Vacation piqued interest in authentic Mexican food

By Ron Mikulak

One thing that makes travel so broadening is the different food we eat when we are in exotic locales. That certainly was the case for Patty Marguet when she first traveled in Mexico.

"This was in the late 1980s," she said. "The only Mexican-style food in Louisville at that time was at Tumbleweed. There was no Internet then, and no ethnic groceries in town. And supermarkets had very limited choices of ethnic ingredients. Eating real Mexican food was a revelation."

Marguet and her husband, Jim Miller, went to Cancun around Thanksgiving and ate in a small family restaurant. "We had mole for the first time, which really blew my husband away. The sauce in the Mexican food here was just a runny red sauce, nothing like the depth of the mole."

After her return to Louisville, Marguet began to peruse the Rick Bayless cookbook she had received as a wedding present. Bayless, through his Chicago restaurant Frontera Grill, is credited with introducing American diners to the subtlety and refinement of fine Mexican cuisine.

Marguet said her husband returned to Mexico a few years later for a business assignment and again found the food revelatory. "He called me and told me how fabulous the food was," she said. "He was staying with a family that made tequila, and they had their own cooks.

"Then we went to California, where we went to a little restaurant a friend told us about, where we saw women making tortillas by hand. By that time, my interest in cooking was growing, and I was trying to find my own cooking style. That is when I really discovered corn tortillas.

"Fresh, warm tortillas are nothing like what you buy in the grocery store here," where all she was familiar with were relatively stiff flour tortillas, she said. "Fresh corn tortillas are soft and really taste of corn. Bayless explains how to cook them, so I just had to try."

She found a tortilla press at Lotsa Pasta and started experimenting, with mixed results, until she encountered a woman who was also buying masa harina, the fine corn flour needed to make tortillas, at Wild Oats.

"She explained to me that it is more important to get a feel for the dough, rather than to follow precise measurements. Because the humidity in Louisville is so different at different times of the year, you have to go by the feel of the dough. She explained what I was supposed to look for in the texture of the dough, and that made all the difference.

"When I quit measuring, when I got a sense of what it was supposed to look and feel like, the tortillas got a lot better," Marguet said. "And then I saw Rick Bayless talking about tortillas, and how it is best to let the dough sit after it is mixed, so the masa can absorb the moisture better. He also said that tortillas are supposed to puff up a little bit in the middle, like pita. It is the moisture inside that keeps them soft and pliable."

In the 20 years or so that she has been interested in Mexican food, Marguet has tried to develop a better sense of how to put the basic ingredients of beans and cheese and meat together. Now Mexican is one of the staples in her repertoire of dishes, maybe her best, she says, other than Italian.

When she tried veganism, she found eating Mexican was very adaptable. "If you eliminate the cheese and the meat, you still have a complete protein with beans, a wide variety of vegetables — jicama, tomatoes, avocados, greens. And the flavors are so fresh and bright, with the cilantro and lime. And Mexican food has so much color you can really make a beautiful plate," something both she and her husband, graphic designers and art directors, want in their food.

Marguet also turned to quinoa instead of rice, when her husband's triglycerides were high and the doctor said to cut back on starches. "Quinoa is a good source of protein and has very low starch. It's not Mexican, but close." Quinoa has been traced to its origins in the Peruvian Andes.

"Nothing is more fabulous to me than a fish tortilla," Marguet said. "Fish with pinto beans, quinoa and salsa, wrapped in a fresh tortilla with a zucchini coulis (a simple puree of zucchini, garlic, jalapenos and salt). It's creamy, green, garlicky.

"It's fabulous," she said. "I make it all the time. And I make a red bell pepper coulis. Not a classic Mexican sauce, but it goes with the rest of the food."

Marguet showed us how she makes fresh tortillas, and shared a favorite Mexican dinner menu.