Remember those assignments back in grade school where you were asked to interview a family member about a significant part of their lives? At High Tech High, students are asked to complete a Family Recipe Project, interviewing family members about a special dish they love to cook or eat.

Isabela Avila, Grade 10, shares her grandmother’s recipe with us…

Getting to interview my grandmother for the Family Recipe Project taught me the importance of really understanding why food plays such a pivotal role in my family. Partly because we’re Mexican and food has always been a substantial part of our culture, and also because who doesn’t love getting together with the people you cherish the most over a good home cooked meal?

When asked about a traditional family recipe, my grandmother answered with what she has been cooking for decades, lonches estilo Jalisco. Most people would see the dish and assume it’s either a torta or a bolillo. However, what determines whether it’s a lonche, torta, or bolillo is the type of bread and meat used. The lonche is almost like a sandwich, but not quiteー filled with meat covered in chile rojo, other spices and herbs, and served on a bolillo salado.

Ingredients:

1 kg of beef
2 onions
3 garlic cloves (peeled)
2 “chiles pasillas” without seeds
2 “chiles ancho” without seeds
1 cube of Knorr Suiza
4 birotes
Sour Cream

Steps:

Cook the meat and add salt to taste
In the blender, add onion, garlic cloves, Knorr Suiza cube, and pepper to taste. The consistency shouldn’t be watery, but rather thick.
Once the meat is done cooking, begin to shred it.
In another pot, add the chile pasilla and chile ancho with water for 15 minutes, or until it comes to a boil.
Afterwards, blend the chiles water into a chile paste.
Evenly distribute the chile paste onto the meat and mix until the meat had been generously coated.
Chop the onions and the tomatoes to add to the lonche.
On one half of the bolilo, add the meat with the chile sauce.
Add sour cream, onions, and anything else to your lonche.
Enjoy!