(Part 2) Best mexican cooking, food & wine books according to redditors

I love my home country’s food! A cursory search in Amazon brought me to La Receta de la abuelita (Spanish Edition) https://www.amazon.com/dp/0615514251/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_QgD6AbCR23RWS

I would start by making a Mole Poblano (from Puebla). It can definitely be made vegetarian friendly and is one of the most delicious and rewarding meals that one can make.

Cochinilla Pibil is also amazing (this one is from the Yucatán). This one has pork.

Then look into some of the interesting northern Mexico recipes like Sonoran Hot Dogs. Oh also, Pambazos are a must do. These can also be made vegetarian.

Just found your post, hope I'm not late to the party here.

I just picked up "Patti's Mexican Table", and am loving it. It was part of Amazon's editors picks of "best cookbooks for 2013" list.

I really like her focus on in-season and fresh ingredients, along with simplified cooking techniques. I think I've made 7 or so things in this book, and all of them have come out great - especially the salsa recipes.

https://www.amazon.com/Mexico-Inside-Out-Enrique-Olvera/dp/0714869562

I'm not familiar with the store but since Latin American, let alone Hispanic, cooking is so incredibly diverse I'm simply going to assume you are going to start with Mexican cuisine. "Hispanic" spans 20~ different countries with climates that range from the pampas to the sub-tropics, plus Spain.

The different cuisines of Mexico are divided by region and influenced by history -- what you find in coastal Veracruz is not what you get Oaxaca. This is a really old, basic, but comprehensive thread that covers a lot of the cuisine from the perspective of a native and might help along with simply reading the wiki page on Mexican cuisine which has terms in Spanish and English. Just don't pay attention to any of the peanut gallery comments or nonsense from Americans about burritos.

This book is a classic, and covers a pretty wide range of dishes and regions.

I'm personally very fond of Oaxacan cuisine and my favorite cookbook for it is this one by Zarela Martinez, which you might be able to find at your local library. Her book on Veracruz is good too.

I grew up with many Mexican friends, and they (and their abuelas) were always my best resources for learning to how to cook. If you have friends, ask them, the worst they can do is say no.

If you don't mean Mexican food, I can also give you some direction about Argentinean cuisine which is more directly influenced by German, French, and Italian cooking as well as Spanish, since that's what I grew up with at home.

Cookbooks.

Fermented Vegetables

Mexico: The Cookbook

Bouchon*^^though ^^I ^^had ^^requested ^^Bouchon ^^Bakery, ^^I ^^can't ^^fault ^^them ^^for ^^trying.

In the UK, we have a chain of Oaxacan-inspired restaurants called Wahaca (see what they did there..) It's run by Thomasina Miers who I know has been hugely influenced by Diana Kennedy (mentioned elsewhere in this thread). They have a recipe book which gets a lot of use in my kitchen - admittedly, not a blog, but might be of interest.

hah, I know what you mean, and honestly, by even asking and being cognizant of it you are taking the right step. So good on you.


Firstly, keep in mind that moles in and of themselves have an amazing tradition that could fill as many, if not more tomes than we have on discussion of Auguste Escoffier and his impact. At it's most simplistic, it's a fantastic sauce, and at its deepest it's a secret knowledge made from fire, sweat, and history.



Books, well, shit man. So far there is only one I can vouch for and it's a good starting place for two mole recipes. IT's a cookbook called Nopalito. https://www.amazon.com/Nopalito-Mexican-Kitchen-Gonzalo-Guzm%C3%A1n/dp/0399578285


Unfortunately, there are few mexican voices in easy to access cookbooks. Diana Kennedy and Rick Bayless are the two "known authorities." A guy from Oklahoma, and a woman from the UK.



What I've been doing is hunting the recipe online, reading spanish recipes, and then watching youtube, but watching mexican cooks making it and talking it in spanish. Jauja Cocina Mexicana channel on youtube is a good place to start. She's very talented. https://www.youtube.com/user/JaujaCocinaMexicana


Her mole mancha manteles is excellent. I hope this helps some, it's helped me construct a few of my mole recipes and then build out from there. I think her mole verde is solid as well, and I built off that one.

I used Rick Bayless' apple tart recipe from his One Plate at a Time book.

The online link doesn't include his pastry recipe or the cajeta (goat's milk caramel sauce) that I used. Making the cajeta was interesting - it takes a little over an hour to coax the caramel sauce into where it needs to be, but I found it to be well worth the effort. Very smooth, cinnamon-y result. The pastry was delightfully flaky and I liked his addition of cream cheese to it.

> and you’d be surprised how many condiments are soybean oil based (mustard, ranch, bbq sauce, salad dressings and marinades etc)

Not really, no. Soy, corn, wheat, sugar, and misc. refined starches are everywhere, in shelf-stable packaged foods. You can find mustard with made with no oil or other oils if you look, and proper BBQ sauce without soybean oil (by that I mean savory mustard/turmeric sauces, not that sugar syrup junk that Yankees, and even Carolinians, think is worth eating ;)), but your choices get really limited, really quick. Given all that goes into typical BBQ, I've come to treating it like cake, or ice cream, rather than as an every day food.

