Elia Herrera is the executive chef of Los Colibrís in Toronto, an upscale Mexican restaurant that features cuisine from her home state of Veracruz.
Watch how she makes tacos de Rajas Poblanos — with chicken, corn, onions, poblano peppers, panela cheese, milk and handmade flour or corn tortillas, as she explains the unique mezcla of ideas and cultures which define her life and her love of food.
When I arrived at Northgate Gonzalez market and was immediately handed a free apron that read I ❤️ Tamales and several blobs of uncooked masa, I knew immediately I had made the right decision for a Friday night.
Even my mother, who invited herself along after her favorite novela was cancelled due to soccer, looked grudgingly impressed. She’d spent the entire ride complaining she did not need tamales-cooking classes because she was a world-class tamales expert.
Let me be clear: In all the years I’ve been alive, my mother has never produced a single tamal.
Instead, she criticizes everyone else’s tamales.
Hola. Is Tia Lencha here. Today I give you the recipe for Rajas con Crema. This was inspire by a trip to the store that sells Mexican things like dancing papier mâché skeletons, Frida Kahlo key chains, overpriced things for the wall. You know, is like Mexican Disneyland. I went in looking for a rebozo to give as a present for my comadre’s birthday.
I find the skinny hipster girl behind the cash register and I say, “Do you have any rebozos?”
“What’s that?” she say.
Anyone who knows Tia Lencha knows that she wanted to give the hipster girl a coco in la cabeza. “What do you mean what’s that? Is…a shawl…like you call it in English.”
“Oh. No,” she say.
“No what?”
“We don’t have those here,” she say. And she turn around like we were finish.
Mas…Tia Lencha’s Cocina: Rajas con crema if you don’t espeak English