10 things to eat, see and do in Holbox, Mexico

Holbox is a small, tick-shaped island off the northern tip of the Yucatan peninsula. It is still fairly unspoilt: no cars, no skyscrapers, no chain hotels. The accommodation available suits all budgets from high-end (Las Nubes) to mid-range (Casa Maya) to hostels. The place is so small, you can cover it in a day, then explore in detail at your own speed. If, like me, you come from a busy city, it'll take a few days to slow down to local pace. Wi-fi is patchy - the wind changes and it's gone - so take books or a Kindle. Sip margaritas while swinging in the breeze on a hammock or a bar swing. 

When it comes to the food, you can also go high or go low. From posh cheffy restaurants and fine dining to humble eating houses and street stalls, the cooks use local ingredients and Mayan Indian culinary know-how. The Mayan Indians are my kind of people: small, round, and with a large appetite for food.

I spent eight days there; the last four were cooler and more windy, which I enjoyed. (Menopausal.) This is the ultimate place to zone out and properly relax. I just hope that big business plans to develop Holbox don't happen. It mustn't change.

1. Eat.

Restaurants and street stalls

Las Panchas is not only cheap, but also the best authentically local restaurant on Holbox. No fusion to be found here.

El Sabor de las Nubes (below) at Hotel Las Nubes at the far end of the beach is a little more expensive but has high-end Mexican and European cooking and excellent cocktails. You can also feed the raccoons, which is fun and slightly scary.

Casa Maya hotel bar (below), open only during the day when I was there, served fantastic fare. Chilaquiles verde, aka nachos for breakfast, became the new normal. (Make them at home with my chilaquiles recipe.)

Viva Zapata is a cool place for a beer and something to eat. The bar has swings. But the margaritas can be overly sweet, apparently due to tourists' tastes. I like 'em sour.

Market and food shops. There is a small fresh market every morning, a tortilleria and other food shops. Fishermen will happily sell their catch to you.

On Sundays, it is traditional to eat cochinita pibil, which is pig marinated in achiote and sour orange and cooked Mayan-style slowly over a wood fire, or traditionally in a fire pit covered with banana leaves. It takes a long time to cook so it's a once-a-week treat, accompanied by red pickled onions and yellow habanero sauce. 

There are two main stalls to buy it in Holbox. Local residents Juan and Alexandra spend all Saturday night making it in their back yard (below).  Cooks from Cancún travel to Holbox on Sundays, setting up a stall in a side alley in a street near the market (further below).

Street food

El Changarrito Street Stall, just back from the beach. Incredibly fresh fish.

You will also see wandering carts or school kids selling a plastic bowl of food their mum has made. Do try it: the cooking is excellent and it costs pennies. Tamales, below, tend to be made in banana leaves rather than corn husks.

At night, street stalls are set up in the main square, where you can get a drink and a snack.

Drink

I liked a bar on the beach, just before Hotel Las Nubes, part of the hotel Villas Flamingas. The hammocks were actually in the water. 

The Hot Corner is a nightspot for drinks, where dancing can spill over into the street. Rumour has it you can buy some weed nearby if you ask around.

2. Eat the freshest, bestest ceviche in the world.

I highly recommend a fishing boat trip with these super cool, tanned wiry guys in their 60s, who help you land a fish and make it into ceviche. I caught a small one and carefully undid the hook from its cheek, throwing it back. We made it on the boat with lime, red onion, fresh coriander, a little habanero and salt. I stood beside the boat in cataract blue water, my legs being nibbled by gaping catfish, while I gobble two consecutive bowls. This is the best ceviche I've had in my life. I'm dismayed when they pour the tiger milk into the water, yelping:

I wanted to drink that!

But the catfish go crazy for it, leaping out of the water, their flat wide mouths gaping, whiskers quivering. They obviously don't mind a bit of habanero chilli.

3. Go on boat trips.

You can visit adjacent islands on boat trips; thrillingly, along the way, dolphins black backs arching, followed us. Go to the Isla de Pajaros (Island of the Birds) to see the pink flamingos and pelicans. On Isla Passion, there is a good fish barbecue, where you can eat lunch after taking a dip in the cenote, a fresh water pool. You will also see mangroves, amphibian trees with roots that grow above still water, and small crocodiles. 

