Chris Hennes

Crispy Cakes of Greens, Potato and Green Chile (p. 132) I have a soft spot for panko-breaded pretty much anything, so these were a no-brainer. The filling is lightly cooked mixed greens (I used mustard and kale), plus potato, jalapeño, and queso añejo. Standard panko breading technique, then shallow-fried until crisp. I served them with a roasted tomato salsa and RG pinto beans.

If getting the patties to hold together is the point, couldn't you just add salt and then mix a bit to build up some myosin? Obviously there's going to be a fine line between "holding together" and tough, but that's always true.

Yellow Mole with Grilled Fennel and Portobello Mushrooms (p. 204) The main recipe for this dish calls for fennel fronds as the herb component of the mole (and thus the dominant flavor). In the intro he explains that this should really be made with hoja santa, but he has a hard time getting it at the store and it doesn't grow well in Chicago. Well, it grows very well in Oklahoma as it turns out, so I un-substituted the fennel fronds, using an equivalent amount of hoja santa in its place. I did still serve it with a grilled fennel bulb, which actually was the weakest part of the dish. I liked the potatoes and mushrooms, and sauce was particularly interesting as a showcase for the hoja santa, but the fennel remained too firm for my tastes.

Fresh Butter-Bean Enfrijoladas (p. 166) Actually, the recipe is for fava bean enfrijoladas, but I'm having a hard time sourcing favas, so I thought I'd give the recipe a go with speckled butter beans instead. It comes out less photogenic, that's for sure! The favas would give a nice pale green color (at least, according to the photo in the book), rather than the murky brown from the butter beans. Aesthetics aside, the inclusion of the salad on top and a hefty dose of hot sauce are the critical components for a successful dish here. Use a very acidic hot sauce here... I really liked Valentina. You need to use one that is low-heat enough that you can use a lot of it, otherwise the bean sauce is sort of blah. For the greens almost anything would work, you just need the crunchy texture as a foil for the rest of the dish.

Celery Root Pancakes (p. 208) I posted about these before, but they are really good, and really easy, so I made them again for lunch today. Actually, I made one large one. I also put the full quantity of chipotles into the cakes instead of splitting half into the crema (fewer dirty dishes). I also used baking instead of boiling potatoes since that's what I had on hand. The recipe is simple: for every egg, add 1 celery root bulb (peeled and shredded) and 1/2 lb potato (shredded). Mix in chopped chipotle chile to taste (I used three per egg) plus a handful of chopped cilantro. Fry them up, and serve with crema and queso anejo (Bayless has you mix half the chipotles into the crema rather than putting them all into the cakes). What you see in that photo is one egg's worth, but of course the recipe scales easily.

Black Bean Rice with Plantains and Smoky Pork (p. 254) Neither my cilantro nor the green onions survived long enough this week to make it into this dish, so it plates up pretty plain-looking, but the taste is really quite good. The plantains work well with the beans and pork, giving a sweet counterpoint to their richness. I'm afraid mine didn't end up as dark as Bayless's, I did not have that much bean cooking liquid left so just increased the chicken stock to compensate.

(Oh, and another milestone: 75% !)

Grilled Red Chile Ribs (p. 308) With any recipe I write about there is always the possibility that I screwed it up without realizing it, and I wind up writing about something the author didn't intend to create: tonight was almost one of those nights. At its heart this dish is just baby back ribs marinated in quick red chile adobo and then grilled. It was never going to be bad, of course, but as we started eating my wife and I discussed how it was sort of lackluster. It needed some kind of punch. A punch like, you know, the tomatillo salsa sitting directly in my line of sight in the blender jar, uneaten. So, a review of the ribs without the salsa: meh. A review with the salsa: very good. The acidity of the tomatillos really plays nicely with the sweetened adobo, and greatly improved the overall dish. Don't forget it!

