Chicano Eats

I’ve been waiting for the perfect moment to share a little piece of chisme with you, and I think my first post for 2019 is the perfect occasion. The journey began a year ago when I started writing a proposal and 8 months later, I found myself in New York drenched in sweat, literally running through the streets of New York to have some of the most important meetings I’ve ever had! I was juggling that I wasn’t sure where I was going to keep finding the energy to dedicate to the blog, but your comments, e-mails, shares, and posts really kept me motivated week after week to keep championing for underrepresented voices like mine in this landscape, and for that I thank YOU! I can’t wait to start sharing this journey with you, and I can’t wait for you to be able to hold in your hands what I’ve been pouring my soul into.

Our Christmas Eve celebrations were always filled with dozens and dozens of tamales, warm atole, ponche, and my mom’s ambroisa fruit salad. I thought about bringing over my Horchata tiramisu, or maybe even my café de olla chocoflan, but I settled on baking cookies and bringing over marranitos, polvorones, and these Mexican sprinkle cookies (which also happen to be called polvorones! ) that everyone can enjoy along with their atole or coffee. Reduce the speed to low and add the egg yolks one at a time, waiting until the first one has been fully incorporated before adding the second egg. Once you have your cookies on your cookie sheet, brush on the egg wash, add sprinkles and then bake for 9-10 minutes.

If you’re not familiar, polvorones (which happens to be the name for like 4 different cookies) are essentially Mexico’s version of the sugar cookie but colored with yellow or pink food coloring. I tested the temperature, baking cookies at 4 different temperatures (325, 350, 375 and 400), and I found that baking them at 350 gave me the best results. When the dough has rested scoop out ¼ cup size balls of dough (I just use a standard ice cream scoop) and roll them into a smooth ball before rolling in the cane sugar. (don't flatten too much or cracks won't form), sprinkle a bit more sugar on each cookie then bake for 12-14 minutes one sheet at a time until the cookies have spread out and cracked but haven’t browned at all.

I tested the enchilada sauce back in August, and it just seems like I kept forgetting that I had this recipe in the queue, so yesterday when I was creating a new tab on the website and saw the pictures, I told myself I’d finally post it today! I like to grab a rotisserie chicken when I’m making these because it cuts down on the prep time, and I typically like to make the sauce way ahead of time because the longer you let it sit, the more the flavor develops. If you’d like to bake them, simply pop the tortillas in the microwave for a few seconds, add some shredded chicken, roll them up then place them in a baking dish, top them with the enchilada sauce and shredded cheese then bake at 350 till the cheese is nice and bubbly. After the peppers have rehydrated place in a blender, then add yellow onion, garlic cloves, chicken stock, vegetable oil, chipotle peppers, adobo, brown sugar and cinnamon.