Author: Chef M

When asked to imagine a cheesecake, almost everyone thinks of the famous New York incarnation. Well, Alsace is the home of the French cheesecake, and it is by no sheer coincidence that it also happens to produce the most unctuous and creamy fromage blanc in France. Contrary to the popular belief that French food is very rich, Alsatian cheesecake is remarkably light and airy, getting its lift from a billowy meringue base.

Kugelhopfs are typically baked in a ring-shaped mold called a kugelhopf, but if you don’t have one, a loaf pan works well, too. The traditional Alsatian version is very similar to a brioche, made with yeast and enriched with butter and egg. My version is a little less buttery than its brioche cousin, but it’s just as delicious.

The French are blessed with some of the finest freshly grown produce. Despite this abundance, most dishes on the French menu will find a way of sneaking in a little something meaty, whether a sprinkling of lardons in a salad or a bit of sausage meat tucked into a tomato. Cabbage leaves make perfect flexible cases for holding flavorful stuffing ingredients, so here is my meatfree version a great vegetarian dish.

The use of Spanish ingredients and techniques is perhaps more strongly retained in the cuisine of the Veracruz region than anywhere else in Mexico. This dish includes the use of olives, capers, and olive oil all ingredients that were not commonly adopted in other regions.

Mole is one of the more complicated dishes found in Mexican cooking. The name is thought to come from the Nahuatl word molli, which refers to a mixture of ingredients ground together. Many variations of mole can be found throughout Mexico (some recipes call for as many as 100 ingredients!), with the most popular ones coming from the Puebla and Oaxaca regions. The following recipe is typical of the Puebla version of this wonderful dish.

The Yucatán was home to the ancient Mayans, and their reliance on and reverence for corn and tortillas is one of the aspects of their culture that has remained to this day. Following the introduction of citrus by the Spanish, limes made their way into this culture and are used in this recipe.

Nopales, or cactus pads, have been part of Mexican cuisine for centuries, particularly in the arid north where cactus have long helped produce food and water for the people of this area. Cactus have a bit of a mucilage texture that will thicken soups or stews much like okra but this is undesirable in a salad, and thus they need to be rinsed after cooking to remove this.

Enchiladas are a common method of eating tortillas with various fillings. Rather than folding the ingredients into a fresh tortilla as is done when making tacos enchiladas are fried, dipped in the sauce they will served in, filled, coated with more sauce, and often topped with cheese (as in this recipe).

This classic shows how the introduction of cheese to the Mexican diet married wonderfully with the milder poblano chili. The Spanish also introduced the technique of frying foods, and its application in the making of this dish highlights the culinary possibilities that arrived with the Spanish.