4. See the wildlife.

Holbox has seasons for wildlife, but the birds and fish are always there to see. Part of the island is a protected wildlife area, Yum Balam. 

• Flamingos: Although I'd just missed the big season, which must be a spectacular blur of fluo pink, I still got to see a few. April - October.
• Whale sharks: I didn't see this, but Holbox has one of the largest populations of whale sharks, which feed on plankton and are therefore harmless. Go early in the morning before they disappear into deeper waters in the afternoon. June - mid-September.
• Catfish: They can be seen and felt (nibbling at your legs) in the shallows.
• Snorkelling: Not the best, being in the gulf of Mexico rather than the Caribbean. The water is iridescent green and slightly cloudy rather than clear and turquoise. But it's possible to take a boat out to some areas for a nice snorkel.
• Phytoplankton: This is a rare effect that can be seen in Holbox. Go to the northern tip of the island, where a boat takes you out to snorkel at night. The effect of bioluminescence is sparkling starry water with glowing plankton. Sadly I only found out about this on the last day. Next time.

5. Walk around town.

Virtually every property has a hand-painted colourful mural; the town is a street-level art gallery with works the size of buildings. Decorative and often political, murals have a long history in Mexico. You could say the popularity of today's street art stems from the Mexican 'muralism' art movement of the 1920s - see the works of Diego Rivera, Frida Kahlo's husband.

6. Go to the beach.

Learn to kite surf on windy days. Read a trashy novel. Drink cocktails. Walk along the shore at sunset or sun rise. The beach and the sea are a constantly evolving production - you won't get bored.

There are hammocks everywhere, little beach bars, and sun beds the size of four-posters. The water, being shallow for quite a distance, is suitable for young children. Some sections of the beach have seaweed; they used to clear it but realised this affected the ecology of the island. Before and after storms, the seaweed may be worse.

8. Ride a bike.

You can either hire a bike or borrow one from your hotel. The entire length of the island can be covered in a day, culminating in watching the sunset from the northern end. Cycle along the road adjacent to the beach, where the sand is compacted, rather than the interior road, which can be flooded.

9. Get a massage.

Most of the hotels have masseuses. Book one for the day you arrive to help ease the jet lag. 

10. Sleep.

I was lucky enough to stay at the Hotel Las Nubes (around £250 a night but negotiable in low-season or for longer stays) in a room with a balcony overlooking the sea. I love to sleep to the sound of waves, the only cure for my menopausal insomnia. The hotel has a spa and several pools, plus charming touches, such as being sent a little dessert every night; their patisseries and breads are a particular speciality.

Casa Maya, where I also stayed, has a few rooms on the beach side. These are around £90 a night, but again you can negotiate in the off-seasons (January-April; October-November).

Other options are cheaper hotels off the beach in town (it's noisier though), hostels, campsites (watch out for sandflies) and Airbnb. I booked an Airbnb location, which wasn't really as advertised and became flooded when it rained. I cancelled after seeing it and had no problem getting my money back.

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Yucatan/Mexican food: Holbox food festival

The next series of articles is angled around my trip to Mexico in November. I'm a big fan of Mexican food, which is infinitely more interesting and regional than its heavy, beany, cheesy cousin Tex Mex that Europeans are routinely served in chain restaurants. This is my fourth trip to Mexico, this time centering on the Yucatan area...

I travelled to Holbox, a small island off Cancun, during the supermoon, which hovered over the proceedings like a big ball of backlit concrete. The journey on Air France was horrific: 11 hours in a windowless window seat, cramped, the vegetarian meal ordered non-existent, having to climb over two others to get to the toilet. I actually think flights this bad, open provocations to air rage, should be illegal. We all arrived in a foul mood, and exhausted journalists snarling at one another is not a pretty sight.

But after a two-hour ride along a dirt road to the northern tip of Yucatan and a refreshing boat trip from Chiquila port, bouncing over dark frothing sea, the island itself is postcard perfect: turquoise seas, bright hammocks, houses with painted murals in orange, aqua, coral and pink, doors with corn husk crucifixes to ward off 'brujas', witches. Holbox is, as yet, fairly unspoilt by big business tourism. Much of the island remains wild. You get around via beach buggy or bicycle.

