Leslye Gilchrist

Special to The Times

Chef Eleazar Mondragon of Ki’ Mexico (Taste of Mexico) has been delighting our area for the past few years with fresh and tasty offerings from Mexico. His philosophy about cooking is simple: He wants his cooking to make people happy.

Mondragon grew up “not cooking, but eating.” His mother learned most of her cooking skills from his paternal grandmother, and Mondragon has strong memories of all the family being together, talking while they were cooking. In reality, they still have that going on. His brother Rodrigo is co-owner of Ki’ Mexico, and his mother, father, and cousin also work there.

Mondragon first moved to our area for a short time around 17 years ago to attend elementary school and then later returned from Mexico to attend high school. He has been working at restaurants since he arrived in the United States, starting as a dishwasher at Tacomania, but he didn’t always know he wanted to cook.

After graduating from Byrd High School, he couldn’t decide what he wanted to be — an engineer? No. A veterinarian? No. A physician? No. Finally, he ended up in the culinary program at Bossier Parish Community College. From there, he transferred his credits to Le Cordon Bleu in Austin, Texas where he received the remainder of his training.

Anyone who has visited Ki’ Mexico in either its pop-up or brick and mortar restaurant knows that Chef Mondragon serves up food that is as beautiful as it is tasty. To Chef Mondragon, both flavors and presentation are important since food’s appearance, aroma, taste, textures, and flavors appeal to all of our senses. His time in Austin during an internship at La Condesa, an upscale Mexico City style establishment, inspired his passion for the perfect presentation.

If you order one of his tacos — whether at Great Raft Brewing, the Shreveport Farmer’s Market, or Ki’ Mexico — it will be a tiny work of art, with thinly sliced crimson-edged radishes or tart pickled vegetables or fresh cilantro offering a bright counterpoint to the rich base flavors of the dish.

Mondragon loves to play with traditional foods. He will study many recipes for a traditional dish and then put his own personal stamp on it. He also loves to read books and magazines to find recipes or ingredients, such as a particular pepper from Oaxaca, Mexico, where he had just visited.

On the day of our interview, he was working on replicating an amazing new dish he had tried on this recent visit. I got to enjoy a taste of the flavorful pork in mole verde sauce — redolent of tomatillo, garlic, onion, jalapeno, cilantro, parsley and Hoya Santa, an herb from that region. The roux was made with lard and masa, and the combination of flavors was lick-the-plate-good.

The food at Ki Mexico is a delicious blend of traditional and experimental. The gringa is traditional as is the nopal taco, featuring cactus; the Sylvestre, another vegetarian offering, is more experimental. Sometimes he will make a mole blanquo — sometimes referred to as bride’s mole because of the white color. For this dish, he uses banana or Anaheim peppers, pine nuts, almonds, cashew, sesame, fried bread plantains, and apples. His special signature is to add pomegranate seeds on top for a pretty pop of color.

Mondragon usually buys ingredients for his Sunday brunches and for specials at the farmers market. And though he likes to use local ingredients and suppliers where possible, buying much of the meat for his specials from places like Smith Family Farms or Mahaffey Farms, he also likes to use ingredients of traditional Mexican cooking that can’t always be found locally. Anyone who has had his beans will know how the addition of avocado leaves can give a subtle, delicious flavor to this humble dish. And he recently brought back a new mole paste and is working on teasing out the ingredients for use in his own cooking

When he travels to Mexico, he looks for new flavors and ingredients. One thing he loves about having his own place is his ability to create and work on recipes.

On this past trip, he brought back special things for the Golden Fork dinner. He said that he kept thinking, “Oh this would be great!”

For his Golden Fork menu, diners feasted on some truly wonderful dishes. As guests gathered, they enjoyed roasted peanuts with garlic and chile de arbol as well as homemade sopes with fava bean spread, sliced rib-eye, salsa de molcajete (hand ground rather than blended), and corona cheese. These little savory cheese corn cakes are the Mexican equivalent of canapés.

For a first course, diners spooned up shrimp and hojasanta bisque. Hoja santa is an herb in the pepper family that also has licorice notes. It is sometimes called the root beer herb because it has many of the same chemical compounds as sassafras leaves.

The main course was striped bass with salsamacha, a thick Veracruz-style salsa, and a blackberry and rosemary sauce accompanied by a mushroom barley.

And finally, diners topped their meal off with a flavor extravaganza of a dessert: mango mousse stuffed guavas with lime cream cheese topping, orange scented chamomile caviar, pepitas brittle, and chai and ginger panna cotta. What a feast!

5 fun facts about Eleazar Mondragon​