GLOSSARY of MEXICAN FOOD TERMS

Albondigas: meatballs.

Atole: a thick, hot gruel made from corn.

Bizcochito: an anise-flavored cookie.

Burrito: a small-to-medium white flour tortilla, filled with meat, beans, cheese, salsa, or a combination of these, and rolled. Often served smothered with chile sauce and melted cheese; the California-style variant is usually much larger (often twice as large or more), includes rice, and may use colored and flavored tortillas.

Caldillo: (Green chile stew) a thin stew (or soup) of meat (usually beef, often pork or a mixture), potatoes, and green chiles.

Capirotada: a dessert traditionally made during lent festivities made of fried slices of birote or bolillo bread then soaked in melted piloncillo, garnished with coconut, peanuts, orange slices and nut bits, served warm or cold.

 Carne adovada: cubes of pork that have been marinated and cooked in red chile, garlic and oregano.

Chalupa: a corn tortilla, fried into a bowl shape and filled with shredded chicken or other meat, and/or beans, and usually topped with guacamole and salsa. (Contrast with the larger and vegetable-laden California-style equivalent known as taco salads; compare with tostadas.)

Chicharrones: small pieces of pork rind with a thin layer of meat that are deep-fried.

Chicharrones de cuero: strips of pork skin that are deep-fried (see Pork rind).

Chile or chile sauce: A sauce made from red or green chiles by a variety of recipes, and served hot over many (perhaps any) New Mexican dish. Chile does not use vinegar, unlike most salsas, picantes and other hot sauces. Green chile is made with chopped roasted chiles, while red chile is made with chiles dried and ground to a powder. Thickeners like flour, and various spices are often added, especially ground cumin, coriander and oregano (none of these is usually added to a red chile sauce, and rarely would cumin or coriander show up in a traditional green sauce). Chile is one of the most definitive differences between New Mexican and other Mexican and Mexican-American cuisines. Mexican and Californian tend to use various specialized sauces for different dishes, while Tex-Mex leans toward the use of salsa picante and chili con carne (and even Cajun-style Louisiana hot sauce). New Mexican cuisine uses chile sauce as taco sauce, enchilada sauce, burrito sauce, etc. (though any given meal may use both red and green varieties for different dishes). A thicker version of green chile, with larger pieces of the plant, plus onions and other additions, is called green chile stew and is popular in Albuquerque-style New Mexican food; it is used the same way as green chile sauce, as a topping for virtually anything, including American dishes. The term "Christmas" is commonly used in New Mexico when both red and green chiles are used for one dish.

Chiles: Peppers of the capsicum species. The New Mexico chile is a local cultivar of the species, or subspecies otherwise represented as Anaheim peppers. The large, flavorful New Mexican variety gives the region's cuisine much of its distinctive style, and used so extensively that it is known simply as "chile". Green chiles are those that are picked unripe; they are fire-roasted, then peeled before further use. Unlike the ultra-mild canned supermarket green chiles, New Mexico green chiles can range from mild to (occasionally) hotter than jalapeños, and come in grades of spiciness at markets that cater to chile aficionados. The climate of New Mexico tends to increase the capsaicin levels in the chile compared to other areas. Red chiles are the ripe form of the same plant (though particular strains are bred for intended use as red or green chile). Generally more piquant than green chiles, they too can be roasted, but are usually dried; they can be added whole, to spice an entire stew, or more often are ground into powder or sometimes flakes. Freshly dried red chiles are sold in string-bound bundles called ristras, which are a common decorative sight on porches and in homes and businesses throughout the Southwest. Chiles may be referred to as chile peppers, especially if the sentence requires them to be distinguished from the chile sauce made out of them. The bulk of, and allegedly the best of, New Mexico chiles are grown in and around Hatch, in southern New Mexico. Chimayo in northern New Mexico is also well known for its chile peppers.

 Chile con queso: chile and melted cheese mixed together into a dip. (Not to be confused with chili con queso, which is Tex-Mex-style chili con carne stew topped with cheese); 'chile' and 'chili' are pronounced slightly differently by knowledgeable English speakers in New Mexico, especially if the difference would be semantically important; the prononuciation of 'chile' leans at least slightly toward the Spanish source, e.g. "chillay", at least when necessary.)

Chiles rellenos: whole green chiles stuffed, dipped in an egg batter, and deep fried.

Chimichanga: a small deep-fried meat and (usually) bean burrito, also containing (or smothered with) chile sauce and cheese; popularized by the Allsup's convenience store chain with a series of humorous commercials in the 1980s with candid footage of people attempting and failing to pronounce the name correctly. Chimichangas, like flautas and taquitos, are a fast-food adaptation of traditional dishes in a form that can be stored frozen and then quickly fried as needed; they are also rigid and easily hand-held, and thus easy to eat by people while walking or driving.

Chorizo: a spicy pork sausage, seasoned with garlic and red chile, usually used in ground or finely chopped form as a breakfast side dish or quite often as an alternative to ground beef or shredded chicken in other dishes; New Mexican chorizo is said to be noticeably different in its spice blend from that of Mexico and California.

 Cilantro: a pungent green herb (also called Mexican or Chinese parsley, the seeds of which are known as coriander) used fresh in salsas, and as a topping for virtually any dish; not common in traditional New Mexican cuisine, but one of the defining tastes of Santa Fe style.

