Recipes & Menus

If any risotto could be a summer dish, it’s this one, topped with perfectly caramelized scallops and flavored with fresh basil and pineapple juice.

These cookies resemble a chewier, soft cookie version of a Nutter Butter, made a little more glam with a peanut butter coconut cream filling.

Juicy ripe peaches and beautiful pink salmon scream summer. A little curry paste and herbs keep this sweet- spicy curry squarely in the savory realm, and a drizzle of reduced coconut cream cools things off.

This dish is inspired by a Thai-Chinese favorite, bami haeng, served from food carts and casual open-air eateries in Thailand.

If you can’t eat just one totopo (tortilla chip), this is the salsa of your dreams. 

These raspberry cheesecake brownies are tart, chocolatey, and cheesecake-filled, so stop reading and make them!

This banana bread is great with or without the crumb topping. I like to bake it in a cake pan instead of a loaf pan so it seems extra fancy.

These chicken burgers are grilled and finished with gooey Muenster, stacked, and topped with shredded lettuce, sweet pickles, and curry mustard.

I wanted to try to incorporate masa into as many dishes as I could at Xilonen, and at the time the pancakes were the only menu item that did not include masa. I love the floral notes that fresh masa adds to any dish. In the end, this became one of my favorite dishes at the restaurant. When shopping for gluten-free flour for this brunch recipe, make sure to buy one that lists xanthan gum as one of its ingredients. These are usually indicated as cup-for-cup or one-to-one type flours. The xanthan g.…

Made with water, milk, or a combination, the beverage is also made with ground toasted corn, fermented corn, rice, oatmeal, or mature corn cooked in ashes.

Developed for baking in the mountains, this flavorful pound cake is a winner, especially when topped with creamy homemade chocolate icing.

Bacon and sea salt make this big, warm, gooey chocolate chip cookie sweet and salty. Serve it with a few scoops of vanilla bean ice cream.

These griddled masa disks get a little crispy on the edges but stay tender on the inside. Top them with black beans, salsa, and queso fresco or any other toppings you love.

Tlacoyos are small, flat patties about the size of your hand, made from corn masa that’s been stuffed with mashed beans, requesón (a salty, spreadable cheese similar to ricotta) or fava beans, and cooked crisp on a comal. Once you leave Mexico City, tlacoyos take on other shapes and names. In some areas of Puebla, for instance, they’re called tlayoyos.    For a long time, my tlacoyo dream was to find a mayora—an older, respected Mexican cook—who could teach me how to make them. In 2013, I finally was able to learn with Señora Rosa Peña Sotres, who graciously invited me into her home and spent a full Sunday teaching me patiently how to stuff and fold. “Ya aprendió!” (You’ve learned!), she declared, as I placed a small, misshapen tlacoyito on her charcoal-fired comal.    Patting them out by hand isn’t easy if you’re a beginner, but you’ll get it down with practice. It’s fun to gather a group of friends and make them con calma (Spanish for “without hurry”), particularly if someone brings the ready-made masa. Don’t skimp on the garnishes. If you can’t find cactus, which Latino supermarkets generally stock, try shredded raw cabbage or carrots.

Masa is the essence of Mexico. It is the foundation of Mexican cooking. In Oaxaca, a lot of families still make their own nixtamal at home to supply their daily masa consumption. Nixtamal is the process of treating dried corn with an alkaline solution to make it more nutritious. Slaking lime—also known as pickling lime, a naturally occurring mineral compound—has been used for thousands of years for this process. After a night of soaking, the nixtamalized corn is ground and transformed into masa. This technique has been passed from generation to generation, especially in Oaxaca. Every night before my mom goes to bed, she nixtamalizes a batch of corn so she can make fresh masa the next morning. It’s part of her nightly routine.    The trickiest part of making masa might be grinding it, and for that I recommend a tabletop wet stone mill or a hand-cranked wet grinder. I like Premier’s Small Wonder 1.5-liter tabletop wet grinder.    Believe me, there is nothing more fulfilling than making your own masa at home.

These extra-thick cousins of the tortilla are toasted on a comal or griddle and split open before they’re stuffed with a wide array of flavorful fillings.

This Indonesian plate of blanched vegetables, boiled eggs, and tofu is served with a spicy, tangy, and slightly sweet peanut sauce for drizzling and dipping. Add salty-savory shrimp chips for scooping.