What Nixtamal means
Nixtamal is a Mexican ingredient name of Nahuatl origin meaning "maize cooked in lime". It is built from nextli (ashes, lime) and tamalli (maize dough, something wrapped). It is pronounced nees-tah-MAL, and it is most associated with the whole country.
The word names the process that makes maize nourishing: soaking the kernels in wood ash or slaked lime. Tortillas, tamales and pozole all start here.
In the glossary: Tamal (maize dough steamed in a wrapper).
Nixtamal is one of the many Mexican food words formed in Nahuatl. Spanish borrowed it, and in several cases English borrowed it again from Spanish. See how Nahuatl builds words and the full list of Mexican food names.
This is a site about what Mexican words mean, so there is no recipe here. For the name itself: The words that appear inside dish names: the chiles (ancho, guajillo, pasilla, chipotle), the corn words (nixtamal, masa, tortilla, elote), and the tools (comal, molcajete, metate). Learn these and most menu items decode themselves.
