The Mexican chef and owner of London’s Michelin-starred KOL searches out homestyle cooking in his first cookbook, Mexican Soul.

Cooking Mexican Food From Your Local Supermarket

Can you source the ingredients you need at your local supermarket to cook excellent Mexican food? Depends on who you ask. But Chef Santiago Lastra was determined to try. Sourcing only foods he could find at British supermarkets, not specialty or gourmet shops or online anything, he found a path to cook Mexican food – and cook it well – no matter where you are in the world.

A recipe for Sesame Macha (p. 230) uses chile flakes. Yes, the kind sold in jars in every supermarket I’ve ever been to. It’s a relief that Lastra did not ask me, a home cook, to roast and peel my own chiles for the sauce. Working with the pepper flakes, paprika, and vegetable oil, he achieves the same effect – deeply flavored and nutty with intense spice in the throat. You still need to toast the seeds and roast the garlic, though! Similarly, homemade ‘Achiote’ uses no annatto seeds but instead a combination of smoked paprika and cayenne.

There’s still some fussy cooking here. Baked Plantain with Piloncillo (p. 90) calls for banana leaves, something I have to go to a specialty store to get. You’ll still need to make your own masa for Refried Bean Tetelas (p. 138). And a recipe for Mole Negro (p. 122) calls for making alkaline water and weighing out the black ash from roasting raw chiles. Some shortcuts are a bridge too far. This balance between quick, accessible-to-anyone flavor and honoring the traditions of Mexican cuisine is at the heart of Mexican Soul.

Recipes I Made

I could not find the called-for tuna belly so my tuna was quickly hard-seared before becoming part of Tuna & Tomato Crudo (p. 181). I also could not find watercress, substituting red leaf lettuce instead. Nope, no salsa macha either, but I did have mala chile crisp, a spicy stand-in for the macha. For service, I dabbed sliced tomatoes with the chile crisp and served the tuna separately. Huge hit with everyone at the table.

Crab Burritos (p. 186) were less successful. Stefan wondered why I would hide expensive crab meat under beans when I could showcase its flavor instead. Lukas disliked the texture of the kohlrabi against the softer crab and beans. Niki didn’t even taste his burrito. The Red Mexican Rice (p. 246) served next to the burritos? Huge hit. My family loves  colorful rice!

The biggest success of cooking from Mexican Soul was Quesabirria (p. 212). I never order this dish in a restaurant (cheese – wah!) but at home, an easy fix. I prepared Lamb Birria (p. 208) on a Sunday, slow-roasting my Mexican butcher-recommended lamb leg for seven hours. I short-cutted the birria adobo with supermarket-purchased adobo sauce in a can, zhushed up with chipotle paste from a tube. I put the hour saved in the kitchen to use in the garden. The birria?  It emerged from the oven with the most delicious gravy – so good, I used both gravy and lamb as a sauce for pasta the next night.

Who Would Like This Cookbook

Resourceful chefs, rejoice! Finally, a cookbook that understands your need to cook well at an AirBnB, your mother-in-law’s house, or your own kitchen. Fans of a more streamlined approach to Mexican cooking and those with a pantry NOT filled with Mexican-specific ingredients yet searching for big flavor will find much to like about Mexican Soul. And those who want to nerd out on making mole by roasting chiles and saving the ash can do that, too.

For more cookbook reviews, may I tempt you to take a look at my Cookbooks page?

I was provided a preview copy of Mexican Soul.