https://www.cnn.com/videos/tra...e-green-red-orig.cnn

I also recommend the Santa Fe School of Cooking (featured in the video). If you are spending a few days in Santa Fe, sign up for a cooking class there. The meal you eventually eat is like it came from a fine restaurant.....plus you learn a thing or two about cooking. My wife really enjoyed it, and I reaped the benefits.

That looked excellent + the experience of the "hands on" at the school will stay with one. You are right about reaping the benefits.

Dang it, Ken, you are making me homesick for New Mexico ...

Santa Fe used to be New Mexican cuisine.

But they are now using cilantro and garlic.

Well, in our Tex-Mex cooking, Cilantro + Garlic are major players as well as tomatillos + muy Chile/jalapeño peppers All those tomatoes + peppers are what give us our vitamin C daily allowance

Tex-Mex has too many ingredients.

Seth, my favorite restaurant in Santa Fe, the Ore House on the plaza, closed several years ago.
Randy, I must admit that none of the Tex-Mex I have had so far can beat the best of New Mexico cuisine, but I like it nonetheless.
Funny about cilantro; the 23AndMe DNA testing site can now predict whether the member is one with the gene that makes cilantro taste like soap. I don't have that gene, fortunately, and love the stuff to the point that just walking by it in the produce section makes me crave a burrito.

quote:

Originally posted by Bill/Oregon:
Seth, my favorite restaurant in Santa Fe, the Ore House on the plaza, closed several years ago.
Randy, I must admit that none of the Tex-Mex I have had so far can beat the best of New Mexico cuisine, but I like it nonetheless.
Funny about cilantro; the 23AndMe DNA testing site can now predict whether the member is one with the gene that makes cilantro taste like soap. I don't have that gene, fortunately, and love the stuff to the point that just walking by it in the produce section makes me crave a burrito.

I have the gene. I didn't need to give 23 and Me $100 bucks to find out that it taste like soap.

We have a lot of Mexican resteraunts here in El Paso and Las Cruces that are owned by Mexican Ex-Pats, Cilantro is such a common ingredient I tell them that I am alergic (which is true) and they try remember what I can actually eat.

The outfits in Mesilla are all New Mexican.

Can't remember which one, but they do a green chili cheese fried wonton. Pure sex!

La Posta in Mesilla used to be excellent, Haven't been in a while, hope it's still good.

quote:

Can't remember which one, but they do a green chili cheese fried wonton. Pure sex!

YUM!

Bill, I was not aware of the difference in cilantro; I have never had an issue with that herb. All I have grown was just fine + enhanced the taste of my canned salsa.

I hate to go to New Mexico in my business but get there too often. But I do love the food.

Impala, I ate at La Posta about six months ago. Still fit my pistol!
Randy, there is a great little Facebook page titled "Everything New Mexico," which often features recipes, many of them handed down over many New Mexico generations. And when the subject of cilantro comes up, the posts go on forever, from Yuck! to "I can't live without it."
I love the stuff.

Cilantro is not New Mexican.

There are 3 or 4 resteraunts in Mesilla square that serve New Mexican food.

There are probably 30 in Las Cruces that don't. I quit looking, as it was always ex-pat Mexicans serving Tex-Mex or southern Mexican stuff like Mole.

Not saying I don't like Tex-Mex or Mexican food, I just like New Mexican more.

Socorro has a few. ALBQ has a few. They are getting rare. I don't think there is one in Alamgordo.



Poor New Mexico.

So far from Heaven.

So close to Texas.

Way back when, southern NM middle and northern New Mexico foo were different variations of the Mexican food theme. I had never seen white cheese or sour cream used until some Hispanic classmates from Alamogordo cooked a meal.

Now it is all mixed to where it is like all other "ethnic food", bastardized to local or the cooks taste.

You want to see a God forsaken excuse for a tamale, come eat at any TN restaurant (maybe an exception out there, but I have never seen one).

One disgusting glob of Masa was so bad I commented on Yelp.
Owner came on Yelp to tell me his chef was FAMOUS in Phoenix for his tamale. I think he meant to say INFAMOUS!

Well, if it tastes good, it shouldn't matter, unless one is a perfectionist. Personally, I love good Tex-Mex, I love good REAL Mexican cooking as well. I had a sister-in-law that lived in
Florida, but couldn't find any Tex-Mex there; sure, lots of Cuban, but not the same thing at all. + don't get me started on Caribbean cooking,that hot was O.K. but combined with the sweet was torture. What we get used to, I suppose, but as a kid growing up in Europe, I loved Escargot. Get them when they are young + have not had time to develop biases on things that they have not yet tried.

SW Texas basically EL Paso and SW New Mexico is the same cusine. There is no chilipepper to compare with that grown in Southern New Mexico..

Now there is the Jalapeno and Seranno and that's a whole nuther subject that is used differently...

It hard for Yankee carpet baggers et al to seperate the word "chili!!"

Yep, you go into old Mexico + order chili, that's what you get, one big pepper, not a bowl of wolf brand.

For me it ain't salsa without the cilantro. I feel sad for people who can't eat it.

On chiles. I learned that what are called Hatch chilies are really just the Anaheim cultivar chili pepper.

So true; Fresh Cilantro is essential in salsa!

Ann, but does Anaheim have an entire Chile Pepper Institute devoted to it? I have roasted Anaheims alongside real Hatch and found the latter to have more flavor and character -- and ranges of heat.
I grew a couple of Big Jims each summer just to have some to dry and crush for year-round use.
https://cpi.nmsu.edu/

Bill, I have found that regional names mean a lot to those who live in/near them. The flavor, type and characteristics would be the same unless they happen to prepare them differently.

Cultivars are pretty much true to type so to me it would be a hyped up pitch for the name change to be different. Don't get me wrong, I still like them, I just think like many things, a regional name is assigned for salability.

Cilantro is the spice of the Gods, Garlic is a must in any Mexican cooking, where you second rate gringos come from anyway!!

Chile is like wine, I think it exhibits the terroir of the area it is grown in to some extent. I can't bring myself to believe that a "Hatch green chile" would taste the same if it was grown in someone's backyard in New York City.

New York City?....., Get a rope.

quote:

Originally posted by Atkinson:
Cilantro is the spice of the Gods, Garlic is a must in any Mexican cooking, where you second rate gringos come from anyway!!

This New Mexico gringo will take his second rate status to banish the evil plant out of our state.

Found a really nice New Mexico "salsa" if you can locate it. "505 Southwestern" Flame Roasted Green Chile. It tastes and looks like Hatch green chile in a jar. It is from Albuquerque. https://www.505southwestern.com/ I'm putting it on everything.

Kensco: We regularly buy it here in Vegas and use it all of the time. Good stuff! In fact, we had a casserole last night that had some of it in it!

You can get Hatch chilis at walmart starting a couple of years ago...

Anaheim chili is a cuss word and they taste like the cuss word a true chili head feels deep in his soul.. all kidding aside they taste like water and void of flavor..

I also like the Pablano chili for rellanos second to Hatch,,