From ‘caramelly’ lard to blue spoons: inside chef Rick Martínez’s vibrant kitchen on Mexico’s Pacific coast | Life and style
Seven years ago, Rick Martínez ditched New York City for a 20,000-mile road trip across Mexico, seeking to reconnect with his roots and capture the diversity of the country’s regional cuisines.
He never left. The journey resulted in the chef’s James Beard award-winning cookbook, Mi Cocina, and a new home in the coastal city of Mazatlán, known for its fresh seafood and bountiful mercados. “Pineapple, papaya, mango, coconut all grow within a mile of my house,” he said.
Martínez, who has since published a second cookbook, Salsa Daddy, recently opened Rick’s Cooking School, a series of virtual classes where the former Bon Appétit editor teaches how to make a perfect birria, chile relleno and pipián, live from his own kitchen.
“I make a point of telling people, ‘I want you to feel like you’re in my kitchen with me,’” he said. “It’s been really fun.”
So what is in the chef’s home kitchen? I spoke with Martínez about his tips on how to transport Mazatlán into your own home. He shared the regional sugar that “completely changed” his baking, the tool he swears by for homemade tortillas and why all his kitchen spoons are blue.
This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
I had regular griddles and cast-iron pans but no comals until I moved to Mexico. These thinner, lighter griddles heat up and cool down faster. Quick adjustments are important when you’re making tortillas and have to get your heat just right.
The one I use the most is 13.5in in diameter, and I can fit seven corn tortillas or four large flour tortillas on it. It’s also great for toasting dried chilies or charring vegetables, tomatoes, tomatillos and chiles, onion and garlic for salsa. I use it almost every day, and I find it hard to believe that I’ve lived most of my life without it.
What do you use to make great tortillas?
I’ve eaten tortillas all over this country and some really excellent heirloom corn varieties, but Masienda’s yellow, red and blue corn masa harinas are so flavorful, and they really capture that flavor of good Mexican heirloom corn.
How about homemade guacamole?
I don’t know why, but to me, guacamole tastes better – or the texture is better – if I mash and mix it in a molcajete, a mortar and pestle made of volcanic rock. So I have a lot of them. The one that I use most is the one that my grandfather gave me when I was 19.
If I want to incorporate more Mexican flavors in my cooking, what are ways?
Canned chipotle adobo sauce is, to me, liquid gold. You can take something you’ve cooked for 15 minutes, and add adobo sauce, which has been cooked for a lot longer, and all of a sudden you get that long-simmered flavor. Chipotles are generally good cooking hacks if you want a smoky flavor but can’t grill.
Pickled jalapeños are also really great cooking tools. Obviously you can put them on pizza and nachos, but that pickle brine is great for seasoning soups and stews. A tablespoon of that vinegary brine lifts everything up, and it brightens it. I’ve used it in salad dressings, chopped up on fish tacos, and when I lived in Texas, a pickled jalapeño and bacon potato salad.
In my pantry, I also keep dried chiles: guajillo, ancho, pasilla, cascabel and morita – I love moritas. Major grocery stores carry many of these, but Duals Natural in New York is good and ships nationwide. For heat, I recommend chile de arbol, guajillo and ancho.
What are basic pantry upgrades that make all your dishes better?
Colima, an area on the Pacific coast about 150 miles south of where I live, is known for its sea salt, and it’s incredible.
I also adore piloncillo. The flavor is phenomenal and has completely changed my baking. If you are a fan of coffee, chocolate, coffee, butterscotch, caramel flavors, then I would highly recommend piloncillo as a substitute for brown sugar. It’s widely available in the US and is sometimes also called jaggery. Use a cheap grater to grind it.
And fresh manteca, or lard, adds so much flavor to your cooking and has pretty much become my cooking oil of choice. I buy mine from this sweet older couple in Mazatlán’s mercado. They sell mainly dairy things, but also delicious, fresh chicharones and the fat that it’s cooked in. It still has the little particles of pork suspended in it, and it has a really nutty, caramelly pork flavor.
