Another Christmas and another fantastic Christmas Eve dinner! In my family, we do things a little bit differently for Christmas. If you’ve read my previous holiday entries, you know that each year we choose a different regional theme for our Christmas Eve feast. Past years have included Scandinavian, Indian, Cajun, and Greek. We’ve been doing this for a long time now and have nearly covered the globe. While it’s fun to choose a brand new locale, every few years we return to Mexico. Everyone in my family loves to eat tamales at Christmas, and we can only go so many years without having them. This year, I had a brilliant idea—instead of doing a generic Mexican meal, we could focus specifically on the foods of the Yucatan! I ate lots of delicious dishes when I visited that region earlier this year so I knew it would be a good choice. It would allow us to explore a new cuisine while still providing a venue for our beloved tamales.

Yucatecan cuisine blends local Mayan flavors with Caribbean, Mexican, European and Middle Eastern influences resulting in what some argue is the world’s first fusion cuisine. It is very distinct from what we typically think of as Mexican food. Perhaps the most famous dish from this region is cochinita pibil, a rich and flavorful pork stew. Robert sampled cochinita pibil in Tulum and loved it. In fact, that dish was the primary reason that I suggested doing a Yucatan feast in the first place. The key to cochinita pibil is recado rojo, a seasoning paste made from annatto seeds (which give it a striking red color) and various spices including cinnamon, allspice and cumin. Recado rojo is a critical component of Mayan cuisine—we used it in at least three of our dishes. To make cochinita pibil, you marinate cubes of pork overnight in the recado and some fresh citrus juice (we did a combination of grapefruit, orange and lime). Then you line a casserole dish with banana leaves and bake the pork until it falls apart. It can be served as a stew over rice or, like we did, as a filling for fresh corn tortillas. Either way, cochinita pibil wouldn’t be complete without the essential garnish of pickled red onions. They provide a bright flavor contrast to the rich stew and are pretty too!

The other major dish this Christmas was, not surprisingly, the tamales! Tamales in the Yucatan are different from tamales in other parts of Mexico. The masa dough in Yucatecan tamales is typically flavored with the all-important recado rojo. Diced tomatoes are usually present, either in the masa or in the filling. Also, the filling is commonly thickened by cooking some of the masa dough in broth (this masa-thickened sauce is called a kol). For our tamales, we simmered chicken with fresh tomato and recado rojo and then shredded it. Next, we thickened the leftover broth with the masa and added the shredded chicken back in. I could have eaten a big bowl of this on its own with a spoon, but it was even better inside tamales. Our masa dough wasn’t too shabby either. We were unable to obtain quality fresh masa so we tried Rick Bayless‘ substitute masa which is made by mixing pulverized corn grits with the powdered masa that you find in big bags in Mexican markets. This is supposed to do a better job of mimicking the masa dough that you typically see in Mexico. It had a more subtle corn taste than what I’m used to, but the texture was light and airy and perfect! Our Christmas Eve tamales came pretty darn close to the wonderful fresh tamales Robert and I ate in Xcalak last winter.

Rounding out the meal was a terrific coconut fish stew made with green plantains, sweet bell pepper and—you guessed it—more recado rojo. We also made black beans with epazote, white rice (pilaf-style, as is the custom in Mexico), and a simple spinach salad topped with oranges and jicama. To drink, we served up a family favorite: sangria. It wasn’t as elaborate as some of our past meals have been, but it was certainly delicious and memorable. In my family, if there are tamales on the table, it is guaranteed to be a slam dunk! Happy holidays!

I’m always on the lookout for festive, colorful cocktails this time of year. Unfortunately, such cocktails are usually laden with sugary syrups and fruit juices and are inevitably too sweet for my tastes. Last month, my friend Jen hosted a fabulous cocktail party. As soon as I arrived, she was urging me to sample some of her beet-infused vodka. I’ll admit that I was initially shocked. I’ve heard of vodka being infused with all kinds of different things: vanilla, citrus, blueberries, even exotics like kaffir lime leaves, but never beets (in hindsight, I probably should have seen this coming—people are putting beets into everything these days!)

Almost immediately, I began warming up to the idea. I’m not much of a vodka drinker, but this combination sounded unusual and I could picture myself becoming a convert. Jen whipped up a drink for me using a hefty pour of beet vodka, fresh lemon and lime juice, simple syrup and a splash of raspberry liqueur. It was seriously beety…and absolutely delicious! The sweet raspberry flavor was perfectly offset by the earthiness of the beets. It tasted great and seemed almost healthy. Beets and citrus are supposed to be good for your liver so it makes perfect sense to mix them with alcohol. I started referring to this drink as “The Detox”!

