My Mexico City Kitchen: Recipes and Convictions

by Gabriela Camara, Malena Watrous

Innovative chef and culinary trend-setter Gabriela C�mara shares 150 recipes for her vibrant, simple, and sophisticated contemporary Mexican cooking.

Inspired by the flavors, ingredients, and flair of culinary and cultural hotspot Mexico City, Gabriela C�mara's style of fresh-first, vegetable-forward, legume-loving, and seafood-centric Mexican cooking is a siren call to home cooks who crave authentic, on-trend recipes they can make with confidence and regularity. With 150 recipes for Basicos (basics), Desayunos (breakfasts), Primeros (starters), Platos Fuertos (mains), and Postres (sweets), Mexican food-lovers will find all the dishes they want to cook--from Chilaquiles Verdes to Chiles Rellenos and Flan de Cajeta--and will discover many sure-to-be favorites, such as her signature tuna tostadas. More than 150 arresting images capture the rich culture that infuses C�mara's food and a dozen essays detail the principles that distinguish her cooking, from why non-GMO corn matters to how everything can be a taco. With celebrated restaurants in Mexico City and San Francisco, C�mara is the most internationally recognized figure in Mexican cuisine, and her innovative, simple Mexican food is exactly what home cooks want to cook.

Genres: Cookbooks, Cooking, Food, Nonfiction, Food and Drink

368 pages, Hardcover

Published April 30, 2019

Reviews

[Leiv Blad · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a fantastic cookbook. Educational and full of great and tasty recipes.

[Linda]

Have you ever wanted to cook very good Mexican food. This book is for you. Read every page and think the hints, stories and her precise direction are good. I live close to the border and don't like the so so food in the restaurants here. Maybe they could learn some really good cooking from this book. It would sure help their bottom lines. Don't care for taco's and burritos here. Some of the ingredients are hard to find here but she tells you what you can substitute and get almost as good results.

[Kristin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hit recipes all around! Had a long weekend, and already several chiles on hand - made pork al pastor, cochinita pibil, carnitas, chicken tinga, several salsas and a few agua frescas - all fantastic!

[Teague · Rating 5 out of 5]

This cookbook touched my heart. I ate at the chef’s restaurant in Mexico City three summers ago and her food was excellent. But what moved me was her descriptions of her childhood and cooking / dining experiences with her family and hometown community. I have eaten in the same beachside palapa restaurants she references, have had beautiful homemade cooking in my grandmother’s kitchen, and have great pride in my cultural heritage. This cookbook is beautiful to look at. I look forward to cooking from it for years.

[Liquidlasagna · Rating 5 out of 5]

liked by Suzanne Goin

........

Amazone

Officially my new favorite of my (many) Mexican cookbooks

I had seen some of the negative Amazon reviews of this cookbook when it was first published and shied away from purchasing it for awhile. But then I took Gabriela Camara's Master Class and became smitten with her recipes and approach to Mexican cooking. I am obsessed with this cookbook! In the week I've owned it I have made several salsas, sopa de hongos (mushroom soup), chilaquiles, puerco al pastor (a well-seasoned minced pork popular in tacos), and the Pescado a la Talla, the signature fish dish of her restaurant Contramar. Every one has yielded spectacular results.

The recipes are easy to follow, and I especially appreciate how Gabriela Camara demystifies certain aspects of Mexican cooking (I heartily disagree with those reviewers who have taken issue with the writing or instructions). Take, for example, her description of cooking moles, explaining that they are not hard to make, but simply require many ingredients and several steps to coax out their maximum flavors. She is loyal to tradition (I especially appreciate her homage to Mexican cooking icon Diana Kennedy) and committed to sustainability. She makes innovative use of flavors and techniques, making dishes accessible to home cooks. The puerco o pollo al pastor recipe is one example, as are the chorizo recipes.

But maybe the reason why I especially love this cookbook is the sense of nostalgia it invokes for me. I have traveled Mexico extensively, and have spent a lot of time in Mexico City. Although I have never been to Contramar, the dishes I have tried thus far have conjured memories of flavors and dishes I've enjoyed in Mexico.

I look forward to cooking my way through the rest of My Mexico City Kitchen while eagerly awaiting Gabriela Camara's next contribution to the culinary world. And I will be first in line to get her next cookbook, assuming she publishes another.

Laurie

[Rosalie Lochner · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book got significant buzz. It has beautiful photos, convincing mini-essays, and a chilaquiles recipe that made me happy. There are easy recipes and hard recipes and they all look delicious; the organization of the book is pretty good. So everything was sunshine and rainbows until I tried to make Mole Verde. The ingredient amounts were inconsistent (6 cups called for but 3 cups used), and the recipe did not work (the amount of pumpkin seeds was preposterous). Neither her corn tortilla recipe nor her fried quesadilla worked. I had better luck with the recipes on the back of the mesa package. I think there may be gems in this book, but tread carefully.

[Leonard · Rating 3 out of 5]

I didn't read many of the recipes in this book but they look good and healthy. I noted on one page a recipe described as being quick to assemble and there were more than 20 ingredients, which certainly is not quick in my book, but for someone more experienced and the ingredients all nearby, that would be possible. This is a good book for someone who wants to get into Mexican cooking, but seems to be beyond what a beginner would want.

[Anthony Rios · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was amazing and as a person of Mexican descent it was nice to see a look back into food that if i was currently living in Mexico would have access to. I love that they recipes are easy to follow and no weird or difficult to find ingredients. I also love that she adds instructions on how to make ahead and proper storage times.

[MRWee · Rating 4 out of 5]

some of the recipes take me back, some of them introduce me to flavors I remember-cooked in ways I don't, and others are simply complex but delicious. I've learned a lot about the ingredients of my combined cultures by reading her cookbook and instructions. A good cookbook to have in your collection-

[claudia · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is more of a modern Mexican cookbook. Some recipes are authentic like the Mole, but not all of them. If you like more of a modern Mexican dish instead of authentic food like our grandmas made, then this book is for you.

[Ambrosia Lovie · Rating 3 out of 5]

needed a couple of basic recipes has that and more.

[Helen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great desserts, even for a beginner. The rest of this book would be better for a cook who is more experienced in Mexican cooking.

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

Comprehensive treatment. Not enough photos.

[Gina · Rating 1 out of 5]

Too difficult with ingredients impossible to find where I live. I found five recipes I would or could make.

[Barbara · Rating 2 out of 5]

Gorgeous photos.
Many, many different salsa recipes.
I'm not going to cook any of these recipes, but I wish I could go to one of her restaurants.

[Kara · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderfulllll I can't wait to make so many tasty things!!

[Aasinathena · Rating 4 out of 5]

Love this read !

[Nicole · Rating 4 out of 5]

yummy!

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

I made dinner from this cookbook tonight (shrimp tostadas) and have at least three other recipes bookmarked. I renewed my library copy. This is a great book!

[Beka · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very nice, but nothing stood out quite enough to save.

[Charles Eldridge · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love Mexican flavors and this cookbooks is a beautiful presentation and exposition on building those flavors into a wonderful cuisine. I love this book and yearn to visit the chef’s restaurants.

[Raquel · Rating 3 out of 5]

I got a couple of interesting recipes from this book but most were very classic Mexican not very original. It's a good cookbook for those that aren't very familiar with Mexican food.