Cookbook Project, Books #36 and 37
Apr. 5th, 2009 01:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ladysprite"Mexican Cookery," Barbara Hansen
I have no idea where this book came from. I know I didn't buy it, and![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
umbran has no memory of buying it, though he's willing to acknowledge that he might have and then forgotten it. My best guess is that it was part of a stack of books I acquired from my mom and never actually looked at.
On the outside, it looks like another one of the cheap early-80's Sunset cookbooks - oversized, softcovered, same font, and I was rather dreading having to look through it. I was certain it would be full of pseudo-ethnic recipes that used canned tomatos, Velveeta, and Fritos and called it Mexican.
I was dead wrong. This is an amazing book. Their recipes start with making your own tortillas, salsas, and enchilada sauce and work up from there. There's a section on familiarizing yourself with common ingredients, and the diversity of the recipes in there is overwhelming. I can't wait to play around with more of them.
We had to choose one to start with, though, so my better half flipped through while I was out and settled on Tacos de Machaca, a sort of spiced shredded beef. It had some interesting spicing, and called for braising the meat, a technique I don't have a lot of experience with, so it was interesting to try. And the end product was absolutely delicious served with quick homemade guacamole on fresh corn tortillas. Stuff like this is why I started this project.
"The Pinstripe Gourmet," Robert Ackart
This cookbook describes itself as having 'quick & elegant meals for working people,' and could not be more pathologically 80's if it was bound in acid-washed denim. I'm pretty sure this was a hand-me-down from my mom, and while I've glanced at it occasionally to laugh at it, I've never actually used it.
The big problem is actually that most of the food in it is organized in menus for 4-8. Also, most of the menus assume that you can go to your local grocery and get things like petit fours. But after looking through it for a little while, I did find a menu for Welsh Rarebit and Mixed Vegetable Salad with Lemon Vinaigrette that sounded decent enough. Plus, the rarebit recipe suggested a variant that involved topping the dish with poached eggs, and we had fresh duck eggs from a friend that I was trying to come up with a good use for....
I don't know if the rest of the cookbook is worth using, but.... wow. That dinner, at least, is a keeper, and will probably become a favorite quick summer dinner. I had never poached eggs before, but it was much easier than I thought it would be, and the flavors and textures worked together perfectly. The vinaigrette was a little too oily for my taste, but that can be fixed easily.
Two successes, both using new-to-me cooking techniques. I'm not likely to be cooking much next week, but things are going well enough that I'm really looking forward to whatever I may come up with next....
I have no idea where this book came from. I know I didn't buy it, and
umbran has no memory of buying it, though he's willing to acknowledge that he might have and then forgotten it. My best guess is that it was part of a stack of books I acquired from my mom and never actually looked at.On the outside, it looks like another one of the cheap early-80's Sunset cookbooks - oversized, softcovered, same font, and I was rather dreading having to look through it. I was certain it would be full of pseudo-ethnic recipes that used canned tomatos, Velveeta, and Fritos and called it Mexican.
I was dead wrong. This is an amazing book. Their recipes start with making your own tortillas, salsas, and enchilada sauce and work up from there. There's a section on familiarizing yourself with common ingredients, and the diversity of the recipes in there is overwhelming. I can't wait to play around with more of them.
We had to choose one to start with, though, so my better half flipped through while I was out and settled on Tacos de Machaca, a sort of spiced shredded beef. It had some interesting spicing, and called for braising the meat, a technique I don't have a lot of experience with, so it was interesting to try. And the end product was absolutely delicious served with quick homemade guacamole on fresh corn tortillas. Stuff like this is why I started this project.
"The Pinstripe Gourmet," Robert Ackart
This cookbook describes itself as having 'quick & elegant meals for working people,' and could not be more pathologically 80's if it was bound in acid-washed denim. I'm pretty sure this was a hand-me-down from my mom, and while I've glanced at it occasionally to laugh at it, I've never actually used it.
The big problem is actually that most of the food in it is organized in menus for 4-8. Also, most of the menus assume that you can go to your local grocery and get things like petit fours. But after looking through it for a little while, I did find a menu for Welsh Rarebit and Mixed Vegetable Salad with Lemon Vinaigrette that sounded decent enough. Plus, the rarebit recipe suggested a variant that involved topping the dish with poached eggs, and we had fresh duck eggs from a friend that I was trying to come up with a good use for....
I don't know if the rest of the cookbook is worth using, but.... wow. That dinner, at least, is a keeper, and will probably become a favorite quick summer dinner. I had never poached eggs before, but it was much easier than I thought it would be, and the flavors and textures worked together perfectly. The vinaigrette was a little too oily for my taste, but that can be fixed easily.
Two successes, both using new-to-me cooking techniques. I'm not likely to be cooking much next week, but things are going well enough that I'm really looking forward to whatever I may come up with next....
