Over the years I've learned a great deal about Mexican foods, and have developed easy-to-follow guidelines for combining commonly available ingredients to make classic dishes. What follows is real Mexican food--way beyond the Mexican-American inventions like cheese-covered nachos, big-as-your-head burritos, and U-shaped tacos stuffed with ground beef and iceberg lettuce.

Author Spotlight: Rick Bayless is the author of Authentic Mexican, Salsas That Cook, and Rick Bayless's Mexican Kitchen (which won the 1997 Julia Child/iacp Cookbook of the Year award). He is the owner of the famed Chicago restaurants Frontera Grill and Topolobampo. He lives in Chicago with his wife, Deann, and their daughter, Lane. These recipes were adapted from his book Mexico: One Plate at a Time (Scribner, 2000).