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FijiFlavors · Nuevo León
Milk-fed kid opened, salted and slowly roasted on an iron stake beside the embers, in the shepherds’ style. It is the best-known dish of Nuevo León, present on the state’s traditional gastronomy routes, from Monterrey to the northern municipalities.
Traditional dish from Nuevo León
Also known as: cabrito asado, cabrito
Illustrative images. The pictures in this guide are illustrations based on the real place, not photographs, and may differ from it.
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Cabrito al pastor — Nuevo León, Mexico
Cabrito al pastor is a young milk-fed goat, split open, seasoned with salt and impaled on a stake or iron rod, set upright beside the embers, from wood or charcoal. Slowly roasted for hours and turned from time to time, it develops a toasted skin and tender meat. Seasoning is minimal: the flavor comes from the meat and the fire.
The Nuevo León Secretariat of Tourism, together with the state committee for the protection of traditional gastronomy, includes cabrito al pastor on the state’s gastronomic routes, in the northern region, in Sabinas Hidalgo and other municipalities, and in the Monterrey metropolitan area. The routes describe it as an inheritance of ranching tradition and of the grilling techniques of the semi-arid lands.
It is said that goat raising and the taste for cabrito arrived with colonizers of the northeast of New Spain in the 16th century, among them families of Sephardic Jewish origin. This is a version spread by chroniclers and journalists, without documentary proof.
Besides cabrito al pastor, Nuevo León cuisine prepares cabrito al horno, cabrito fritada and cabrito in sauce. In Monterrey, specialized restaurants keep the skewered cabritos in view around the embers.
Nuevo León
Dish of the whole state of Nuevo León, present on the Secretariat of Tourism’s traditional gastronomy routes in several municipalities, from Sabinas Hidalgo to Monterrey.
Milk-fed kid, split down the middle; salt; wood or charcoal. To accompany: flour tortillas, frijol charro, guacamole and sauces.
In portions (leg, rib, backbone), with wheat flour tortillas, frijol charro and sauce. It is eaten at lunch, with family or in a group.
All year round, especially at weekend lunches and family gatherings.
Your questions
Because of the way it is roasted, in the shepherds’ style: the cabrito is skewered on an iron stake, standing beside the embers, and roasted slowly for hours.
Throughout the state. The Secretariat of Tourism’s traditional gastronomy routes include it in northern municipalities such as Sabinas Hidalgo and in the Monterrey metropolitan area.
Wheat flour tortillas, frijol charro, guacamole and sauces.
Flavors of Mexico
Layers of corn tortillas with black beans and shredded cazón, cooked with epazote, topped with tomato sauce and habanero chile. Despite the name, it does not contain wheat bread. It is considered a symbol of Campeche cuisine.
Salted, dried beef — tasajo — cooked in a thick sauce of ground pumpkin seeds, with tomato and rice. It is the celebratory dish of Chiapa de Corzo, served especially during the January Fiesta Grande, the Parachicos festival.
Tacos of pork seasoned with a chile adobo, roasted on a vertical spit (the trompo), and served in a corn tortilla with pineapple, onion and cilantro. They descend from the tacos árabes brought to Puebla by Middle Eastern immigrants and took their current form in Mexico City taquerías.
White fish taco coated in a light batter and fried until golden, served on a corn tortilla with cabbage, tomato-and-onion salsa, mayonnaise or cream, and lime. It originated around 1960 at the stalls of the Mercado Negro, the fish market at the port of Ensenada.
Sandwich made with birote bread, a hard-crusted loaf, filled with carnitas and drenched in tomato sauce, with a spicy chile de árbol sauce on the side. A symbol of Guadalajara’s cuisine, which dedicated a municipal day to it on September 10.
Corn tortillas dipped in a guajillo chile sauce and fried, filled with cheese and onion, served with boiled potato and carrot, lettuce and pickled chiles. A typical dish of the city of Guanajuato, which tradition links to the wives of the silver mine workers.
Broth of cacahuazintle corn and pork thickened with a green sauce made from pumpkin seeds, tomatillo and herbs, served with many accompaniments. Dish from Guerrero, where Thursdays are pozole day.
Thin, crispy batter cooked on a round griddle and rolled like a tube, filled with queso de bola, a cheese of the Edam type. A street sweet from Mérida, created by a family of ice-cream makers in the city and sold at night from carts in the plazas.
Whole fish butterflied open, seasoned with a chile sauce and grilled over coals secured in a double-wire grill, the zaranda, which gives it its name. An official publication places its origin on the island of Mexcaltitán, on the northern coast of Nayarit.
The darkest of Oaxaca’s moles: a thick sauce of chiles toasted almost to the point of burning, including the chilhuacle negro, with chocolate, seeds and spices. A celebratory dish of the state, prepared mainly in the Valles Centrales.
Poblano chile stuffed with a meat-and-fruit picadillo, topped with a white walnut sauce and sprinkled with pomegranate seeds and parsley, in the colors of the Mexican flag. A seasonal dish from late summer, associated with the city of Puebla.
Thick, dark sauce made from several dried chiles, spices, seeds and chocolate, traditionally served with turkey. Tradition links its creation to the kitchen of the old Convent of Santa Rosa in Puebla, the city that gives it its name.
Pork slowly cooked in its own lard in large pots until tender inside and golden outside, served in tacos. Quiroga, near Lake Pátzcuaro, is called the capital of carnitas: families in the town have been making them for more than a century.
Raw shrimp butterfly-cut and cured in lime with chiltepín chile, served with cucumber and red onion. It originated in the mountains of Sinaloa as a meat broth with water and chile and reached the coast, where shrimp took the place of meat. It is presented as the state’s most representative dish.
Freshwater fish with a long snout, grilled whole over coals and eaten with tortilla, lime, salt and chile amashito. It lives in the rivers and lagoons of Tabasco and is one of the state’s most representative dishes, with roots in pre-Hispanic cuisine of the southeast.
Distilled spirit from blue agave named after the city of Tequila, in Jalisco, surrounded by agave fields. It has a designation of origin since 1974, and the agave landscape and the region’s old industrial facilities are a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Salad of romaine lettuce leaves with a dressing of egg, lemon, garlic, olive oil and Parmesan cheese, served with croutons. It was created in Tijuana by the Italian cook Caesar Cardini on July 4, 1924, according to Tijuanan historian José Fernando Escobedo de la Torre.
Red snapper cooked in a tomato sauce with olives, capers, garlic, onion, herbs and pickled chiles güeros or jalapeños. A coastal Veracruz dish, from the Gulf of Mexico, considered one of the country's best-known fish recipes.
Pork marinated in achiote and bitter orange, wrapped in banana leaf and slowly cooked in an earth oven, the pib. A Sunday family dish from Yucatán that combines the pig brought by the Spaniards with a Mayan cooking technique.
