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Eat like you're in Mexico City with shrimp cocktail and peanutty sweet potatoes

Chef Ana Castro shares her personal takes on favorite childhood dishes.
/ Source: TODAY

Chef Ana Castro of Lengua Madre in New Orleans, Louisiana is stopping by the TODAY kitchen to share a few of her favorite family recipes from her childhood in Mexico City. She shows us how to make sweet potatoes smothered in a spiced peanut sauce and zesty shrimp cocktail served with avocado and crackers.

This is my personal take on my grandma's chicken with guajillo and peanut sauce. But while her sauce is all peanuts, mine has a different variety of seeds to add complexity and depth to the dish. She serves it over chicken, while I put mine over sweet potatoes, since they are so abundant in the South.

To make this dish, I roast whole baby sweet potatoes and dress them with lime, olive oil and a rich sauce of roasted onions, garlic, chile and toasted peanuts. It's a delicious, filling dish that stands on its not own — not as a side dish — plus, it’s vegan and highly adaptable.

This recipe brings back and memories of going to La Viga seafood market in Mexico City, who popularized this traditional preparation of shrimp cocktail (which gives the commonly known and widely loved version a run for its money!). It was a treat reserved for one Saturday every month.

Scrap the horseradish and lemon! This recipe is bright and full of texture. Onions, tomatoes and serranos balance out perfectly cooked shrimp with a game-changing secret sauce.

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