5 Recipes From Masala y Maíz Owners Saqib Keval and Norma Listman

The married couple behind Mexico City’s Masala y Maíz share recipes that highlight the most delicious parts of their cultures.

Credit: Greg DuPree / Food Styling by Chelsea Zimmer / Prop Styling by Claire Spollen

Norma Listman and Saqib Keval met while collaborating on food justice and art projects, courted over Champagne and mezcal, and married their culinary and personal destinies both at home and in their groundbreaking Mexico City restaurant Masala y Maíz. Listman was raised in Texcoco de Mora in the state of Mexico, following her anthropologist mother around the country and sampling local foods. Keval grew up in Northern California in a Kutchi (an Indian subculture) family with roots in Kenya and Ethiopia, reveling in the diversity of cuisines in the immigrant community in which he lived. The core mission of Masala y Maíz is a radical rethinking of traditional restaurant structures in a way that sustains and benefits the people who work there, as well as the community in which they live. 

None of that is possible without their extraordinary food, which as Listman and Keval explain on an episode of the Tinfoil Swans podcast, is a meld of their cultures and experiences but is definitively not fusion.

“We’ve put really kind of rigid parameters around our kitchen of how we think about food, and how we put a dish on the menu, and what it takes to kind of workshop it. If not, then it feels very surface level,” says Keval. “There’s a type of fusion cuisine that’s a money grab of, ‘I’m going to mash these two ideas together without any respect or work to honor their respective cultures, or the techniques, or where they come from, or the depth of their respective dishes. You lose the identity of both to create this other thing that doesn’t have a place or a sense of time.”

“It doesn’t have soul,” Listman says. “I feel parameters and limits make you more creative. When you have everything, it becomes boring. We’ve set this line of, ‘We’re going to cook Mexican, Ethiopian, Kenyan, South Asian, through a little bit of the Bay Area lens.’ That’s a very nice sphere and it’s a very big spectrum that we can leave in.”

The way this plays out at the restaurant — and in these excellent recipes — is a vibrant dialogue between chai masala spices and rich tres leches in a cake you’ll make for every occasion throughout berry season. It’s in a royal rice that celebrates both biryani and pilaf, and in a mole verde con pollo that sparked an important conversation about why cultural context matters.

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Royal Rice

Credit: Greg DuPree

Desi and Mexican cuisine marry in this vibrant dish — an interplay of biryani and toasted, pilaf-style basmati, cooked in coconut milk with almonds, raisins, garlic, and onions, and topped with generous helpings of mint and fried curry leaves.

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Chai Masala Tres Leches Cake

Credit: Greg DuPree

Listman and Keval found inspiration in Fany Gerson’s recipe for tres leches cake in her book My Sweet Mexico, and incorporated cardamom, allspice, anise, ginger, and fennel — often used in masala chai— as well as Mexican cinnamon into this classic cake.

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Tequila Mi Amor

Before she was a chef, Listman worked as a representative for a mezcal company that paid her in cases of product. As she explains on Tinfoil Swans, when she and Keval began dating, the two spent many evenings drinking ice-cold Champagne and mezcal and talking into the wee, small hours. Of this Tequila Mi Amor, she says, “This cocktail is so pretty and perfect for dinner parties or a barbecue. Use good-quality mezcal and tequila for a really clean-tasting drink. You can make your own avocado leaf bitters or use similarly herbaceous bitters for effect.“

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Hibiscus Syrup

Key to the drink’s distinctive pink hue is syrup made with dried hibiscus flowers and star anise. It also adds sweet cheer to lemonade, iced tea, or other cocktails that could use a kiss of whimsy.

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Mole Verde con Pollo with Corn Tortillas

Credit: Photo by Greg DuPree / Food Styling by Chelsea Zimmer / Prop Styling by Claire Spollen

Cumin, coriander, anise seeds, peppercorns, cinnamon stick, and cloves get a quick toasting in a skillet before they’re ground and melded with a paste of pepitas, almonds, and sesame seeds, along with onions, poblanos, tomatillos, and garlic to make a deep, rich mole that enhances the pleasures of chicken cooked with cilantro and serranos.

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Richer Context

Credit: Mary-Frances Heck

Look at the recipe for that Mole Verde con Pollo with Corn Tortillas above and you’ll see a note about a change that was made at the request of Listman and Keval. The original styling incorporated elements that wouldn’t accompany a mole, and it sparked a thoughtful conversation about why cultural context matters, both on the Communal Table podcast and with the food team at F&W. It makes the experience of their dishes all the richer.

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* This article was originally published here