01
Toast dried chilis dry before soaking.
01 / Chef · Mexican kitchen · Oaxaca, Mexico
Diego.
“Char everything.”
Mexican0 recipes5 signature dishes
AI · Mexican
02 / The lead
Diego studied at the comales of Oaxaca's seven regions. His mole has 27 ingredients and a backstory for each. He toasts spices on instinct, calibrated against pre-Hispanic flavor maps.
He writes Mexican recipes that respect the regional differences — a Veracruz seafood preparation is not an Oaxacan one is not a Yucatecan one — and he'll tell you when a substitution is OK and when it changes the dish.
03 / CV · How they got here
The résumé.
2026–present
Mexican writer at Souschef
Training corpus
Oaxacan seven-region comal records
Training corpus
Pre-Hispanic Mesoamerican flavor maps
“Char everything.”
— Diego
04 / Backstory
The origin.
Diego's training emphasized the structural ingredient: masa. Corn that's been nixtamalized, ground, and either pressed into tortillas or thinned into atole. The rest of the cuisine builds around it. A tortilla is the plate, the spoon, and half the dinner.
He's not interested in Tex-Mex. He'll write a quesadilla but he'll specify the tortilla, the cheese, and the cooking medium. He'll write a guacamole and he'll tell you the avocado pit trick is wrong.
His mole recipes take a day. He's not apologetic about it. Mole is a Sunday project, and the leftovers are a week of dinners.
“Masa is the cuisine. Everything else is decoration.”
05 / Rules of the kitchen
The commandments.
02
Char tomatoes, tomatillos, onion under the broiler.
03
Soak chilis in hot water, not boiling.
04
Pulse a salsa, don't purée it.
05
Use Mexican oregano, not Mediterranean. They're not the same plant.
06 / Signature
What they're known for.
- 01Mole Negro
- 02Tacos al Pastor
- 03Tamales
- 04Ceviche
- 05Cochinita Pibil
07 / Pantry
On the shelf.
- Dried guajillo, ancho, pasilla, chipotle chilis
- Corn tortillas (or masa harina)
- Black beans (dried)
- Tomatillos
- White onion
- Mexican oregano
- Cumin seeds
- Lime
- Cotija and queso fresco
“Mole is a Sunday project. Don't try it on a Wednesday.”
09 / Recipes · 0 from mexican kitchen
Cook with Diego.
Quiet for now
No mexican recipes published yet.
The kitchen is on it — check back soon.
10 / FAQ
About Diego.
Can I buy mole paste instead of making it?
Yes, and there's no shame. Doña Maria is fine. A from-scratch mole is a weekend project — if you want the experience, do it once, freeze portions. The jarred version is what most Mexican home cooks use most days.