Side

Pickled veggies show up on tables in many restaurants, bars, and homes across Mexico. These are great alongside meat, atop a quesadilla, or alone as a happy hour snack.

It really is good to eat your brussels sprouts, and this morilla cream sauce, made with toasted sunflower seeds, will make a believer out of anyone. My father owns a plantation in San Quintín, Baja, where he grows and exports vegetables, including brussels sprouts. When I was young he would bring them home by the overflowing crateful—leaving me and my mother to come up with new, exciting ways to prepare them. This is my favorite recipe for serving the sprouts with a meal. For snacking, I love them coated with a little olive oil, sea salt, and black pepper and roasted until very crisp.

Melted and slightly browned Oaxaca cheese mellows out bitter cabbage for this wonderful side dish. My son loves this with a little bit of lime juice sprinkled over it, and I like the edges, where the cheese is crisp and almost charred. When cutting the cabbage, cut on an angle so that there is a piece of the core on each wedge; it will hold the individual leaves together. For an impressive presentation, create a lattice with the strings of cheese.

Making your own gnocchi is not as difficult or as time-consuming as you may think. Don’t be afraid to try it! Sweet potatoes, a favorite Mexican ingredient, give the dough for these gnocchi a subtle sweetness and added nutrients (sweet potatoes are rich in fiber and vitamins A, B, and C). A simple butter-sage sauce is all you need to finish off this satisfying dish.

This is my interpretation of the traditional Mexican dish of sautéed chorizo and boiled potatoes, which is usually eaten with tacos or queso fundido (melted cheese fondue). In Mexico, chorizo, potatoes, and cheese always go together. But my favorite part of this dish is the crust—it’s perfect for any quiche.

This is one of my favorite salads—it is a perfect accompaniment to most traditional Mexican dishes. Serve it with Cochinita Pibil (page 126) or a carne asada. In Mexico the chicharrones (crackling pork rinds) are sold packaged like potato chips, or in larger pieces at street stands, and are eaten as a snack—on their own or sprinkled with lime juice and bottled hot sauce. Here they provide a nice crunch. Make sure to add them at the end because they will get soggy if they sit too long in the dressing. If you want to keep the salad light and healthy, leave the chicharrones out altogether.

This has to be the easiest recipe in the book. Maybe that’s why this plate showed up on the table almost every day when I was growing up. It also happens to be a very healthy and refreshing snack that my son loves. At every taco stand across Mexico, next to the salsas, you will find a bowl of sliced cucumbers and another with whole or halved radishes. These are meant to be sprinkled with lime juice and a little bit of salt to appease your hunger while the tacos are being prepared. Make sure both the radishes and the cucumbers are very fresh and crisp!

Jícama, a Mexican root vegetable with the crispness of a raw potato, but with a sweeter taste, adds great crunch to this simple salad, which gets a lift from the unexpected addition of soy sauce and sesame oil to the dressing. My great-grandmother used beet coloring as lipstick and as blush. Here I add beets not only for their vibrant color but also for crunch.

This is great served with grilled flank steak and ice-cold beer or lemonade. Stuck indoors? A grill pan for the corn yields an equally delicious summer salad.

If you don’t want to go through the trouble of baking the puff-pastry tart, just serve this wonderful chutney alongside the goat cheese for your guests to spread on crackers. I always have the chutney on hand to stir into hummus or to slather onto a piece of grilled chicken. The creamy goat cheese is the perfect counterpoint to the smoky-sweet chutney.

In Tijuana, as soon as the days get a little warmer, the street vendors start to appear with giant bunches of squash blossoms. I grew up eating squash blossoms sautéed and stuffed in quesadillas, served with fresh raspberries. The addition of mascarpone, an Italian triple-cream cheese, takes the dish to a whole new level.

This blend of two classic flavors, combined with a hint of chipotle, makes for a fast and easy party favorite. You can make these 3 days ahead and store them in an airtight container.

This is my version of the famous Baja taco gobernador, which is a shrimp-stuffed quesadilla. The marlin adds a distinctive smoked flavor that makes this a very special kind of quesadilla. If you must substitute, you can use canned tuna—just make sure it is well drained, and cook the filling an additional 4 minutes to allow the moisture from the tuna to evaporate.

An Italian brunch wouldn’t be complete without a pasta dish. Campanelle pasta is named for the church bells it resembles, and the nooks and crannies are great for trapping sauce, making every bite delicious. If you can’t find campanelle, any small shaped pasta will do. There are lots of bold flavors in this pasta salad, the base of which is canned tuna. Although it’s definitely more caloric, tuna packed in olive oil rather than water gives the salad a much fuller, richer flavor.

Adding both bacon and pancetta to these potatoes may seem like overkill, but trust me—they pack a great one-two punch. The bacon gives the potatoes a smoky flavor, and the pancetta lends meaty substance. These go quickly, so make a double recipe or you’ll find yourself with an empty serving dish before you know it.

This salad looks like tricolore papardelle pasta, with vibrant ribbons of pink, green, and orange melon. If you don’t want to bother to make the melon shavings, just use a melon baller or cut the fruit in cubes; the salad will still be beautiful. This is one that both children and adults go nuts for, and the mint gives it an extra burst of freshness.

The combination of strawberry jam and piney rosemary may sound strange, but together they add up to the perfect blend of sweet and savory—and these scones, which are a bit lighter in texture than regular ones, smell incredible as they bake. I think using a heart-shaped biscuit cutter makes them even prettier.

Brunch is a funny meal; many of the main dishes are sweet enough to make dessert seem almost redundant. That’s why I like to serve this dish, which is bright and fresh from the citrus with a hint of licorice from the fennel. It bridges the gap between salad and dessert, ending the meal on a sweet but not heavy note.

This brunch dish brings together sweet and savory flavors in a way that is insanely good. The cheese melts into the raspberry jam and, combined with the brown sugar, makes this surprisingly addictive.

Why should stuffing be only a once- or twice-a-year treat? A savory bread pudding has all the comfort food flavors of stuffing with no need for the bird. This one is especially delicious, packed with homey winter vegetables and a hint of sweetness and spice. Serve it at your holiday feast or with any meal you want to make a touch more festive.