November, the low season before the December rush, feted the fifth consecutive year of the Holbox Gastronomic food festival, which takes place on the beach. Tables and chairs, adorned with multi-coloured chilli sauces lined up like fiery soldiers, stud the centre of a large marquee. The organiser, Denise de Kalafe, is a former musician and there is a large stage: plenty of money had been spent on the music.

Around the edges are stalls set up by local restaurateurs. The festival takes place every night for three nights. It's best to attend after the mosquito madness of dusk. Each evening has a theme, whereby the chefs devise intricate dishes featuring the following ingredients: octopus, prawns or lobster. Demonstrating each chef's craft, stalls are laden with carved melons, breads in the shape of fishes, sculpted pineapples, brightly coloured peppers hewn into star shapes, anthropomorphic octopus cheerfully squatting on platters.

The system, rather like Taste of London, is that you buy vouchers to 'spend' at the stalls.

Culinary highlights included:

• Pan dulce by Hotel Las Nubes. The hotel makes its own bread from scratch: the lightest puffy rolls filled with cream cheese, airy doughnuts brushed daintily with sugar.
• Somewhere out the back in the darkness, a small stall offered scorching cigarillos filled with potato hot out of the fryer.
• Flor del Desierto Sotol from Chihuahua, the local equivalent to tequila. (Here is a post on the difference between Sotol and Tequila.) The owner had three types of Sotol, all made from the same cactus. One made in the hills, one in the valley and one with added rattlesnake poison in a black bottle. The hilltop liquor was rough, filling your mouth with a stinging sandy mouth feel that felt like it was stripping the enamel off your teeth. The valley Sotol was smooth, and the rattlesnake version, an idea they got from Chinese merchants in Cuidad Juarez, didn't taste any different. 

Like Taste of London, the restaurant owners spend a great deal of money bringing the staff, setting up the equipment and ordering the ingredients. They rarely break even. I felt sorry for the accomplished French chef Benjamin Ferra y Castell who had come from Du Mexique restaurant in Cancun. The weeping owner Sonya Grimond, a mournfully beautiful dark-eyed woman with long curly eyelashes and a glossy black film of dramatic hair, explained to me after the festival that this was her first event without her husband, a French chef from Lyon, Alain Grimond, who had died a year previously. She and the new chef hired a hotel kitchen to prepare 2,000 portions of foie gras, as they were given to believe that they should have 400 to sell each night. They sold 39. The rest was chucked. It wouldn't keep in the heat. Her offering was too haute for this audience.

A singer, Noelia, who was 'big' 20 years ago, dispensed with the expensive stage and belted (no auto-tune) her old hits while drifting from table to table. Fans clasped her and took selfies and she managed to sing without so much as a bum note, trailed by a silvery spotlight. A complete pro. 

This food festival is a great opportunity to get chatting to the people of Holbox, it has the feel of a French 'fete du village'. Locals, entire Mayan families, dressed up in their finery and sat receptively at tables. The food at the festival tended to be Mexican and European fusion, some stalls featured for instance Italian ingredients which would be more of interest to local people than tourists. Each year however, a different region in Mexico is invited as a guest cuisine, this year it was the prosperous state of Colima who shared drinks and dishes from the Pacific coast. They were also one of the few stalls to have a meat free option of tacos.

I visited the Holbox Gastronomic Festival as a guest of the Mexican Tourist Board. It takes place in October/November every year. Fly direct to Cancun then travel on to Holbox. More info here. I stayed at Casa Iguana hotel and the luxury Las Nubes hotel. There are also cheaper options, such as hostels. Take cash, a hat, sun screen and insect repellent. 

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Mexi Xmas dinner 2016

This year, slightly bored of traditional Christmas foods, my family, who are all good cooks and gourmands, decided to make a Mexican Scandinavian meal. In the end it became more Mexican - a sort of Mexi hygge. Here are some of the highlights. Above my Rosca de Reyes for pudding. 

Roast parsnips, purple sweet potatoes, oca with thyme, lime and salt. Before and After.

