Allen make sure the dough floats on the water

If instead of remembering I do. Then I might remember.

I have been cooking lately, I tried to find my mothers recipes, but for some reason they were lost. 

I went to the street market with my mother every time, I cut vegetables, I tasted her food. So I have been doing just that, going to the market and cooking the way she taught me. 

Her cooking was very complex, just as her loving. It took time, but it was ready every day at the same time for 17 years. 


Her recipes included many things:


1. Salads (all of them) sweet and not sweet. 
2. Soups, cream soups, fish soups, chicken soups, meat soups, vegetable soups, noodle soups, tortilla soups, 
3. Chicken, meat, fish, and vegetable main plates. All with a combination of spices, that were incredible. 
4. Baking and desserts were also very varied, and she would make sure there was something special on our plates at all times.


So I tried to venture into her style of cooking, which was complex, sharp and tasty. I bought some of the ingredients that she used to mix, tomatoes, onions, dry peppers, spices. And I came up with these:


Plate numero 1

I am going to call it spiced meat. 
 The sauce is a boiled mixture of spices and ingredients including:

dry peppers, onions, tomato, garlic, (and a few things that must remain secret)
That's the already boiling sauce when I added it to the cooked tenderloin ;)


And this is what it looks like:

It was very delicious, but by no means any close to my mothers cooking. And I don't really know whats missing or how to make it better.


NOTICE - Since it was a very complicated recipe to try to replicate, I didn't have time to prepare anything else to eat with it, so NO GARNISHING FOR THIS ONE.


Plate numero 2 Fish with herbs and vegetables


OK So for second chances I went all out with a fish recipe. I wont tell you the details because it involved the oven, and many ingredients, and hours in the making. 


But this is what it looked like:

It only took me an hour to get the rice right, and another hour to cook the fish.


The mixture of the herbs with the vegetables and the fish made it a delicious result.


NOTICE - This plate was delicious, but I try to remember my mothers fish soup, and I am not even ballpark. 


NOTICE numero 2 - I only make one serving, because I only cook for myself and eat alone. 


If you ever want to join the "Lets try to replicate mexican cousine" challenge, let me know in advance and I will make sure I go grocery shopping for 2. 


oohh! and I almost forgot! about the title. When my mom used to bake tamales, the secret in the dough is that you have to press it again and again with your hands until it floats on water. So I had a container with water where I would drop a bit of dough until it floated.