The next morning, my eyes drifted up toward a bottle of vodka that had been gathering dust on top of my fridge for, oh, the last five years or so. It was time to put it to good use. I headed down to the farmers’ market to pick up some fresh red beets for my own beet-infused vodka. Making beet vodka couldn’t be easier. Simply add three or four peeled and quartered beets to a jar, fill with vodka and let sit for three days, stirring occasionally. Strain out the beets and you’re done! Easy and entertaining too. It’s fun to watch the vodka go from a lovely fuchsia color to a deep, rich red. You can pour the vodka into a nice bottle if you wish although it looks quite striking in the the jar—like something you might find in a mad scientist’s kitchen or a biology lab.

Now that my beet-infused vodka was ready, it was time for some experimentation. First up, a beety Manhattan for Robert. For this, I simply replaced the vermouth in my Manhattan recipe with beet vodka. This makes for a pretty serious drink: dry, spicy and earthy with none of the sweetness that vermouth normally provides. Robert likes hearty drinks so he enjoyed it. For myself, I went in a completely different direction. I placed a small rosemary sprig and a few slices of fresh ginger into a cocktail shaker along with beet vodka, lime juice and a touch of simple syrup. I shook it up, strained it into a chilled martini glass and garnished with a rosemary sprig. To intensify the aroma of the rosemary, I quickly ran a lit match along its needles before dropping it in the glass. This isn’t necessary, but it’s a nice touch. The piney fragrance of the rosemary and the heat and spice from the ginger complemented the earthy beets well. With its beautiful ruby red color and enticing pine scent, my beet-rosemary cocktail proved to be a perfect choice for this holiday season!

Red chili is the cornerstone of Northern New Mexican cooking. If you’ve ever traveled to New Mexico, you’ve no doubt sampled it in one form or another. The word chili usually conjures up images of chunky meat and bean stews. In New Mexico, when someone says chili they are usually referring to a chili sauce made from red or green chilies. Outside of New Mexico, I typically call it chili sauce for clarity’s sake. Around our house, we just call it red for short as in “those tamales would be way better with a little red on top.” Red chili is most commonly used as a sauce for enchiladas, but you can smother virtually any New Mexican and many non-New Mexican dishes with it. In homes, it is offered as a general condiment, available to be drizzled on whatever you happen to be eating that day. Tacos, corn chips, fried potatoes…it all tastes better with a dash of red chili. I personally love it over beans and fried eggs.

When I first visited New Mexico, I had no experience with red chili other than on enchiladas. Even then, the sauce that I was used to was a milder, tomato-based concoction. I was slightly taken aback by this thick, spicy, deeply red chili sauce that I kept seeing all over Santa Fe. I was even more surprised when Robert’s family offered it to me as a topping for mashed potatoes at their Thanksgiving feast. What, no gravy? I was hooked immediately. These days, I can’t imagine mashed potatoes without red chili. This has since become a traditional Thanksgiving dish in my family as well. It is delicious and also adds a much needed splash of color to the plate (let’s face it, outside of cranberry sauce, Thanksgiving dinner tends to be a little beige).

In its most basic form, red chili is little more than dried red chilies blended with water and perhaps a chopped onion or some garlic. As with all basic recipes, numerous variations exist. Some people make their red chili from whole dried chili pods whereas others prefer the convenience of powdered chilies. Some people add tomatoes, some use stock in place of water, some even add chopped pine nuts! Although Chiles de Ristra (a.k.a. New Mexican red chilies) are the conventional choice, you can make red chili from nearly any type of dried chili. Depending on what you use, your chili may be hot, mild, smoky, or even a tad sweet. Everyone’s got their own family recipe and, not surprisingly, no two are alike.

This Thanksgiving, I wanted to make sure my red chili was extra delicious. I have always been somewhat timid about how much chili powder I use, but I was inspired by the intense red chili I had at The Shed when we were in Santa Fe. I decided it was time to go bold and that meant doubling the amount of chili in my recipe to a whopping ½ cup! My adjustment paid off and my chili turned out fantastic, just like the reds I’d had in New Mexico. My family raved about it at Thanksgiving dinner. I finally have a red chili recipe worth writing home about. The only downside is that we are now going to blow through our precious stash of powdered red chili faster than ever!

Click here for my red chili recipe»