Getting Ready for the Holidays: A Mexican Christmas Salad

In Mexico, Christmas is celebrated from December 12 to January 6.

From December 16 to Christmas Eve, children take part in what is called a Posada procession. Posada means inn or lodging in Spanish. There are nine of these processions. They are meant to celebrate the search of Joseph and Mary for a place to stay. During this time, the houses are decorated with evergreens, moss and paper lanterns.

The children hold candles and go from house to house singing songs about Joseph and Mary asking for a place to stay. But the children are told there is no room for them, until at one house they are invited in. The children say prayers of thanks, and then there is a party. Each night, the Posada party is held at a different house.

On Christmas Eve, everyone goes to a church service, and afterward, there are fireworks. Christmas Eve, after the final Posada, is also the time when families have the main Christmas meal. One dish that might be served at the meal is a Christmas salad. Here’s the recipe, courtesy of foodnetwork.com.

For this dish, you will need:

• Six Granny Smith apples
• Two cups of diced pineapple
• One-half cup of diced celery
• One-third cup of raisins
• One-third cup of sweetened, shredded coconut
• One-half cup of walnuts, roughly chopped
• One-quarter cup of mayonnaise
• One tablespoon of sour cream
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper

To make:

• Slice the top off of each apple, about one-quarter of the way down, and set the tops aside. Then, use a melon ball scoop to scoop out a cavity inside the apple. The salad ingredients will go inside the apple.
• Next, mix all of the ingredients together in a large bowl. Chop up the apple pieces that were removed from the apples and add them to the other ingredients. Sprinkle the mixture with salt and pepper.
• Spoon about three tablespoons of the mixture into each of the hollowed out apples. Then place the tops back on the apples. If you have any of the mixture left over, you can refrigerate it for about a day. Serve the salad cold.
• Also, if you want to prevent the inside of the apples from turning brown while you are mixing the ingredients, you can put them in a bowl of water with the juice of two limes.

Making holiday dishes takes time and effort. While the holidays traditionally have family gather at home with someone (and you know who you are) needing to prepare that feast beforehand, why not visit a Mattito’s once or twice during the busy holidays season to relax and enjoy some great Tex-Mex food? We look forward to helping you celebrate this holiday season.

Image by Lyricmac - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0.