> I’ve genuinely tried exploring in the grocery store but so many things have allergens!

Don't buy those. In fact, try to minimize going into the isles, without specific items that you already know you want to buy from them, and stick mostly to the periphery.

Start mostly from actual ingredients, and you will have plenty of variety. Most people don't even realize that I'm a picky eater, thanks to autoimmune issues, including but not limited to allergies, because I'm the one going to the exotic restaurants, and bringing in weird food for lunch at work, or to the pot lucks. I have to mentally strike out most of any restaurant's menu, anywhere I go, or pass on most most of what other people are making. I can't eat a hamburger and not get sick, but my local Korean places make kimchi jigae with all stuff I can eat in it, and it's tasty AF.

With a full kitchen, if you can do some basic cooking, IMO, go to the library or a book store, and check out some big comprehensive cookbooks. It's nice to have something you can just grab and look through (I find Pinterest is great for this, on the modern high-tech side, but good cookbooks tend to have been tested on people, and have little things that your average [b|v]logger will miss). Or, start learning those basics, if that's where you're at. While I've been cooking since I could physically reach everything, I've known a couple people that went from 99% frozen food and take-out to being good cooks within just a couple years, so...

Three come to my mind that are excellent, which I've had for many years now, cherish, that have plenty of easily adjustable recipes, plenty of them that should be just fine, lots of text on process (which matters a lot, and is often overlooked), and with minimal fancy foods:

https://www.amazon.com/Justin-Wilsons-Homegrown-Louisiana-Cookin/dp/0026301253

https://www.amazon.com/Cocina-Familia-Authentic-Mexican-American-Kitchens/dp/0684855259

https://www.amazon.com/Original-Boston-Cooking-School-100th-Anniversary/dp/0883631962

Plenty of taste bias, there, but that's life.

Makes 4 quarts of sauce.

Preheat an oven to 350° F.

Clean any dust and dirt from the dried chiles with a damp towel and dry them off thoroughly. If the chiles are moist during the dry sautéing, they will char and be bitter. Stem all the chiles but do not seed. Set aside.

Roast the red bell pepper, then stem and peel but do not seed. Set aside.

Place the sesame seeds in a dry 10-inch sauté pan over low heat. Stir the seeds or shake the pan constantly until the seeds are slightly brown, 20 to 25 minutes. Be careful not to burn them. Remove from the heat and empty into a good-sized bowl to cool. Reserve 3 tablespoons of the browed seeds for garnish.

In a large, dry sauté pan over low heat, place the chipotle, ancho or mulato, and pasilla negro chiles. Shake the pan constantly or stir the chiles until they are evenly toasted, 3 to 5 minutes. Do not char the dried chiles when toasting them or they will be bitter. Remove the toasted chiles from the pan and set aside.

Pour the peanut oil into the same pan and place over medium heat until hot. Carefully drop in the toasted chiles, a few at a time, and leave each batch in the oil for a few seconds. The chiles should soften, swell, and smell fragrant. Using a slotted utensil, remove the chiles and add them to the toasted sesame seeds. When all of the chiles have been fried, add the bell peppers to the bowl. Reserve the oil, keeping it in the sauté pan.

Place the bread and walnuts on a baking sheet in a single layer. Place in the oven until the bread is dry and the walnuts are lightly toasted, 10 to 15 minutes. Stir the walnuts occasionally so they do not burn.

Meanwhile, break the chocolate tablet and the cinnamon stick into 3 or 4 large pieces and place in the bottom of a large bowl. When the toasted walnuts and warm bread are ready, slide them atop the chocolate, to melt it. Set aside.

Reheat the reserved peanut oil in a sauté pan over medium heat. When the oil is hot, add the whole tomatoes, garlic cloves, tomatillos, banana chunks, ginger, and onion. Cook until the onion is translucent, the tomatoes begin to char and burst, and the tomatillos have turned a darker green, 7 to 10 minutes. Empty the contents into a colander to drain. Discard the oil.

Add the drained vegetable mixture to the large bowl containing the chocolate-bread mixture and stir well. Working in batches, transfer the mixture to a blender, and blend, adding enough water to make the resulting sauce smooth but still thick. The sauce should have the consistency of a milkshake, but not be as thick as tomato paste. A blender is easier to use than a food processor for this work. Continue to blend in batches until all of the water and vegetable mixture have been combined. Strain through a large-mesh strainer or china cup, using the back of a wooden spoon to push the purée through.

In a large stockpot, heat the olive oil until it just begins to smoke. Add the purée. Be careful! Protect yourself from hot splashes by wearing long sleeves and turning off the flame while adding the purée. Whisk the oil and purée together with a wire balloon whisk until well blended. Turn the heat back on to low and cook, stirring frequently so that the mole does not burn, for 20 minutes.

Taste the mole. If it is too piquant, slowly add brown sugar until a balance is achieved between piquant and sweet. If the chiles are quite hot, you may find yourself adding quite a lot of sugar! You may also want to add a bit more Mexican chocolate to deepen the flavor. Remove from the heat, but cover to keep hot.

Buy the book for more great recipes: http://www.amazon.com/dp/0811802930