Chef Jair Tallez Explains How To Improve Mexican Dishes At Home - Exclusive
There's something about eating out at your favorite Mexican restaurant, or even better, visiting the many amazing restaurants that make up Mexico's thriving food scene, that can't be beat. While recreating your favorite cuisine or go-to dishes might seems difficult, there are some tricks you can follow to improve your technique at home. TikTok star Jeremy Scheck explained that he prefers to use only ingredients that are authentic to the cuisine to make better, restaurant-worthy dishes at home. But just as Scheck would only use olive oil in Mediterranean dishes, award-winning chef Jair Téllez has a few tips of his own for making better Mexican food at home.
The first tip Téllez offered when he spoke to Mashed in an exclusive interview while promoting his partnership with Patron was all about balancing the recipe. "Acidity is great," he said. Whether you opt for lime juice, hot peppers, or another source of acid, the sharpness can help cut through fatty ingredients and brighten the dish. But that isn't the only tip Téllez has for home cooks.
Téllez recommends adding more texture to dishes too
While opposing flavors like acidic lime juice and fatty cheese or spicy peppers and sweet corn can perfectly balance a dish for better homemade Mexican food, chef Jair Téllez also recommends one more tip. In his opinion, texture also plays a huge role in making better, restaurant-quality food at home. "Texture, something crunchy that works in your brain in a way that creates color, it creates a palate of sensations that will add to the experience and make it fun," Téllez said. Adding more texture can take your homemade dish to the next level by creating more dimension while using a rather simple technique.
Home cooks need to consider and think through not only what each ingredient in a dish will taste like, but what it will feel like while eating it in a recipe. By breaking up the consistency of an otherwise soft dish, like cheese enchiladas, with something crisp, like roasted corn that crunches and pops open as you chew, you might find that there is more to appreciate as you eat.
Follow Merotoro on Facebook to keep up with Chef Jair Téllez and his partnership with Patrón Tequila.