Empanada: a small, sweet, fruit or meat turnover.

Enchiladas: corn tortillas filled with chicken meat, and/or cheese, and either rolled, or stacked, and covered with chile sauce and cheese. The stacked version is called a flat enchilada and is usually covered with either red chile sauce or green chile sauce, and optionally topped with a fried egg. In California-style Mexican-American food, enchiladas are invariably each a discrete item; New Mexico-style enchiladas are often prepared fused together on a pan, assembled and placed in the oven, or in a casserole dish and tend to be served in a manner reminiscent of lasagna, though the California style is becoming more common, especially in upscale restaurants geared toward those unfamiliar with the local cooking style. Flat enchiladas made with blue-corn tortillas are a particularly New Mexican variation.

Flan: a caramel custard

Flauta: a small, tightly rolled, fried enchilada; contrast chimichangas and taquitos.

Frijoles: beans, pinto beans (along with chile, one of the official state vegetables).

Green chile stew: same as Caldillo.

Guacamole: mashed, spiced avocado, usually with chopped onion, tomatoes, garlic, lime and chile.

Horno: an outdoor, beehive-shaped oven ubiquitous in Pueblo communities.

Huevos rancheros: traditionally, eggs poached in chile. The modern dish is typically fried eggs (sunny-side up or over-easy) covered with a hot green chile or red chile sauce, or, occasionally, green chile stew.

Jalapeño: a small, fat chile pepper, ranging from mild to painfully hot, occationally used chopped (fresh) in salsa, sliced (pickled) on nachos, or split (fresh) and stuffed with cheese (outside of New Mexico, cream cheese is more common). Although Jalapeños are common to all Mexican and Mexican-American cuisines, their use in New Mexican food tends to be lesser, in favor of green chile. Because New Mexican cultivars of the green chile approach them in hotness, they are often used only when their distinct flavor is desired.

Natilla: soft custard dessert.

Oregano: A flavorful herb used in many cuisines, and most closely associated with Italian food. Its heavy use in American cuisine in general has supplanted the use of the unrelated but somewhat similar Mexican oregano spice in New Mexican (as well as Californian and Tex-Mex) cuisine, though some cooks prefer to use Mexican oregano, which remains easily obtainable in New Mexico.

Panocha: Flour made from sprouted wheat or a pudding made from this flour.

Pico de gallo: cold salsa with thick-chopped fresh chiles, tomatoes, onions and cilantro (does not have a tomato paste base like commercial packaged salsas, and never any vinegar); the name, curiously, means "rooster's beak."

Posole/Pozole: a thick stew made with hominy corn simmered for hours with pork and chile plus other vegetables such as onions and garlic. Both red and green chile versions exist and are both traditional depending upon the location, however chicken variations are not considered traditional at all.

Quesadilla

Frijoles refritos or refried beans

Salsa: generally an uncooked mixture of chiles/peppers, tomatoes, onions, and frequently blended or mixed with tomato paste to produce a more sauce-like texture than pico de gallo; usually contains vinegar in noticeable quantities (contrast chile and pico de gallo). The green chile variant usually uses cooked tomatillos instead of tomatoes or omits both, and does not use avocado (which is very common in California green salsa). The New Mexico and California styles share a typically large amount of cilantro added to the mix. The word simply means "sauce" in Spanish.

Salsa picante or picante sauce: A thin, vinegary, piquant (thus its name) sauce of pureéd red peppers and tomatoes with spices, reminiscent of a combination of New Mexico-style chile sauce and Louisiana style tabasco pepper sauce. (Note: American commercial food producers have appropriated the term to refer simply to spicy packaged salsa). Picante's place in Mexican, Tex-Mex and Californian food, where it is extremely common, especially as a final condiment to add more "heat", has largely been supplanted by chile, especially red chile, in New Mexican cuisine.

Sopaipilla: a puffed, fried bread, that is eaten split or with a corner bitten off and filled with honey or sometimes honey-butter (as accompaniment in place of tortillas, or as a dessert), or sometimes stuffed with meat, beans, cheese and chile sauce. Traditionally (and still in the north) served with soups (sopa in Spanish) like posole and menudo, today sopaipillas are sometimes found stuffed (like burritos) and are almost universally served as a dessert with honey.

Taco: a corn tortilla fried into a trough shape and filled with meats, cheese, or beans, and fresh chopped lettuce, onions, tomatoes and cheese; increasingly may also refer to the burrito-like uncooked, rolled flour tortilla variant, by way of the influence of Taco Bell and its popularization of the California-style "soft taco". A corn tortilla is always fried in New Mexico cuisine if to be used in a taco.

Tamale (properly tamal in Spanish; plural tamales): meat rolled in cornmeal dough, wrapped traditionally in corn husks (paper is more common today), and steamed, and served most often with red chile sauce. New Mexican tamales typically vary from other tamale styles in that red chile powder is almost always blended into the masa.

Taquito or taquita: a tightly rolled, deep-fried variant of the taco; contrast chimichangas and flautas.

Tortilla: a flatbread made predominantly either of unbleached white wheat flour or of cornmeal. New Mexico-style flour tortillas are typically thicker and less chewy than those found in, for instance, Texas or California. This results from the lower-protein, more cake-like flour commonly available in New Mexico. New Mexican expatriates who travel back to the state for visits will often bring an extra carry-on to fill with New Mexico tortillas and frozen green chile.