Fond is a French term that refers to the browned bits and caramelized drippings of meat and vegetables that end up stuck to the pan after sautéing or roasting. Though it may look like a dishwasher’s headache, fond will impart rich, umami flavor into your dish or pan sauce when you deglaze the pan with a liquid or an aromatic like onion.
Epazote is used from Mexico to Peru as a leaf vegetable, herb, and tea for its pungent flavor. Raw, it is very strong, even medicinal. But, when cooked in traditional preparations of black beans the flavor is outstanding and purported to lessen the gassy effects of legumes. Epazote is especially prevalent in Mexican cuisine and found in dishes including quesadillas and sopes (especially those containing huitlacoche), soups, mole de olla, tamales, chilaquiles verdes, esquites, and enchiladas.
In Mexico and many Mesoamerican countries, elote refers to corn on the cob as a common salty snack. The ears are seasoned with spices such as epazote and slathered with butter or mayonnaise, dusted with grated cheese and, in the case of Mexico, enhanced with chile powder, lemon juice, and salt. Corn removed from the cob and similarly seasoned is generally known as esquites.
Sofrito is both a technique and a sauce made of sautéed ingredients (generally onions, garlic, peppers, and tomatoes) that serves as a flavor foundation for many traditional Spanish, Mexican, and Latin American cuisines in stews, soups, and even paella. Sofrito translates as “gently fried” reflecting the proper technique of “poaching” vegetables in oil on a medium fire until nearly melted. The sofrito can then be added to foods to continue cooking until the dish is done.
The basic procedure for a sofrito is to heat oil in a pan and sauté onions, garlic, and peppers until soft and slightly golden. Then, for a red variety common in Mexico, add peeled and chopped tomato to “fry” on a high heat until the tomato liquid evaporates. Salt, pepper, cumin, oregano, pimenton, and bay leaf are a few commonly added seasonings. Keep this mix on hand to quickly construct a flavorful and fragrant stew, rice, fish soup, or potaje.
Tortilla ribeteada is a way to prepare a tortilla for duty. Once you learn this simple trick, you will never eat another ho-hum, doughy tortilla undeserving of spectacular taco fillings. Ribeteado is a term borrowed from tailors, which describes the piping of a garment or edging of an item. When thin rounds of corn and flour material are placed on a grill over coals and flame, the blacked lines on the blistered tortilla resemble the elegant trimmings on a chef coat. The effect of charring tortillas is the secret of asador campestre, rustic outdoor restaurants across Mexico. But, if you have a gas range or grill, you don’t need to fell trees and stoke coals to accomplish the same smoky tortilla with intermittent textures of chewiness and crunch. Simply place the tortilla over the flame and watch for signs of smoke, a good indication that you have achieved some charring. Then flip and repeat. Fill and eat.
Jamón ibérico or “Iberian ham” is a type of cured ham produced in Spain and Portugal, made from specific pigs who are at least 50% the genetic progeny of the black Ibérian breed. True to the adage that you are what you eat, Iberian pigs are especially tasty because they wander about all their lives in pastures and oak groves noshing on grass, herbs, acorns, chestnuts, and roots. As “retirement” approaches, the most prized pigs are treated to the richest olives, chestnuts or acorns to further enrich their famously strong foraging limbs. The hams are The cured from 12 to 48 months. The hams don color-coded labels according to the pigs’ diet and the purity of its lineage. The finest grade is called jamón ibérico de bellota or pata negra (black label) and touts an all acorn diet and pure-bred ancestry. The runner up is jamón ibérico cebo de campo (green label) which enjoyed a pastured diet of acorns and grain. Plain ole’ jamón ibérico (white label) were fed only grain, but don’t feel badly for these little pigs, they are still considered superior to their less distinguished jamon serrano cousins.
Jamón serrano or “Serrano ham” is a type of dry-cured Spanish ham which includes nearly all varieties other than those made with black Iberian pigs which yield a special treat known as jamón ibérico. These aged hams have been a delicacy since before the Romans resided in Spain and although they command a premium price in the US, consumers in Spain and the European Union, eat the affordable, thinly sliced, deep red ribbons of fatty ham like Oscar Meyer cold-cuts.
Huitlacoche is a an ingredient in Mexican cuisine that symbolizes the food culture divide between the US and Mexico. Beautiful lobes of dusty pale purple fungus perched atop ears of growing corn, huitlacoche is a delicacy south of the US border served in tacos, quesadillas, omelets, soups and stews. But the same mushroom-like growth in the US goes by the less sexy name “corn smut.” To be fair, some linguists believe that the Spanish name derives from indigenous Nahuatl word for excrement so, smut may be considered an improvement in marketing spin. Still, corn smut has been the target of agricultural eradication in the US for more than a century while Mexican farmers have sold the highly-esteemed product for a significantly higher price than they can earn for their uninfected corn. In recent years, culinary leaders have tried to encourage US farmers and Chefs to cultivate and prepare huitlachoche by rebranding the product as “Mexican truffle.” Their success remains to be seen but will most certainly be more effective than serving “Empanadas of corn excrement” or “Sopes of corn smut.”
Soigne (pronounced “SWAN-YAY”) means “elegant” in French. It’s used by Chef’s to boast an exceptionally sexy presentation of a dish. But, the next time something gorgeous hits your table, please do not try to impress your server with this term. It is one thing for Chef Grant Achatz to tout his own soigne creation, but it is somewhat douche-y territory for a foodie to make the proclamation. Yet, nothing is stopping you from using the term to describe your own eye-popping soigne dish. Earn it and use it!
Fish collar is a bony wedge of tender, fatty meat hidden between the fish’s gills and the rest of its body. Over the year, the word has gotten out about the succulent, sweet flesh of fish cheeks but, somehow, collars remain unknown to most Americans. Though many chef brows would cock at my saying so, fish collars are the chicken wing of the sea. When expertly fried and sauced, rich collagen coats your fingers as you nibble the crispy skin and soft fish meat from the bones. The exceedingly fatty piece is a grease fire invitation at home. Leave this one to the professionals and order it on sight.