Cream cheese stuffed dates

Going a bit scandi here: pickled herring with beetroot on rye.

Guaca.

I ended up dipping these in the guac.

Niece Florian's rarebit quails scotch egg. Brilliant.

Antique silver numbers for our glasses. Woe betide anyone who loses theirs.

After canapés and champagne we decided to go out in the street near my parent's place in Exmouth Market, Clerkenwell, and do a photo session. Clearly I'd enjoyed the drinks.

Anyone who has ever made this knows it takes forever. Especially peeling the skin off the walnuts to make the sauce. Chile en Nogada, a Mexican feast day dish.

Bernie my sister in law made the turkey: spatchcocked with achiote, sour orange juice and zest, chipotle. 

The finest cheeseboard known to mankind.

The Transylvanian bark cheese, henceforth known as 'elephants foot' as in 'pass the elephants foot one'.

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Chicory & goats' cheese gratin recipe and drinking rosé in winter

Provencale rosé is very drinkable: pale, fruity and not too strong. It is usually seen as a girl's drink (is it just the colour?), but everyone enjoys it in summer. The Switzerland of wines, rosé marks neutral territory for red and white wine drinkers. Who doesn't like rosé?

We don't drink rosé in winter, which is odd when you think about it. We will happily quaff white wine, champagne and even pink champagne, all of which are served cold. Yet rosé is invariably associated with summer - light, gluggable wines that go with salads, barbecues, fish and vegetables. 

I say there is no reason we should not drink rosé in winter. I've even made mulled wine with it!

5 food pairings for rosé in winter:

• Canapés, as an aperitif
• Fish, especially salmon (smoked or fresh)
• Cheese boards and cheesy dishes
• Winter salads
• Dessert - anything with red fruit, berries, e.g. a pavlova with cream and raspberries, or stewed fruit with cinnamon and star anise

Chicory and goats' cheese gratin

We don't eat much chicory in the UK. In France, 'endives' are very popular and found piled up cheaply in the supermarkets. The ivory and chartreuse bud-shaped green is forced (i.e. grown in the dark) to ensure that the leaves are pale and tender. The flavour is crisp and slightly bitter. (Bitter foods are good for you, but cooking lessens the bitterness.) 

If using in salad, I like to pair chicory with blue cheese, walnuts and a Dijon mustard vinaigrette. The French bake it with béchamel sauce, each shoot wrapped in ham. This is a vegetarian tweak on baked endives. 

Tip: You can also use red chicory or endives, sometimes called radicchio. These work just as well.

Serves 2 to 4

Baking dish 20 x 15cm

Ingredients:

4 or 5 chicory tips, root trimmed and cut in half lengthways
100g butter (unsalted)
50g flour
1tbsp mustard
250g full fat milk 
Salt and pepper
220g goats' cheese (roulade-style), 1cm-wide slices
50g parmesan, grated
Handful of breadcrumbs

Method:

1. Preheat your oven to 180ºC. 
2. Grease the baking dish with half the butter and lay the chicory halves inside it. Cover the dish with foil, then bake for 20 minutes or until tender.
3. In the meantime, make the béchamel. Using a good quality saucepan, melt the rest of the butter on a low heat. Add the flour and, using a wooden spoon, start to stir vigorously. Add the mustard and add the milk gradually, a bit at a time. Keep stirring so that the 'roux' (the flour and butter) absorb the liquid. (If there are any lumps, use a whisk to eliminate them). Keep doing this until all the milk is absorbed and you have a thick white sauce. Season to taste.
4. Remove the chicory from the oven and remove the foil (but don't get rid of it). Toss the chicory to make sure they aren't stuck to the bottom. Line them up and pour the béchamel sauce over the chicory. Add the rounds of goats' cheese to the top of the dish, spreading them evenly. Add the parmesan and the breadcrumbs. Replace the foil and bake in the oven for 10 minutes.
5. Finally, remove the foil and bake or grill the dish for another 10 minutes so that it browns. Serve hot.

I created this wintery gratin recipe for Provence wines UK. Served with a green salad and some crusty bread, it's a wonderfully warming lunch or dinner.

