Queezle_Sister's Reviews
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Rick Bayless's Mexican Kitchen: Capturing the Vibrant flavors of a World-Class Cuisine
By Rick Bayless
Scribner - 1996
Achiote Rice Supper with Pork Carnitas : page 258
Delicious, and not too heavy.
Step one is preparation of Essential Garlicy Achiote Seasoning Paste. I resorted to an old coffee grinder, as the achiote seeds were very difficult to crush with my mortar and pestle. This smells heavenly!
Pork carnitas are first prepared by boiling cubes of pork shoulder until the water is gone, and then browning them in oil produced from the meat. I was pretty skeptical, and it didn't smell very good, but was surprised by how tasty these were.
After cooking the meat, rice (medium grain - I used goya brand from the hispanic store), onion, roasted and diced poblanos, and diced carrots are cooked in beef broth + the achiote seasoning paste. At the end, I threw in frozen (thawed) peas.
I really enjoyed this dish. If you've got the seasoning and broth, its not too difficult to prepare - mostly hands off time.
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Chicken Broth : page 137
This is a simple chicken broth - not too different from most. A cut up chicken is simmered with bay leaves (3), a white onion, pepper, thyme, and marjoram. You are instructed to cook it for two hours.
Be sure to use a large pot - I wished I had used more water. After cooling over night, the broth had congealed, the fat easily removed, and the flavor is good.
Note that there is no salt called for in this recipe. You might want to remember that as you use this in the various recipes in this book.
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Chicken in Pueblan Green Pumpkin Seed Sauce : page 316
This was good, but not impressively so. Pepitas are roasted, and ground in the blender with white onion, garlic, cilantro, lettuce leaves, radish leaves, serrano peppers and chicken broth. Then you fry this sauce, as is typical for many recipes in this cookbook. The instructions also specify a second round of blending, but I didn't think my poor blender could do much to make it any smoother.
After the sauce is made, you add pre-cooked chicken. For me, this was chicken left over from making broth. If you followed this recipe from the beginning - you would have poached a chicken and used the liquid for this recipe's broth.
13 daughter really enjoyed this, but the rest of us were so-so.
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My husband prepared these refried beans using pinto beans he cooked from dried (using the pressure cooker).
The beans had superb flavor - no lard or bacon used - and no added cheese.
An interesting thing was that Bayless says that refried beans should be headed in a double boiler. Sure did prevent the scorching that is commonly seen with canned refried beans heated with direct heat.
We used these beans to prepare burritos. Very satisfying. And I was so impressed that he did this from scratch!
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Classic Red Tomato Rice : page 250
This was a tasty rice dish. The roasted tomato salasa (with a strong garlic flavor) gave the rice a wonderful flavor. I used a dutch oven as suggested. However I had used up my medium grain rice, and so used basmati rice.
After the 25 minutes, my rice was cooked, but slightly dry. If I prepare this again, I will use a bit more water.
I followed Zosia's suggestion and used the smaller amount of salt.
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Classic Vanilla Flan : page 391
A bit too rich, and the brandy flavor was a bit strong - but for me the recipe worked OK.
I made two mistakes in preparing this dish. First, I used two different sizes of ramekins - and so only the ones in the small ramekins were cooked properly. My second mistake was not having the water quite hot enough when I added it to the pan (for the water bath). That meant it took about 7 minutes extra for the flan to show the first signs of setting up.
This went well enough that I'd like to try the different variations, but maybe with a less rich milk mixture.
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Corn Tortillas : page 69
The flavor of a corn tortilla hot off the griddle is amazing. I used store-bought masa, and a tortilla press that was a gift from my kids for mothers day (beautiful - made from mesquite - a heavy wood).
Rick Bayless gives us three pages of instructions - which was my first indication that whipping out corn tortillas was not going to be easy.
A ball of masa is squeezed between two sheets of heavy plastic, the plastic peeled off, and the tortilla first cooked on a low-temperature griddle, and then transferred to high temperature to cook.
Two areas of great difficulty - getting the tortilla off the plastic, and then getting the tortilla off my hand and into the lower temperature pan.
I made about 12, and at best, I prepared 1/2 a round tortilla. However, as quickly as I cook cook them, my kids gobbled them up. They have a true corn flavor that appeared to be addictive.
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Corn-Masa Crepas with Mexican Flavors : page 110
(first review - give a 3 rating):
Crepes with a light vegetable filling, and a very small amount of cheese on top.
The crepes are made from eggs, masa, flour, and the usual ingredients.
The filling includes poblano peppers (roasted), corn, onion, and spinach. I did not have the zucchini that were suggested, and I substituted a red bell pepper.
The crepes were rolled with the vegetable filling, placed in a baking pan, a bit of cream poured over it, and then topped with cheese. The recipe calls for Mexican Chihuahua or other melting cheese - I used Oaxaxan melting cheese that I found in my local market.
The crepes cooked up nicely, and the recipe worked well, but it was quite bland.
2015 update (increased to rating to 4) -- I had no memory of making this recipe previously! This time I found the crepes difficult to cook (very very tender) but the vegetables were good! I used the zucchini and spinach as called for, and we rather enjoyed it. I also used monterey jack, and did bake them until the cheese melted. This helped enormously.
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I love the smokey-tangy flavor of this salsa!
I prepared this salsa to accompany "clean-out-the-refrigerator" burritos. The salsa has an excellent lemony flavor from the tomatillos, and as much heat as you care to add. The flavor blends well with a broad spectrum of different dishes, and I can easily imagine this in an omelet, on hamburgers, etc.
