folk stories, as well as religious images (like Nacimiento, the nativity scene).

The Radish festival began in the late 19th century when the mayor of Oaxaca "inaugurated the first exhibition of radish art." Now, tourists come in, "snapping pictures like radish paparazzi" and enjoying the carnival-like atmosphere. Cash and other prizes are given to the best pieces and lots of food and drinks (only some of which involve more radishes) are enjoyed.

Click here to see a flickr photo gallery of some of the really intricate radish entries from this year's festival.

[via neatorama]

I first discovered this eminently cravable snack food at a Mexican grocery store/taqueria. Cacahuates Estilo Japonés, or Japanese-style peanuts, usually come in clear blue bags. I've always been fascinated by the imagery on the small packages, which ranges from a geisha to a Mr. Peanut-type character dressed in a baseball uniform.

The nuts themselves are sweet and salty all at once. They're coated with a thin shell, that's got a hint of soy sauce. That flavor may very well be this snack's only link to Japan. Hours of Googling, yielded plenty of places to buy them online, but no definitive answer as to whether they're actually from Japan. I did, however, turn up this really cool video blog. Check out the closeups!

That's mole as in "mo-lay," not mole as in "Whack-a-Mole" at Chuck E. Cheese. But be not mistaken, making the former is no less difficult than playing the latter.

Mole is a traditional Mexican sauce that has a reputation of being rather difficult to make, not because the technique is all that complicated, but because there are over 30 ingredients and according to Matt Armendariz of food blog MattBites who finally attempted to make the sauce himself, at least 43 steps in making it. Just a few of the ingredients, which seem strange, but are essential to the sauce are chiles (not surprising), nuts (still not quite surprising), ripe plaintains, raisins, bread and tortillas as thickeners, chocolate and cinnamon! Matt does a quick history of mole, talks about his grandmother's mole, and shares the recipe he used to make it at home, which comes from Bon Appetit magazine.

Piloncillo is an unrefined sugar that is commonly used in Mexican cooking. The sugar has been around for at least 500 years, and was being made before the Spanish came to Mexico around 1500. It is made when sugar canes are crushed, the juice is collected and boiled then poured into molds, where it hardens into blocks. The fact that it comes in block form is one of the reasons why white and brown sugars are more commonly used, even in Mexican cooking, than piloncillo once was. To use it, it must be grated or chiseled off the main block - a process which is well worth the resulting flavor boost in food to some, but too time consuming for others to bother.

Unlike white sugar, which is flat and one-dimensional in its sweet flavor, piloncillo is smoky, caramely and earthy. It has far more flavor than brown sugar, which is generally just white sugar with a small amount of molasses added back to it. It can be uses in moles and other sauces, as well as to simple sweeten coffee or top off buttery toast. In most applications, it must be melted down to be incorporated into recipes. You can find piloncillo in many Mexican or Latin American grocery stores or order it online.

Baja California may be well-known to those who live south of Los Angeles, but the beautiful beaches and good eats of the region are unknown to many. Baja! Cooking on the Edge aims to rectify that with over 150 recipes from the area and a few guides that will give an overview of the foods, styles and ingredients that it is known for.

Two of the things that make Baja most famous, though there are certainly many things to recommend it, are seafood and street food. The book covers both and since street food books often focus on Asian food, this marks a nice change of pace. The author of the book Deborah Schneider, is clearly someone who loves the area and her enthusiasm, together with interesting tidbits about the "whys" and "hows" of the food, make the book a good read. It's a great resource for those who love Mexican food and those who are interested in learning about a different region of the country.

You can take a look inside the book here, where you'll be able to get a sneak peek at recipes for fish tacos, carne asada tacos and roast tuna with chipotle.