Doña América

Cooking is remembering. It’s being with the people you had that dish with for the first time again, or the feeling of being transported back to your childhood kitchen through scents and images, reveling in the pleasure of eating at home as a young kid.

Yes, cooking is often remembering one’s childhood. Perhaps that’s why I usually find myself grabbing the phone when I want to make one of my country’s typical dishes. I do so not only to check with my mother and brothers and make sure I have all the necessary ingredients, but also to arrive at that particular flavor engraved somewhere between my sense of smell and taste, that still lingers in my memory.

Chef Domingo Garza experiences something similar, because when we asked him to make a “Grandma’s Recipe” for us, the first thing he did was call Doña America.

We met with Domingo at his Williamsburg-Brooklyn apartment, where he was waiting for us all prepped up and ready to make the famous Calabacitas con Costillas de Puerco “Tatuma Squash Pumpkins with Pork Ribs”:

“Calabacitas con Costillas de Puerco”

“Tatuma squash pumpkins with Spare Ribs” (4 servings )

Accompanied with corn tortillas and white rice.

Ingredients

1 kilo of spare ribs

1 kilo of Tatuma squash (you might find them as Mexican zucchini at the supermarkets)

3 medium sized beefsteak tomatoes

1 medium sized onion

4 garlic cloves

3 serrano peppers

1/2 green bell pepper

3 whole corns

1/2 teaspoon crushed cumin

1/2 teaspoon crushed black pepper

1/4 teaspoon ground clove

1/3 cup olive oil

Salt

How to...

• Chop spare ribs in 3.5 inches chunks.

Heat oil until it reaches its smoke point.

Sear the spare ribs with salt and pepper. Take them out of the pan as soon as they reach a golden-coffee color on the outside (even if they’re not cooked inside), and put them to the side.

• Chop the pumpkins, tomatoes, onion and green bell pepper in 1 inch chunks.

Put the vegetables to the side.

• Deseed and devein the serrano pepper, and dice it.

• Mash the garlic cloves and dice them.

• Cut the whole corns in 1 inch slices, but degrain the third one.

• Heat oil again in the same pan used to sear the ribs and add the chopped onion, garlic, tomatoes, diced serrano pepper and green bell pepper.

Sauté the vegetables until they’re mushy. Then add the pumpkins, the corn and start mixing.

• Then add the spices: cumin, ground clove, pepper, salt and mix well.

• Add the ribs with their cooking juice and mix well before adding the serrano peppers (be careful not to break them once cooked).

• Cook at low heat for 40 minutes. I recommend checking the bottom of the pot and readjusting the heat if necessary, especially during the first

15 minutes.