It’s difficult to find good lard in the US – it’s usually hydrogenated and has no flavor – but when I am in the US, I usually go to either Mexican or Latin butchers, or grocery stores.
What kitchen appliance have you bought for life?
I bought this Vitamix blender when I was writing recipes for Mi Cocina. The motor is incredibly strong, and the blades handle everything I throw at it – chiles, nuts, seeds, spices, even nut butters. I’ve been using it heavily for almost six years now, making moles and guisos (stews), and it’s never given me a problem.
In general, what do you recommend to make food prep much easier?
I got this John Boos cutting board when I was working at Bon Appétit. I’m really drawn to dark wood, and the grain on this one is especially beautiful. That matters more than people think, because in a professional kitchen you spend most of your time looking down at your hands and your cutting board. For me, that darker walnut has a calm, grounding quality.
Beyond the aesthetic, it performs exactly how you want a professional board to perform. It’s durable and took a lot of wear and tear, including being moved constantly around the kitchen and into the test kitchen and AV studio. This also made it reliable on camera.
It has a solid weight, but it’s not overly heavy or cumbersome to move. And the size is a big part of why I like it. There’s enough surface area to work efficiently, chop one ingredient, move it aside, and keep going without needing extra bowls or stopping to clear space. That kind of workflow makes a real difference.
How can you tell a high-quality knife?
This Miyabi knife is my favorite. The blade and handle are both incredibly beautiful, and that caught my attention right away. But performance matters more than anything, especially if you’re using a knife for hours every day.
The first thing I do when evaluating a knife is check the balance. I try to find the center point and see if it can rest evenly on one finger. If the handle or the blade is noticeably heavier, you’re going to feel that over time in your wrist, your hand and your arm. That kind of imbalance leads to fatigue and eventually discomfort. This knife is remarkably well balanced, which makes a huge difference in how it feels during extended use.
I also prefer a 9in blade. It gives you more versatility, especially when working with large ingredients, but even for something as simple as an onion or a tomato, that extra length lets you maneuver and slice in more ways.
Any tips for reducing kitchen waste?
I tried composting the old-fashioned way, and I just ended up attracting a lot of roaches and bad smells. I got a Lomi countertop food recycler and was happy with it until it broke, and now I have a Vitamix recycler. It’s faster than the Lomi, takes about three hours, and turns waste into what looks like brown mulch or sawdust. I add it to my plants, and they are very happy.
What’s your favorite tableware when you want food to look as good as it tastes?
I’ve mostly used oilcloths in photoshoots, but every time I do, it makes me happy. It’s bright, colorful and has this sense of fun and ease that feels especially important. You put food on it, and it immediately lifts everything visually.
I also found an oil-cloth raincoat at a flea market in Mexico City and bought it immediately. It’s one of my favorite pieces I own. It’s heavy, very water-resistant, and surprisingly warm, so I only wear it in colder, rainy places like New York. But every time I wear it, people notice. They want to touch it, ask about it, talk about it. It has that same effect as the tablecloth, it just makes people happy.
Most of my serving spoons, cooking spoons and tasting spoons are blue peltre, which is traditional enamelware. The glossy blue or turquoise is especially popular in Mexico. For my smaller plants, I also replaced the little plastic catch plates with peltre saucers because it looks prettier.
Ceramics in Mexico are incredible. When I was researching Mi Cocina, I bought a car and drove around the country, and every place that I went to, I always looked for handmade ceramics. I wanted to shoot the food on handmade plates from whatever region the food was from.
For Salsa Daddy, I looked for younger ceramicists that were doing less traditional and more contemporary pottery, and Hacha is one brand I love.
Last but not least: what’s your favorite nail polish?
I wear gel CND nail polish. I love all neons. Thankfully the lady who lives across the street from me does nails, and so I just go to her. Today, I am rocking neon orange. Sometimes I’m in a sparkly mood and I need glitter.