Raspberry Soft-Serve Ice Cream (p. 361) I'm not a huge fan of fruit-flavored ice cream. For me, it's sorbet for fruit, and ice cream for chocolate, nuts, etc. I'm sure this was a respectable exemplar, but I found the flavor of the powdered milk a bit off-putting. That said, the xanthan does give a great texture, and if you like fruity ice creams this might be worth trying.

Chipotle Meatballs (p. 117) I was hopeful that these meatballs would be as good as the ones at Tortas, but they weren't, quite. In particular I think I should have ground the beef through a fine die, and the pork through the medium, or maybe even split the pork into lean and fat and ground the lean coarse -- instead I used the medium die for everything. My memory of the meatballs at Tortas is that there were some relatively large chunks of meat in them. I'd also be inclined to cook over substantially higher heat next time when searing them. The recipe calls for "medium", but I think on my range medium-high would have resulted in better browning. The sauce turned out well, and overall the dish was good, but it wasn't as good as I was hoping for.

Banana Pepper-Leek Soup with White Beans and Crispy Chorizo (p. 212) In retrospect it may have been a little too warm to serve soup today, but I needed to use the leeks and peppers. This soup was pretty good. Not amazing, but worth making. My one criticism is more of my chorizo than of the recipe. I think the soup needed one more textural element, something crispy, and the chorizo I use was too finely ground to really fit the bill. A crisp bacon or pancetta would have been nice, or even just some croutons. Or a coarser chorizo, probably.

Epazote has certainly been a highlight of a number of these dishes, but there are really only two that I think you shouldn't bother with if you can't get it: Chicken with Roasted Tomatillos, Poblanos and Potatoes, which I think would have been pretty pedestrian with cilantro, and that Fresh Corn in Spicy-Herby Broth, which hinged on the epazote to make it pop.

Fresh Corn in Spicy-Herby Broth (p. 144) Another dish made by the inclusion of epazote. In this dish you make a broth from the corn husks and cobs, then cook the corn in it with a lot of epazote and some green chile. Served with queso fresco, mayonnaise, and lime juice, it was delicious.

Xoco's Granola (p. 228) This is a pretty standard granola (with lots of nuts and seeds), with the exception of the inclusion of a large amount of puffed amaranth. I couldn't find anyplace to purchase puffed amaranth locally, so I bought it unpuffed and then followed the instructions here for puffing. After burning a couple batches I got the hang of it. Hard to say whether it was worth the trouble.

Mussels with Salsa Macha, Mexican Beer and Ham (p. 333) I hear that some people actually eat the bivalves when they make steamed mussels. I'm not one of them. For me, these dishes are all about the broth, and this one was pretty good. Not my favorite, and considering that I don't really like mussels themselves I won't make this dish again, but the salsa macha and homemade stock yielded a cooking broth that was flavorful, if not as rich as I would have liked.

I was reminded by a friend that I have also done Around My French Table, so I did get some French in there!

I am not seeking a particular style or region, as long as it has sufficient variety (that is, nothing that could be summarized as "1001 Ways to Cook a Steak" etc.). I'd say probably not Mexican or Sichuan, since I've done both of those recently, though of course I've done then recently because I love them so I could be persuaded! One hidden requirement is that it not be too seafood-focused: Oklahoma is not a great place to buy seafood, and my wife dislikes much of it.

Mexican Chocolate-Pumpkin Seed Cake (p. 338) This cake is mostly pumpkin seeds and sugar, with a tiny bit of flour and a few eggs added to hold it together. Which means the taste was excellent. I used raw pumpkin seeds that I toasted just beforehand, and added a bit of salt to the recipe to compensate for not using pre-salted seeds. I did include the optional tequila, and used the Taza 60% dark chocolate. Overall it was a really good rustic-style cake. One thing I'd change next time was the topping. He calls for simply adding whole seeds and granulated sugar to the pan before baking, but I wasn't thrilled with the texture or aesthetics of that solution. Much better would be to make some caramel-glazed pumpkin seeds and scatter them on top, maybe with a dusting of shredded chocolate as well. Probably too finicky for this book, but the effect would be better, in my opinion.

