KateBChi

I like the tonnato sauce used for vitello tonnato (tuna, capers, lemony mayonnaise and anchovies) to sauce pasta. As a variation on that theme would be tuna with capers, lemon juice and grated peel, black olives, parsley and cream or creme fraiche.

The skin on part threw me. My source always skins them. I get why he does it (way easier than plucking) and I won't look a gift pheasant in the mouth but the cooking methods are vastly different with a skin on bird. Skin on I'd brine and roast or grill (as we did when my dad and brothers used to hunt pheasant). Skin off as I've only gotten in the last 20 years we rely on marinades (and brines) and then grill or braise or fry cut up. A sauce is usually involved as these babies can dry out pretty fast if care is not taken. Sauces hide a multitude of sins.

I have had some wonderful meals at EMP but if Thursdays NYT recipes are any indication of what is in the cookbook then this is the best marketing tool for dining at the restaurant rather than attempting to recreate it at home in the history of marketing. I was exhausted reading the instructions for the butternut squash cannelloni and nearly comatose with the beet dish. I have cooked my way through The French Laundry so I am willing to go the distance but these recipes require way more than one cook to run the marathon. Kate

My sister wanted to make a mole to serve with grilled pork for Easter. We opted to make the Mole Teloapense (p 277-280) after I saw my notation in her copy of the cookbook "RB's Mexican Kitchen" that read "excellent recipe" dated in 2003 along with some changes I made in the margins. This recipe is a whole lot of work but mostly of the mindless variety (stemming and seeding chiles, measuring ingredients, toasting and pulverizing seeds, frying ingredients and making home made stock). I spread the task over three days. Day one making stock. Day two toasting and pulverizing seeds and seasonings and stemming and seeding chiles and measuring nuts and other ingredients. Because of my sister's schedule I ended up making it solo so I was pretty much hating every single ingredient that I had to prep by the time I was ready to actually make the sauce. Since we were making this for pork we skipped anything to do with the turkey. The recipe needed a little tweaking but that may well have been the fault of our ingredients. For example my sister had purchased the "Mexican chocolate" called for in the recipe but it was a pre-sweetened brand (Ibarra) and additional sugar was totally unnecessary! It also needed some acid (lime juice) and we subbed ground annatto seed for the avocado leaf and grated avocado pit. The result was AMAZING! One of the best moles I have ever tasted. My elderly father who claimed to not like mole (he announced this as he watched me pureeing the sauce first in a food processor and then in a blender and laboriously straining it in multiple batches!) declared it fantastic. It's only been two days since I made it and I would honestly make it again despite the effort and mess involved. Fortunately the recipe makes for a ton of leftovers which freeze very well so that is something I can avoid for quite a while. Kate

This cookbook's recipes are simpler than "Authentic Mexican". I love the poblano crema and the roasted poblano with mixed greens. I use the pickled red onions and the poblano rajas for quesadillas and tacos. The achiote pork makes great tacos. It's been about 10 years since I made a mole from this book at least without a lot of ad libbing. There's nothing wrong with the recipes but they were less exciting than the ones in his earlier cookbook but easier to make. The margarita recipes are solid.

My parents travelled a great deal and were adventurous eaters and even though we lived in small town middle America we were exposed to a wide variety of foods. None of my friends had even heard of the dishes we ate (this was in the 1960's and 70's). I learned to make chicken cacciatore and polenta from my grandma as well as banga cauda and meat sauce for pasta and lasagna. I also learned never to complain of a stomach ache within her ear shot as it brought the dreaded fernet branca! My dad's one contribution to the table was making lunch after Sunday mass. It was nearly invariably tortellini stuffed with meat and cheese or stuffed with spinach and cheese in brodo. A lady in town made the tortellini so I didn't learn about that until much later in life. The broth was not homemade but canned but dad made it taste like it might have been by simmering it with chopped onions, celery, carrots and herbs and spices then straining it and cooking the tortellini in it. While I still think that homemade tortellini in brodo can be the best thing in the world I realize that being a Catholic Italian in the 1960's ( when you had to fast I.e not eat anything until after communion on Sundays AND your parents liked to sleep in on Sundays and attend 11:00 or 12:00 mass) and being ravenously hungry by mid afternoon made this meal the highlight of the week! Mom taught everything else from making hollandaise or bernaise sauces for fondue nights to the ghastly fish burgers on Fridays. Actually I learned how to make sauces for fondue because of my mom not from my mom. She wanted to make the sauces for beef fondue and sometimes could but often they broke or curdled. She handed me her "Gourmet's Basic French Cookbook" when I said "that looks bad" once too often and told me to figure it out. I did and became the house saucier! Ah memories!