Do be sure to really blacken the tomatillos, and then put them in your blender blackened skin and all. This helps give the salsa additional flecks of color, and ensures a smokey taste.
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Pan-Roasted Salmon in Aromatic Green Pipian : page 351
Very tender salmon in a delicious green sauce.
Total time about 1 hour. Preparing the sauce entails roasting the tomatillos (broiler) and pepper, sauteing onions and garlic, blending it, then cooking it with some chicken stock, epazote, and hoja santa. I couldn't find epazote, and so used the suggested alternate, cilantro. I did find the Hoja santa - dried - it was very aromatic! The sauce is cooked for half an hour, toasted sesame seeds were added, and then it was all blended again. I used a poblano in place of the serranos, and as I had hoped, it was pretty mild. Very nice, a good complement to the salmon.
I really liked the method for cooking the salmon - in the oven. The family was very pleased with the tenderness and mildness of the fish.
This was very good, and would be worth repeating.
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Pickled Red Onions : page 162
Very simple, and the result is a tasty crunchy red onion.
The key here is that thinly sliced red onion is boiled - for 45 seconds - and then ground cumin, black pepper, oregano, garlic, cider vinegar, and water are added. The first day they were crunchier than the second, but by the second day a deeper garlic flavor had developed.
This is one of the ingredients in Rustic Jicama Appetizer, in this same book. I also used it in a salad with cucumber, red bell pepper, a splash of rice vineagar, these onions, and some of the onion dressing. This last salad, the one without jicima, was very much enjoyed by all.
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Roasted Poblano Crema with Mexican Greens : page 134
The recipe produced a lovely mild soup.
One of the more memorable dishes from our recent trip to Mexico City was a Poblano Soup, and I was hoping this recipe would be as good. It fell a bit short - but that was probably too high a target.
I encountered many unexpected problems making this - but none were caused by the recipe itself. The first step is to make Essential Roasted Poblano Rajas - roasted peppers, prepared and sautéed with onion, garlic, and spices. This step went well.
The soup base preparation requires chicken broth (I used the recipe in this book) and greens. I was going to use the greens from the beets I had nurtured in a hoop house all winter - but I found them chewed down to the ground. So instead I went out and bought Swiss Chard.
This soup base is thickened with fresh masa or masa harina. However, my masa harina ended up being rancid - so another delay until I replaced it (with fresh masa).
The soup is ladled into a bowl with diced cooked potatoes and a smoked meat -- I used bacon.
This soup was surprisingly mild, but had a nice flavor. As is usual for me, I was too impatient to push the cooked greens through a sieve. I think it would not have been necessary - maybe its important for a restaurant to have textures be perfect but I do not mind a bit of chunkiness.
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Light, fresh, and crunchy. I served this appetizer as a salad. It contains jicama, cucumbers, oranges, radishes (skipped those), marinated in lime juice for about 20 minutes. It is then topped by pickled onions (optional, I used them, easily made), cilantro, and ground up dried chiles. The recipe suggests guajillo peppers, and I found lovely ones in the market. I ground them up in an old coffee grinder. The pepper gave the dish a beautiful deep red color, but my peppers were so mild that they hardly added any flavor.
This was enjoyed by the whole family.
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Lovely shredded pork, barely enrobed in a tomato-onion-pepper sauce.
The pork is boiled for 1.5 hrs, allowed to cool, and then shredded. The sauce for the meat is prepared by first broiling tomatoes until black, dry roasting garlic cloves (before peeling), and whirring these, plus some peppers, in the blender.
This dish was prepared by 13-daughter, and she was very careful to not make it too spicy - only 1/2 a chipotle in adobo. I'd prefer it with more spice, but the other seasonings helped to make this delicious, spicy or not.
The meat/sauce mixture then has cinnamon, pepper, cloves, almonds, and raisins added.
We followed the suggestion of steaming the corn tortillas. The first set became too moist - I think my fault as i left the steamer boiling for too long. But the second set was perfect.
This was excellent, it tasted like good street food tacos from Mexico. YUM.
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We loved the complex flavor of the sauce that enrobed the chicken and chard. I also appreciated the addition of vegetables - these recipes seem to be mostly meat heavy.
The tomatillos are broiled till black - turned - and broiled again. You are instructed to use fresh serrano peppers, and to roast them alongside the tomatillos.
This has been one of those weeks when each thing I try to cook presents problems. This particular recipe was my "plan b" after I ran into another roadblock on the "Roasted Poblano Crema" - and I selected it because I had most of the ingredients. However, I did not have serrano peppers. But I did have a jar of dried guajillo chilis. So I followed the instructions for "essential simmered guajillo sauce" on page 57 - searing and then soaking a guajillo chili - and then I added it to the blender along with the tomatillos, sautéed onions, and some chicken broth. This mixture was surprisingly good - very complex - a bit smokey - but not spicy enough (my fault, not the recipe's faul). If you have to follow my make-around - use two of the guajillo chilis.
The sauce is then cooked, chicken (I used meat from preparing the broth), cilantro and chard added, cooked a bit, and then placed into corn tortillas along with queso fresco.
I'd recommend using lots and lots of chard. The recipe calls for 2C firmly packed. I think I was too gentle with the packing.
This batch was enough for about 9 tacos - good for three people but it might have been too skimpy for four.
I'm certainly going to want to try this again with the serrano peppers.
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