"tortillas" news and stories

Knock it all you want, but fried food is one of life's great pleasures.

Happy National Tortilla Chip Day!

With a vast variety of crunchy tortilla chips available -- salted or unsalted; baked or fried; white, yellow, or blue corn -- we think there are three main necessities: saltiness, crunch and corn.

Most of all, we like ours fresh and salted -- something best achieved served with pico de gallo or guacamole at Mexican restaurants, or cooked from the comfort of your own kitchen. To make your own fresh tortilla chips, simply cut fresh tortillas into quarters and fry them in corn or vegetable oil once its heated to approximately 360 degrees Fahrenheit. Cook until golden, one to two minutes, then drain on paper towels. Salt to taste and serve.

Become a member of the Slashfood Flickr pool to get a shot at having your photos featured on the site.

Learn how to make tortillas soft, warm and pliable for your next taco or fajita night.

Breakfast may be the most important meal of the day, but that doesn't mean we typically plan for it. No, we often find ourselves staring vacantly into the refrigerator musing how we're not really in the mood for this and that is going to go bad soon and wasn't this good but too bad there's so little left of it and, gee, I totally forgot about that.

Some of the best breakfasts I've made have been thrown-together affairs, mixing random leftovers with eggs to unexpectedly delicious result.

Such is this breakfast recipe, which tosses together Mexican/Caribbean odds and ends dug out of the refrigerator. Recipe for my surprisingly tasty Tropicana Breakfast --so dubbed because it was invented one fine Sunday off of Tropicana Aveneue--follows after the jump.

I love working in a kitchen. One of the fringe benefits is that I get to work with people from all different backgrounds. One of my co-workers from Mexico one day made chilaquiles, and I've been a fan ever since.

Chilaquiles is a breakfast dish made from stale tortillas, Mexican-style tomato sauce, and chiles that sometimes also includes cheese and eggs. My co-worker sprinkled on diced onions and Monterey jack cheese and placed a poached eg on top. It was heaven. I tend to prefer foods with softer textures, and the softened tortillas just melted in my mouth. The combination of chiles, onions, cheese, spicy tomato, and egg were just so wonderful and very filling, it's no wonder that this is such a popular breakfast dish.

Gourmet Sleuth.com has this page with a great recipe for chilequiles, as well as some history and background on the dish. It's popular throughout Mexico, and that means there are plenty of variations. A few of the variations are freatured here, along with links to recipes. I haven't made chilequiles at home yet, but now that I have some recipes to work with (my co-worker refused to tell me how to make it) it is definitely on the menu.