Thalia Barrios Garcia grew up in San Mateo Yucutindo, an area SW of Oaxaca with only 3,000 residents. These small towns are often at the end of a dirt road high up in the mountains and some of them still do not have electricity—as many as half a million Mexicans remain off the grid. The style of cooking in these towns is called cocina de humo, or home-style cooking, and that is what Thalia demonstrates in her traditional cooking school, La Cocina de Humo, in the heart of Oaxaca.

As with many places in Mexico, the street-level view is ordinary and then, inside, one finds an oasis. A large cobblestone courtyard, a massive jacaranda tree in the center with ragtag spreading limbs and red flowers, and wood-fired grills and comals on the perimeter. My first thought was this was a massive renovation but Thalia told me that she, her father, and an uncle did the work in just a few months themselves. And Thalia is just 30 years old, is a professional chef at Levadura de Olla, has her own retail store in town, and also runs the cooking school.

Cocina de humo is not fancy food. In these small towns, there is no butcher shop so if you want meat for dinner you have to slaughter a chicken or pig. In fact, there is probably not much in the way of a grocery store either. So, before this term became trendy, people in these towns were, by definition, locavores, a notion that they would find curious if not outright silly.

The first dish she cooked was Cuche en Adobo (pork in adobo). She started by seeding and stemming three types of chilies: guajillo, ancho, and arbol, then cooked onion and garlic and added the chilies. Oregano, vinegar, black pepper and cumin were put in the pot and cooked for a few minutes, then water and oil, a bit of simmering, and then everything went into a blender and passed through a sieve. The 2-inch size pieces of pork were browned and then the salsa is added plus more water as needed. It is cooked for about 30 minutes and finished with extra honey or vinegar to taste. Serve with rice or black beans.

I found that meat cooked in a salsa roja like this one is often a tad undercooked by my standards – the meat turns out a bit chewy. This is odd because many Mexican meat dishes will begin by cooking the meat in a pressure cooker (on my last visit, this is how one chef started off prepping pork for carnitas) so we decided to cook the pork in water in a Dutch oven for a couple of hours. The chilies are toasted and a salsa is made in a blender using some of the pork cooking liquid along with onion, garlic, cumin, honey and cider vinegar. The cooked meat is finished in the sauce. The sauce was now true to the original but the pork was fully cooked through.

Next up was a simple chicken soup, Caldo de Pollo, which replicates how one would cook a chicken soup in a small village. She cooks the chicken in water with onion and salt for about an hour then she fries raw rice in oil, and then chars, on a comal, the onion, chile (guajillo preferred but arbol okay as well), spring onions, and chile de agua (these are spicy but optional). She also adds tomatillos, cilantro and hoja santa and then the cooked rice. She serves the soup with diced serranos, onions, lime and pieces of tostadas are also added.

Our version uses a purée of guajillo chilies, tomatillos and cherry tomatoes added near the end of cooking to keep the flavors vibrant. Hoja santa is optional but does add distinct character—fresh hoja santa is better than dried. We opted for bone-in, skin-on thighs which add flavor to the broth and are hard to overcook. Some diced fresh serranos add a nice burst of flavor near the end of cooking.

The takeaway here is that a simple formula for seasoning (toasted chilies, onion, garlic, and perhaps a spice or herb – oregano, cumin or hoja santa) can be used in thousands of recipes, whether one is making chicken soup or pork in adobo. It is a simple recipe for success whether one lives in a small mountain town or in the big city.

Chris Kimball

Christopher Kimball is founder of Milk Street, which produces Milk Street Magazine, Milk Street Television on PBS, and the weekly public radio show Milk Street Radio. He founded Cook’s Magazine in 1980 and was host and executive producer of America’s Test Kitchen until 2016. Kimball is the author of several books, including "The Yellow Farmhouse" and "Fannie’s Last Supper."