Style_ April 01, 2021

26 Style | Feature
The real
deal
Kate Preece’s taste
buds journeyed to
Mexico via a food
trail led by Citlalli
Fernandez Anaya.
Photos Catherine
Ericson
In a Wigram kitchen, Citlalli ‘Ally’
Fernandez Anaya tells tales of a
childhood in Mexico City, where food
has its place in the heart of the home.
Her six-person audience has come
together to absorb the lessons she
learnt alongside her grandmother,
mother and sister (now a Le Cordon
Bleu chef), and gain an understanding
of what authentic Mexican food is
really like.
“I cannot remember a time I have
not been in love with food,” says
Ally. “From the time I could reach my
grandmother’s and mother’s apron I
was on a stool in the kitchen making
masa [maize dough] for tortillas, an
everyday staple.”
Ally created Kahlo, her Mexican
cooking school, to pass on her
culinary secrets, off the back of
some rather successful Mexican
Independence Day celebrations.
Ally would spend days preparing
food in the kitchen in the leadup
to the annual event, which
saw her friends treated to a feast
that commemorated Mexico’s
independence from Spain. Being
able to present an evolving range
of dishes to households around
Christchurch seemed just the way to
extend the party.
With Mexican ingredients more
available than ever before, a good
supermarket is a Kiwi’s pantry for a
favourable range of dried and tinned
chillies, and the tomatillo that’s key to
a true salsa verde. Alongside frozen
chillies found at Asian supermarkets,
we have little excuse not to follow
Ally’s lead.
While Ally no longer feels the need
to bring food-filled suitcases back with
her from Mexico, she is very specific
about which ingredients are used –
particularly in the Tacos Al Pastor she
creates for us. If you haven’t found
achiote paste (a Mexican condiment
made from annatto seeds), do not
even consider making the pork
marinade that’s essential for this
recipe. Another sin would be to skip
topping the taco with pineapple.
Authenticity is key to what Kahlo is
all about. Ally’s classes offer a chance
to learn about the staples of Mexican
cuisine (chillies, lemon, lime, salt and
garlic) and how they work together
– not to create the Tex-Mex recipes
we are more used to consuming at
our ‘Mexican’ restaurants.
Take, for example, Ally’s signature
guacamole. It includes no tomato
or red onion. There is white onion
in the recipe, but it’s blended, not
diced, into a smooth dip that has
extra silkiness due to its milk content.
We can all attest to its taste – chips
were constantly diving into the
moreish green mix as the rest of the
menu unfolded over the course of
the evening.
My favourite dish was the grand
finale to our night of Mexican street
food. Corn cobs were boiled in a
mix of herbs and spices, before being
coated in lashings of mayonnaise,
rolled in grated white cheese, and
sprinkled with cayenne pepper. It was
not only delicious, but brought to life
Ally’s anecdotes – the real seasoning
on this insightful experience of life in
Mexico City.