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Aiming to make Mexican dishes more accessible in France , and to promote our local cuisine in the European country, the French chef and businessman Julien Zattara has published the recipe book: “ Paris-Mexico. Aller-retour gourmand en 50 recettes .” ( Paris-Mexico. A round trip of gastronomy in 50 recipes ).”
The book, with 220 pages and photographs , explains the bases of Mexican cuisine and offers many recipes of traditional Mexican cuisine, especially meat, but also talks about cheeses, sauces, chilies, fish, octopus and the inevitable and emblematic tacos, quesadillas and burritos.
The publication has, above all, a didactic objective. It offers an opportunity for readers and fans of Mexican cuisine to get better acquainted with Mexican culture. Due to the difficulty of finding some of the original ingredients in France, certain substitutes can be used to make the dishes.
"The objective is that everyone can easily make Mexican food and find the products, or change some similar products if they cannot find them," Zattara told Notimex . The chef also runs the Parisian restaurant-taquería "Bocamexa.”
Zattara, who was trained in the prestigious school of the legendary French chef Paul Bocuse , explained that his work does not aim to be a landmark book of Mexican cuisine. He only seeks to help French speakers learn about Mexican gastronomy.
In the book "we do not include all the recipes of Mexico. There are super-specific books for that. What we want is to democratize Mexican food . Our ambition is just that. We do not pretend to say that it is the great book of Mexican cuisine," he said.
"There are many huge books of Mexican cuisine with which readers may feel lost. With this I can look at a page and say that I can make that meal quickly. People like how we simplified recipes so they do not feel intimidated," he added.
About the content of the book, Zattara said that "there are several recipes from northern Mexico. But there are people everywhere and we also did street food because the goal is that people can cook it. Many people are afraid that it is way too complicated. If you want to make mole it can be, but there are other very easy recipes," he said.
Among the recipes included in the book, he mentioned two of octopus , such as salpicón and chicharrón , as well as one of chorizo , another of pibil chicken and a corn cake , among others.
The French chef explained that his love for Mexican food came from his wife , a chef from Monterrey who specialized in baking, trained in France. He pointed out that there has been a growing interest for Mexican cuisine in France and throughout the world.
"I think that Mexican cuisine is booming (...) French people are growing more and more interested in cooking Mexican food. It's the wave of the taco," said Julien Zattara.
He acknowledged that Mexican cuisine is still quite unknown in France and most of this is due to the prejudice that Mexican food is always supposed to be spicy.
"Here we explain that the kitchen does not have to be spicy if you do not want to, that the most important thing is the taste," he said.
The chef and author of the book recently won the contest for the best taco in Paris at the the June edition of the Mexican cooking festival " Que gusto ", with a taco of salmon with chipotle mayonnaise.
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