Latin American

Serve with jicama sticks, radish slices, peeled cooked shrimp, and corn tortilla chips.

The idea for this salad came from Carlos Conrique, who worked at Billy Cross's cooking school in Morelia, a beautiful 16th-century Mexican town. Today, Conrique is a chef at the Blue Door, in Miami's Delano Hotel, where his dishes are still influenced by his childhood in Guadalajara.

This quick and easy rendition of the classic is made with canned chilies.

Carnitas is a traditional Mexican dish of fried pork. In this version, the meat is braised with vegetables and spices. For best results, use large, meaty ham hocks.

This recipe can be prepared in 45 minutes or less.

It takes one to two days to marinate the meat for this recipe, but it's worth it. These will be some of the best ribs you'll ever eat.

Like American-style chili, picadillo is great over rice or with warm tortillas.

Susan serves these with homemade pico de gallo, but purchased salsa also works well.

The signature dish at Américas in Houston. Achiote paste adds earthy flavor and deep red color to the shrimp.

Plump scallops, sprinkled with salt and pepper, are lightly grilled and served with a salsa rich in parsley and diced vegetables. The salsa should be made just before eating; otherwise the liquid content of the vegetables will turn the dish watery.

These tiny tamales can be made a day or two ahead with no compromise. Corn is the essential flavor here, so be sure yours is sweet and fresh by tasting each ear. In the absence of fresh corn you can use frozen, but you should taste that, too.

Try Komal’s pan de elote recipe with fresh corn and rice flour; a Mexican sweet corn cake topped with silky corn whipped cream.

This Puerto Rican sancocho recipe is hearty, flavorful, and loaded with falling-off-the-bone beef, tender carrots, potatoes, squash, corn, plantain, and yuca.

Chicken thighs cooked inside parchment packets alongside onions and oranges makes for a flavorful dinner that’s almost entirely hands off.

Part silky flan, part decadent chocolate cake, chocoflan, or impossible cake, as it is sometimes called, feels like a magic trick, inverting in the oven as it bakes.

This smoky, chile-laden salsa works both as a marinade and glaze for grilled chicken thighs.

This refried-bean-slathered gordita with all the fixings is a Mazatlán specialty.

A form of the classic Mexican stew, white pozole is made without chiles, letting the meatiness of the broth and sweetness of the hominy shine.