by Gabriela Camara of which I received a review copy. The book is about so much more than salsa or any other particular dish. The recipes and tips combine to explain Camara’s style of cooking, with the freshest and best-produced ingredients, inspired by Mexican traditional cuisine. The menus at her Mexico City and San Francisco restaurants vary due to availability of locally-grown and sustainably-produced ingredients in each location. In Mexico City, she offers a Tuna Tostada when sustainable tuna is available. But, in San Francisco, a locally-farmed trout is a better choice, and that’s what she uses there. She also explains her choice of cheeses. In Mexico, she’s able to source traditional cheeses that are made with high-quality milk from pastured cows. Those cheeses aren’t available in the US, and our Mexican-style cheeses tend to be from larger companies making compromises on the milk used. She recommends choosing similar cheeses that aren’t Mexican but are well-made rather than being strictly traditional. The recipes will mostly seem familiar, but upon closer inspection, Camara’s personal touch is revealed. The chapters include basics, breakfast, first courses, main dishes, desserts, and drinks. The simplest dishes are taken to new levels when each ingredient is carefully considered. For instance, the Tacos de Huevo are made with fresh-made corn tortillas, a soft-boiled egg, beans, rice, and a homemade salsa or two. And, the photos convey the deliciousness. Seafood figures heavily in the recipes, which I loved seeing, and its use in the soups got my full attention. There’s a spicy crab soup, a shrimp broth made with adobo sauce and whole shrimp and served with lots of garnishes, and an herb and chile inflected soup with fish meatballs. There’s even a Chiles en Nogada made with seafood as the filling rather than pork. The Mexican-style clams, mussels in chipotle sauce, and the signature red and green grilled red snapper all delighted me, but there are plenty of meat options as well. Those include chicken and pork stews; cochinita pibil; an al pastor approach that would work well for pork, chicken, or vegetables; and an actual meat meatball recipe in salsa de chile morita. Speaking of salsa, the one that got added to my favorites list is the Adobo de Chiles Rojos made with dried chiles, fresh tomatoes, onion, lots of garlic, and some citrus. It’s added to cooked fish and reduced before the mixture is spooned into masa sopes. And then I started adding it to just about everything else I cooked. I love playing with masa, and I’ve made lots of shapes from masa dough like tlacoyos, gorditas, and various tortillas. So, I was excited to try the sopes which were similar in shape to gorditas. Masa harina was mixed with water to form the simple dough that was divided into ping pong ball size pieces before being shaped into rounds with a cupped top. The sopes were then fried in oil and left to drain. The salsa was made by reconstituting dried ancho, guajillo, and pasilla chiles. The softened chiles along with chiles de arbol, chopped fresh tomato, onion, lots of garlic, olive oil, orange juice, lime juice, achiote seeds, cumin, oregano, and salt were pureed in the blender. There’s a surprising amount of salt in this salsa at one and a half tablespoons, but this is the correct amount. The sopes are not seasoned at all. They are simple masa vehicles for all the flavor of the filling. So, the aggressive seasoning of the salsa is balanced. For this version of sopes, a firm-fleshed fish was to be cut into small cubes and cooked in oil. I used halibut. After the fish was cooked, the salsa was added and reduced a bit. The fish and sauce mixture was spooned into the sopes and topped with a crumbly, salty cheese and purslane leaves. Queso fresco would ordinarily be used, but ricotta salata is also suggested depending on what you can get that is better quality. I used a locally-made goat feta.
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which honors all the recipients of the Outstanding Chef title from the first that was awarded through the 2010 award. While this isn't a cookbook for quick and easy weeknight dinners, it is a wonderful collection of bios of all the Outstanding Chefs, and each bio is accompanied by a signature dish or two or three from the chef. I probably won't attempt the Hot Potato, Cold Potato, Black Truffle, Parmesan dish from Grant Achatz who won in 2008, but it is fascinating to read about how it's made after reading about Achatz's career. There are photos of most of the dishes, and the salads are all gorgeous and very approachable. There's a Beet Salad with Mango, Feta, Orange, and Mint from Alfred Portale, a Greenhouse Salad with Blue Hill Farm Yogurt from Dan Barber, and a Summer Salad from Alice Waters. I'd love to adapt and simplify a couple of the recipes like the Chilled Honeydew Melon Soup with Crab Remoulade from Jeremiah Tower and the Spice-Roasted Lobster with Buttermilk Chutney from Tom Colicchio. What was most interesting about this book was learning how several of these chefs have worked together or under some of the same chefs at some point in their careers. And, did I mention the photos of the food? There is page after page of very beautiful food.
Now for the fun part. The halibut was seasoned, dusted with flour with Madras curry powder in it, dunked into a beaten egg, and coated with the mixed together shredded collards and katafi. Each fillet was lowered into 350 degree F vegetable oil to cook for 30 seconds. Based on the photo in the book, I realized that a good depth of oil would be necessary for the frizzy coating to float upwards from the fish inside it. So, I used a two and a half quart saucepan with straight sides. It’s necessary to fry one fillet at a time, so a smaller pan uses less oil and fits one piece fine. Using a metal, slotted spoon, a fillet was lowered into the oil and held down below the surface with the handle of a wooden spoon. This was a little scary because the oil bubbled up and spattered a lot due to the water content in the fish and greens. I was sure I was going to burn the house down, but I was also sure it was worth it. It was fine. There was no grease fire, and the oil calmed down before the 30 seconds had elapsed. After frying, each fillet was drained on paper towels and then placed in a 300 degree F oven for 10 minutes. Only 30 seconds in the oil and only 10 minutes in a warm oven made me a nervous nelly for a second time.
I can say with certainty that the flavors of this dish were as good as I’d imagined when I first saw it in the magazine. The two uses of tarragon or M.m.m. worked fine. The anise was subtle and married nicely with the freshness of the tomatoes and richness of the browned butter. The herb rub on the halibut became a very good accent to the flavor of the fish itself and the smoke from the grill. I made the smashed fingerlings mentioned in the article as well, and they were great on the side. Also great was the light, California pinot noir with nice, balanced fruit whose name I can’t remember because we ended up with a different wine than the one from the article and I failed to write it down. The simple, flavorful sauce could be used on ravioli or gnocchi, and the tarragon could be replaced with thyme for variation. Or, I could happily sit down to a plate of burst-open tiny tomatoes in herbed browned butter and a hunk of bread.
