What most people consider Mexican food is actually Tex-Mex – a style of cuisine in its own right.
Tex-Mex is a marriage of native Mexican food with Spanish foods, with the ranching culture of South Texas and Northern Mexico thrown in.
The result is a stunning range of grilled and barbequed meat, spices, and lots, and lots of cheese.
What’s not to love?
Huevos Rancheros
Huevos Rancheros simply translates to “ranch eggs”, and that’s exactly what this dish is – a hearty breakfast for those hard-working cowboys out on the ranch!
The basic dish combines eggs and beans on a lightly fried tortilla, usually accompanied by beans, rice, and guacamole. Traditionally, huevos rancheros is a vegetarian meal, but in our recipe we’ve thrown in bacon because it is a breakfast after all!
Ingredients
- 4 slices streaky bacon, cut into pieces
- Extra Virgin Avocado Oil
- 1 onion – finely diced
- 2 garlic cloves – minced
- 1 pinch cayenne pepper
- 1 tsp paprika, smoked
- 2 small or 1 large red capsicum, diced
- 800g / 28oz fresh tomatoes, diced
- A handful of baby spinach leaves
- Sea salt and black pepper
- 4 eggs
- A handful coriander, fresh leaves
- 1 avocado – smashed
- 2 Spring onions – thinly sliced
- To serve
- Tortilla on the side
Method
In a non-stick frying pan, fry off the bacon until crispy and golden over a medium hot heat before setting aside.
In a heavy based shallow frying pan, fry the onion in a drizzle of our delicious Extra Virgin Avocado Oil over a medium heat for about 5 minutes, stirring occasionally, until softened.
Add the garlic, capsicum and all the spices to the pan and cook for another 2 minutes.
Add the tomatoes and ½ cup water, season with salt and pepper, then stir everything together and leave to simmer for 10 minutes until reduced to a thick, rich sauce.
Stir through the spinach and bacon and cook for a few minutes.
Make four wells in the tomato sauce mixture with a spoon and crack an egg into each. Place the lid on for about 4 minutes until whites are set but yolks are still runny.
Huevos Rancheros from Olivado Limited on Vimeo.
Chicken Enchiladas
To those unfamiliar with Mexican food, enchiladas, tacos, burritos, quesadillas, and fajitas might all look the same, but there are differences.
Enchiladas are corn tortillas filled with various ingredients, including meats, cheese, beans, potatoes, vegetables or combinations, which are then covered in a sauce.
Enchilada is the past participle of Spanish enchilar, “to add chili pepper to”, so the name literally means “to season with chili”.
This recipe uses chicken as the meat, with a salsa roja sauce made from scratch.
Ingredients
- Extra Virgin Avocado Oil
- 500g / 17oz skinless chicken breasts, sliced thinly
- 1 onion, finely chopped
- 1 clove garlic, crushed
- 1 green capsicum, finely chopped
- 1 tsp ground cumin
- 400g / 14oz can Mexican tomatoes
- 1/4 cup water
- 1/4 cup tomato puree
- 12 tortillas
- 1 cup grated cheese
- To serve: sour cream and fresh coriander
Method
Start by pan-frying the chicken breasts with our Extra Virgin Avocado Oil until cooked, then setting aside.
Using the same pan add a generous amount of avocado oil, followed by the onion, capsicum, and garlic, before giving it a good stir.
Mix in a tablespoon of ground cumin, before adding a quarter cup of tomato puree. Slowly add a quarter cup of water while mixing, followed by 400g of tinned tomatoes. Let that simmer for 2 minutes before setting aside half of the tomato sauce for later.
Add the chicken you cooked earlier and mix everything together.
Dish out the food into a tortilla before rolling up and placing into a cooking dish. Cover with the sauce you set aside earlier, followed by generous amounts of cheese, and then bake for 15 – 20 minutes at 180C.
To serve, add individual enchiladas to a plate before topping with sour cream, pepper, and coriander.
Chicken Enchiladas from Olivado Limited on Vimeo.
Slow Cooked Beef Nachos
Nachos are a simple dish, usually served as an appetizer, but also suitable as a main if enough ingredients are added.
You may think that as a staple of Mexican cuisine, nachos go back a long time, but in fact they were only invented in 1940 by Ignacio “Nacho” Anaya, a chef in Piedras Negras, a small city on the US border.
Traditionally, nachos are made from tortilla chips topped with cheese, jalapeños, beans, and meat, with a dollop of guacamole on top.
Ingredients
- 500g / 1.1lb beef suitable for casseroling – gravy beef, chuck, blade, topside or skirt steak
- 210g / 7.4oz packet Beef and Vegetable Soup Mix
- 450g / 1lb can Mexican flavored tomatoes
- 1 cup hot water
- 2 cups cherry tomatoes, halved or quartered
- 1/2 red onion, finely chopped
- 1/2 cup fresh coriander, chopped
- Juice of 1 lime
- Corn Chips and sour cream, to serve
Method
Trim fat from the meat. Cut the meat into 3cm / 1in cubes. Place the soup packet contents in the bottom of a casserole dish.
Top with the meat. Pour over the tomatoes and water. Mix gently to combine. Cover and cook on low in your oven for several hours.
To make the salsa, combine the tomatoes, onion, coriander, and lime. Season to taste.
To serve, serve the beef on top of corn chips, then top with the salsa and sour cream.
Slow Cooked Beef Nachos from Olivado Limited on Vimeo.
¡Viva México!
We love Mexican food here at Olivado because we love avocado. There is nothing but the flesh of the avocado in every bottle of our extra virgin oil.
Avocados are incredible!
They contain more potassium than a banana, more protein than any other fruit, and half the recommended daily allowance of Vitamin K, and a third of Vitamin C.
Studies on the fruit have shown a host of health benefits, from helping with diabetes to lowering the risk of heart-attacks.
Packed with vitamin E, they also help maintain healthy hair and skin, so it’s no wonder they’ve been a staple of the Americas for thousands of years.
These were just three recipes, but there are plenty more on our website, including lots more Mexican-inspired dishes!
If you have any questions about our award-winning Extra Virgin Avocado Oil, please don’t hesitate to contact us.
You can also keep up to date with the latest recipes, news, and competitions over on our Facebook, Instagram or Pinterest pages.