Epazote in the garden at Dowdy Corners, planted in and among the arugula

A couple of books ago, Dowdy Corners Cookbook Club was thick in the middle of Mexican cooking, and it was my chance to find out what the herb epazote is all about. It’s usually described as being quintessential to the cooking of Mexico and as having a distinctive and pungent flavor so unique that no other herb will do; recipe writers eschew substitutions of any kind, saying it’s better to omit, if you don’t have it.

If you don’t live in an area with markets that cater to Mexicans, the only opportunity you’ll have to try it, particularly when fresh, is to grow it yourself. So, against all odds of having something leafy and green to work with before the club moved on to the next book, I ordered epazote seeds in February, when we started cooking from The Art of Mexican Cooking, planted them in seed starter pots, and stuck then in my window sill. (more…)

THE ART OF MEXICAN COOKING:
Traditional Mexican Cooking for Aficionados
By Diana Kennedy
Clarkson Potter
496 pp. $30.00

Except for me, Dowdy Corners Cookbook Club members have put Mexican cooking behind them and have moved on to cooking soups, salads, and breads from our current cookbook. Everyone in the club loved The Art of Mexican Cooking, as you’ll read below in my review, but sentimental attachment is not the reason I haven’t yet let go. It’s the review—the task for each cookbook that I always save for last for reasons of objective synthesis (I need to wait until I hear what each member thought of the book), but also because review writing stirs a youthful condition I thought I’d long beaten into submission: procrastination. Perhaps that’s because when in school book reviews were one of many writing assignments that were generally dreaded, and because the activities of cooking, eating, and drinking Margaritas with club members are free of school days association. (If anyone has any book review writing tips to help me oust those “school assignment” feelings, please bring them on.)

In the meantime, while I work on casting out procrastination once and for all, here is my review of the third Dowdy Corners’ cookbook, starting with the food, the reason why we cook:

The Food

One of our members was initially lukewarm about the club’s choice of a Mexican cookbook; prior to cooking from The Art of Mexican Cooking, her only reference for Mexican cooking was Americanized food served in average Mexican restaurants, and she was not impressed. Now she is completely hooked.

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Photo by DCCC club member Melanie Considine

Melanie Considine is a fine art photographer with professional experience. Translation: she’s got the art part down and she knows what buttons to press, whether she’s using her low-tech 4 by 5-inch view camera for her artwork or her high-tech Nikon D200 for miscellaneous design projects (she’s also a web designer). Several weeks ago, to reciprocate a Greek rabbit dinner, she and her husband Matt had my boyfriend Mike and me over for dinner. Matt made homemade ciabattta bread (he is a dedicated amateur bread baker and has even built his own bread oven), and Melanie, a DCCC member, prepared Mexican food from The Art of Mexican Cooking.

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Prior to the potluck for each DCCC cookbook, I post a set of questions to stimulate discussion and to make sure we don’t forget to cover some of the most basic discussion topics at our meeting—such as, “Which recipes does everyone like best?” and “Will members likely cook from this book again?”, and so on. These questions are meant to used by anyone or any club that has been reading and making recipes from The Art of Mexican Cooking. If you’re a member and have a question you’d like to add the list, please send it to me to include.

How would you describe Diana Kennedy’s writing style? Authoritative? Personal? Sensual? Humorous? Do you like her tone?

Did you get a sense of Mexico—it’s people, the place, and, of course, the food—from her writing?

What did you learn about Mexican cooking that you didn’t know before using this book? Were you surprised by anything? Before using this book, did you know, for example, that lard is a common cooking fat in Mexican cooking?

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This posting is for Robert Feugate, a sandwich lover and wiz-bang coder and problem solver who helped with some of the behind-the-scenes structural features of the DCCC blog. The Torta de Santuario, or “Santuary Roll,” from The Art of Mexican Cooking may not be what he had in mind when he asked me to write about a sandwich. It’s rather involved. But for hardcore sandwich lovers, for whom making the Vietnamese Banh Mi or the New Orleans Muffuletta from scratch is enjoyable way to spend an afternoon, this multi-step Mexican sandwich will be a feather in their cap.

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Shown above, clockwise from the top left, are bowls of Arroz a la Mexicana, or “Mexican Rice,” which, tinged red from tomatoes, could just as well be called “red rice,” Arroz Verde, or “Green Rice,” Arroz Blanco, or “White Rice,” and the Mexican flag held by a Day of the Dead figure, who would rather not be used as a flagpole so that he could get on with the business of drinking and smoking.

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I first learned of this dish, and the concept of layering tortillas with sauce, cheese, poblano chile strips, and chicken, a Mexican lasagna of sorts, from Carla Muñoz, a roommate from my Brooklyn days. (I owe a lot to Carla—she broadened my tequila drinking experience from just silver to reposado (rested) and añejo (aged), and introduced me to the joys of freezing homemade mole, which can be resuscitated with a little water for an instant sauce beyond compare.)

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Pozole, a traditional, broth-based Mexican soup, is healthy, nourishing and full of flavors and textures that vary with each spoonful. If you like the contrast of cold or raw toppings—some crunchy, like radish and shredded iceberg lettuce, and some soft, like diced avocado and crumbled cheese—with piping hot broth and tender pork—a veritable salad atop piping hot soup—you will love pozole. Think of the Vietnamese pho or Chinese wonton soup, and you get the idea. Except for the queso fresco, which may be difficult to find, depending on where you live, the garnishes are not optional—they make the soup. (Note: Queso fresco is not hard to make at home. See this recipe to find out how it’s done.)

This recipe is from my friend Peter McGann, who has traveled (and eaten) in Mexico, spent some time cooking in Mexican restaurants, and taken a workshop on Mexican cooking with Diana Kennedy, the author of DCCC’s current pick. (more…)

Ricotta cheese is used in Mexican cooking in various ways—to fill squash blossoms, empanadas, tacos, quesadillas, fried pockets made with corn tortilla dough, and to make faux “scrambled egg” dishes, like the two recipes, shown below, I made from The Art of Mexican Cooking by Diana Kennedy: Ricotta Scrambled in Tomato Sauce and Ricotta Scrambled Like Mexican Eggs. Like Crumbled Indian Cheese with Peas from Entice with Spice, the first DCCC pick, (more…)

(Adapted from Diana Kennedy’s recipe in The Art of Mexican Cooking)

This soft, crumbly white cheese, whose name means literally “fresh cheese,” is used in a variety of ways in Mexican cooking. According to Diana Kennedy, author of the current DCCC pick, it may be eaten uncooked as a snack with drinks, crumbled on top of various cooked foods, such as enchiladas and soups, or cut into strips for chiles rellanos and other dishes.

As queso fresco is used in a number of egg dishes and red pozole, a famous Mexican soup, that I’d planned to make, I looked for it at the specialty foods market in my town. Unfortunately, it was not available, even as a special order. (more…)