Corn tortillas stuffed with , shredded beef and pico de gallo, bowls of steaming menudo, roasted pork flavoured with chipotle, plump filled with poblano peppers and earthy black turtle beans tossed through a salad. These are just a few of the ingredient-driven dishes that chef, composer and author says are representative of the evolution of Mexican cuisine in Australia.
"I recently posted a picture of poblano chillies at a Coles supermarket on my Instagram with an exclamation mark! Sourcing poblano chillies at my local supermarket was unheard of 10 years ago," says Nazario, who makes in the Stuffed, Rolled and Wrapped episode of with Maeve O'Meara.
"Poblano chillies are the bomb! They add so much body to a dish. Add them to a tomatillo salsa and it becomes mysterious. It becomes a trip to a foreign land. They have an element of spice that is very unpredictable in terms of how much heat they can carry and they are spicy in an exotic way," says Nazario.
' chef Domingo Medina agrees having readily available ingredients such as poblano chillies is representative of the evolution of Mexican cuisine in Australia.
Stuffed poblano chillies (chiles rellenos) Source: Sharyn Cairns
"In the time I have been operating, we have changed our menus based on the availability of certain ingredients," says Medina, who was born and bred in Mexico.
When Medina arrived in Sydney a decade ago he says most Australians thought of Mexican cuisine in terms of the ready-to-assemble taco kits replete with spice mixes and salsas sold at the supermarket. The Mexican-born chef immediately saw the potential to open a restaurant serving the dishes from his homeland and, six months later, opened Dos Senoritas.
"In recent years, I have found my Australian customers want to experience more and more real Mexican food," says Medina, who grew up in the city of Guadalajara.
"My customers all want to learn more about Mexican ingredients and Mexican food. They ask to try my mole Oaxaca and my mole Poblano, my ceviche and even my menudo (beef tripe soup) which is the ultimate cure for a hangover and they want to learn to make it themselves," he says.
When SBS Food spoke to chef he was boarding a flight for Tulum to dine at during its seven-week residency. As executive chef at three Merivale restaurants, including El Loco @ Excelsior, Hong says he has noticed more and more Mexican ingredients have become readily available.
"Mexico is not our neighbour so we haven't grown up with it. It's thanks to the Internet, we now realise we haven't been eating real Mexican food and that realisation has led to a greater demand for ingredients that are integral to Mexican flavours," he says.
of Fireworks Foods has been at the forefront of making Australian food lovers see Mexican cuisine in a new light. Aguilera migrated to Australia in 1999 and, in 2006, after feeling homesick for the flavours of her homeland, opened Fireworks Foods, an import business selling the hard-to-find Mexican ingredients she craved.
Aguilera says a lot of Mexican ingredients have become more mainstream, with ingredients like canned chipotles in adobo sauce now available on some supermarket shelves.
"Tomatilloes, cactus, dried chillies such as ancho and guajillo and achiote are some ingredients have been incorporated in many dishes served by everyone from chefs to home cooks.
"Our business has doubled in the past decade as products such as pass through the stage of being a fad and become mainstream," says Aguilera.
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Achiote-roasted pork (cochinita pibil) Source: Benito Martin
Here are Domingo Medina's top five ingredients that are central to Mexican cuisine.
1. The hand-pressed corn tortilla
"The tortilla is what white bread is to Australians. I have flour tortillas on my menu and I call them 'gringo' tacos. Nobody eats flour tortillas in Mexico. They are considered Tex Mex."
2. Masa corn meal
"People make pilgrimages to my kitchen for my tamales. But as well as the increased availability of ingredients having an impact on Mexican cuisine in Australia, home cooks want to buy the corn flour so they can learn to make tamales and this sort of street food themselves, which is also driving demand."
3. Black turtle beans
"The black turtle beans are great for making dips. I also put them in a couple of salads. I offer vegetarians a very tasty starter dish with beans, rice and onions. The black bean has a lot of protein and it's very earthy and holds its shape very well. It does wonders to a salad."
4. Smoked chipotle
"Smoked chipotle adds a smokiness to Mexican dishes and enhances them beautifully. It has such a distinctive taste. I see it popping up on menus - chipotle aioli, chipotle mash potatoes - but I use it for a simple salsa for a sauce I make called Baja and I mix it into a taco salad."
5. Poblano chillies
"The poblano is now available in Australia. I make - poblano stuffed peppers - and we use it in tamales with cheese and peppers. The poblano is very smoky. It's very earthy and hearty and enhances the flavour of a dish beautifully."
Everything from Mexican liquor to Mexican specialty ingredients such as smoked chipotle and poblano chillies are now available online at Fireworks Foods. Visit
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