Grilled Tostadas with Bacon, Avocado Mayo and Heirloom Tomatoes (p. 150) This is Bayless's take on a BLT a la Mexico. The last time I made tlayudas, from Fiesta at Rick's, I used tortillas that were too fresh, so they never quite got as cracker-crisp as I gather they are supposed to. This time I took his advice in the recipe and used factory-made tortillas, which worked much better than homemade. They got completely crispy after being brushed with bacon drippings and grilled. Topped with an avocado-serrano mayonnaise, fresh tomatoes, and bacon, these were delicious, if not particularly Mexican-tasting.

Coconut-Lime Ice Pops (p. 363) And so I'm finally relegated to making stuff from the desserts chapter. The dead-last recipe in the book is for these ice pops, which are just coconut milk, lime juice and zest, and sugar. If I had read the paragraph more carefully I would have seen that he suggests using a coconut milk with a stabilizer added, and you can clearly see why in my decidedly un-stabilized pops. Tasted great. Probably not supposed to be layered, though!

Carrot, Beet and Orange Licuado (p. 227) Vampiro This was really interesting. It mostly tasted like orange juice (I used fresh-squeezed), with a second note of something you couldn't quite place your finger on. The carrot, beet, and lime juices were not individually identifiable in the finished licuado, but all contributed something. Especially the striking blood-like color from the beet!

It turns out that the pureed rajas also make a really excellent pasta sauce: Simple Poblano Cream Sauce (p. 55) I had some leftover grilled chicken that I added to a plate of casarecce and sauced with the pureed rajas. It would have been better without the reheated chicken breast, but overall it tasted great.

Over the past several years I've gotten into the habit if choosing a single cookbook and tearing through it for a couple of months. Not necessarily with the goal of cooking every single recipe, but just using it as my central menu planning tool. This helps me on the exotic-ingredient front because I can focus my pantry purchases on the current cookbook, and keeps me from falling into a rut by forcing me to try things I would probably otherwise just thumb past. In the past I've cooked extensively from Land of Plenty, Breath of the Wok, Stir Frying to the Sky's Edge, Modernist Cuisine, Modernist Cuisine at Home, Fiesta at Rick's, and most recently More Mexican Everyday. They all fall into a similar pattern. They are relatively short (well, except the original MC), they are focused on a regional cuisine (or perhaps most importantly, on a relatively focused list of "specialty" ingredients), and there is sufficient variety to cover hot weather and cold weather, rainy days and sunny, main dishes, sides, soups, and salads, both vegetarian and meat-focused dishes, and most of the dishes can be prepared in a hour or less. That's a pretty long list of requirements, and I need help finding my next project. Does anyone have any suggestions, particularly among new-ish or forthcoming books?

Simple Poblano Cream Sauce (p. 55) Four Seasons Grilled Salad with Smoky Knob Onions and Sesame (p. 156) The sauce is just rajas sent through the blender; it's a "bonus" recipe included in the rajas chapter. I served it on grilled chicken, but it would be delicious on a lot of things. The four seasons salad is called that because it's the same salad with four variants depending on what produce is available. It's summer here in the northern hemisphere, so I used heirloom tomatoes, very briefly grilled. Honestly, I probably still cooked them a bit too long, grilling tomatoes is tricky business if you don't want tomato sauce at the end. The sauce was unexpected, I don't think I've encountered sesame oil in Mexican cuisine before, and there was quite a lot of it in there. The dressing was quite sesame-y, but overall was very good on the tomatoes. I think I'll give this another try with beets or chayote (two other suggested variants).

Greens and Beans with Red Chile and Fresh Cheese (p. 125) Last night I served this as a taco filling, and for lunch today I reheated it and served it as an omelet filling. It actually turns out to be better in the second application. The kale's texture suffered a bit for the reheating, but flavor-wise I think that it worked very well in this application. Bayless doesn't actually give a whole lot of serving suggestions for this dish, but I think there are actually a lot of things that it would be good on (those celery-root pancakes come to mind, for example).