Experiment with Mexican tastes right in the heart of Panaji city as Hotel Fidalgo is all set to roll out with it's Mexican food fiesta from May 14 to 31 at its restaurants Chilli N Spice and Aunty Mari.
A Spanish colony for many years along with California, Mexico has thus been credited as the world's first fusion kitchen. And indeed, no other cuisine has had as tremendous an influence on the world cuisine as Mexican cuisine. It is from here that the world was first introduced to ingredients like chillies, squash, avocados, tomatoes, tomatillos etc.
Thus in celebration of this wonderful cuisine, Fidalgo has put together an ala carte menu wherein most of the famous Mexican specialties will be served.This will be a combination of vegeterian and non vegeterian dishes like, zucchini and corn with warm tortilla, spinach enchiladas with black bean chilli salsa , chicken n red beans enchiladas, with a sumptuous array of dips like guacamole, refried beans salsa, mango salsa and lots more.
With corn being a central ingredient to Mexican food specially in the form of tortillas, the main attraction at the fiesta will be the home made tortillas which will be made in house by the chef through locally available raw material like maize flour.
The name tortilla is Spanish in origin and was given by the conquistadors to the corn pancakes that were the staple diet of the native Indians in Mexico.
The Tortilla dough is basically made up of dried white field corn, which is called posole or pozole in Mexican. This is done before the kernels are ground as such it remains starchy and not sweet.
The corns are first brought to boil with slacked lime, simmered for 15 minutes and then left to soak overnight.It is then washed under running water while being rubbed to rid it of the yellow hulls until only the white kernels remain. These are ground while still wet and then mixed with more water to give small soft dough.
Traditionally the Tortillas were done by pressing the dough between the palms. However, now readymade Tortillas are available or the pancakes are made with the help of available equipments.
There is a very famous readymade mix called Masa Harina which is available all over world, which is basically a mix out of which one can make the dough by just adding water.