Here are a list of wines that I tasted, all of which match very well with the dish:

·         Château de Berne, Grande Récolte, 2014 - £9.99 or £8.99 Mix Six price, Majestic

·         Chateau du Galoupet, Cru Classé, 2015 - £10.95, The Wine Society

·         Domaine Sainte Lucie, MiP Classic, 2015 - £12.50 or £11.50 Mix Six price, Lea and Sandeman

·         Mirabeau, Pure, 2015 - £12.99, Waitrose

·         Château La Gordonne, Verité du Terroir, 2015 - £9.99 until 3rd January 2017 (RRP £15), Ocado

·         Manon, 2015 - £9, Tesco

·         M de MINUTY, 2015 - £11.99 or £9.99, Mix Six price, Majestic

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Chilaquiles, or nachos for breakfast

On my recent trip to Mexico, I discovered something called chilaquiles on a breakfast menu. Let's not beat around the bush - these are a version of nachos, but ones that you are allowed to have in the morning. I grew addicted.

They come with either a red or green sauce. The red sauce is with 'jitomate' (red tomatoes) and the green is based on tomatillos. You can also have them topped with chicken or eggs. My recipe is vegetarian, so pink pickled onions and avocado slices are my topping suggestions.

This is a simplified version of the chilaquiles rojos, as tomatillos are difficult to get hold of in the UK. I'm a savoury girl in the morning. I like Marmite rather than jam, cheese on toast rather than French toast. I reckon this recipe would make a fantastic New Year's Day brunch paired with a hangover-curing, post-NYE Bloody Mary.

I was asked to create this recipe for Tabasco, which comes in a variety of flavours nowadays: the classic red; habanero; chipotle; and (my favourite) the green version. I actually keep a bottle of this in my handbag. 'I've got hot sauce in my bag, swag.' (Although apparently Beyoncé's hot sauce is actually a euphemism for a baseball bat. Whatevs.)

Substitutions for authentic Mexican ingredients: it's hard to get hold of 'queso fresco' (although you can from Gringa Dairy), so I've used cheddar. You can, if you wish, skip the tortilla frying and use ready-made tortilla chips, though I think that would be a bit of a shame. There is nothing like a freshly fried tortilla chip!

Chilaquiles Rojos

Serves 2

Optional:
Pink pickled onions
1 large red onion, finely sliced
150ml white wine vinegar
3 tbsp sugar
2 tbsp salt
A few juniper berries

For the sauce:
4 fresh tomatoes, halved
1 red onion, quartered
1 large clove of garlic
2 large ancho peppers, deseeded, stalk removed, split open
1/2 tsp salt

For the chips:
4 corn tortillas, each cut into 6 to 8 triangles
Corn oil for frying

For the topping:
100g cheddar or queso fresco or ricotta salata, grated or crumbled
50ml of single cream
A handful of fresh coriander leaves
Green Tabasco, liberally applied
Half a lime
1 ripe avocado, sliced

Make the pink pickled onions by combining all the ingredients in a glass jar/bowl/jug and leaving for a few hours or overnight.

Note: Dry roasting is a way of charring ingredients by placing them in a hot frying pan (ideally cast iron) without oil.

Method:
First dry roast the tomatoes, onion and garlic. Set aside or in a blender.
Dry roast the ancho peppers - just 1 minute each side.
Put the ancho peppers into a heatproof bowl or jug and pour over boiling water until covered. Leave to soak for 10 minutes, then remove and place in a blender with the rest of the ingredients.
Blend with a little of the soaking water and the salt.
Meanwhile, using a deep frying pan or deep fryer, fry the tortillas until golden and crispy.
Prepare the rest of the ingredients so you have them to hand.
Pour the sauce into a frying pan and simmer.
Take a large shallow dish and pour some of the sauce in the bottom.
Start layering the tortilla chips on top of the sauce. Pour more sauce around the chips.
Add the cheese.
Grill or microwave for a couple of minutes until the cheese is melted.
Drizzle the cream on top, adding the coriander leaves and the Tabasco sauce.
Serve with lime wedges and slices of avocado.
Add the pink pickled onions if you wish.



This recipe was commissioned by Tabasco UK. This wasn't compromising my principles at all, cos I really like Tabasco sauce. 

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