AMA: A Modern Tex-Mex Kitchen
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On one of my recent travels, I stood at the airport lounge bookstore looking for a light read I could start and finish during the course of my journey. As I flipped through covers and genres, a sunny colored book caught my eye. As I walked to it, I could make out a picture of fluffy tacos, filled in with some fresh-looking veggies and herbs. Flipped some pages to get an idea of how it would be as an in-flight read and the perfectly shot pictures of food made my decision easy. There. Ready to fly!
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AMA: A modern Tex-Mex Kitchen is written by chef-restaurateur Josef Centeno. Centeno owns Baco Mercat and Bar Ama in Los Angeles. This cookbook is a recreation of dishes from his childhood in San Antonio.
About the Book
Tex-Mex cuisine is largely inspired by Mexican and Southern American cuisines. It combines traditions of Mexican and Texan cooking rooted centuries deep in Texan kitchens of Hispanic descent. The book is a celebration of this real deal, messy but delicious cuisine which is made with lots of love.
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What I loved about the book is that as it begins, it gives a very nostalgic glimpse into not just the author’s childhood, but also into the lives of his great-grandparents.
Narrating the time of the Mexican Revolution, Centeno talks about how his great-grandmother survived by selling Tacos off tables at the railway stations.
Growing up he became distant to his culture only to be guided back to it when his favorite enchiladas and fajitas beckoned.
He recollects how he would find his grandmother, his Ama, mostly in the kitchen with a pot bubbling on the stove cooking up beans or fideo or her own tomato consommé. Her Tejano style of simple cooking is what drew the chef back to his roots.
This book celebrates just that. It features more than 100 recipes which are organized by type of foods- breakfast, main courses, desserts (What wine goes well with desserts?), vegetables and even a super nacho party chapter in it that I thoroughly enjoyed.
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The Recipes
AMA starts off with a larder section which covers vinaigrettes, salsas, sauces, pickles and homemade spice blends. It is followed by a breakfast chapter, featuring popular cheese and bacon (how long does bacon last?) tacos and Grandma Alice’s chorizos. The cornmeal (how long does cornmeal last?) pancakes sound like something I would make on a Sunday morning.
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Chapter three and four take us to Ama’s table. Healthy and hearty soups give way to beef cheek barbacoas and Chili shrimp ceviche.
The super nacho hour explores party snacking at its Tex-Mex best. Top off the list is the vegan cashew queso, another quick number I can't wait to try!
Get ready to learn how to make some mouthwatering chicken wings with a hot sauce (how long does hot sauce last?) glaze and lobster taquitos. It even has a nacho and tortilla chips (how long do tortilla chips last?) recipe from scratch.
Ama is a collection of recipes that involve slow cooking meats and firing up the grill. You will find lots of roast turkeys, roast pork and roast vegetables.
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Although there are plenty of traditional dishes in Ama, Centeno knows how to mix it up with his love for Middle Eastern food. For example, the Mexican Sriracha. It's a super spicy sauce that is found in Centeno’s bars and restaurants.
You will find the Mexican red rice (how long does rice last?) and Refried Borracho Beans. Few pages later there is the Chicken-Fried steak with bacon gravy and oven roasted back ribs. Thereby, proving that great Tex-Mex food is a natural marriage of the flavors of Mexico and Texas.
The Desserts
The dessert section is equally luxurious and caters to all sorts of dessert lovers. For the heavily sweet-toothed, the Tres leches chocolate coconut cake is a sinfully rich marriage of chocolate and coconut. For the medium level desert lovers, there are the sapopillas and the Cinnamon-fennel (how long does fennel last?) conchas. The blood orange flan de queso and the blueberry cobbler deserve special mention for being my children’s all-time favorite.
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If I were to nit-pick, I would say I had slight difficulty reading the titles of the right-hand side of the book. They get sort of obscured in the crease.
The Team
The book is coauthored by prominent food journalist, Betty Hallock, also former deputy food editor of the Los Angeles Times. The gorgeous pictures that bring alive this book are shot by Ren Fuller, a Los Angeles based food and lifestyle photographer.
Final Say
If you want a cookbook that celebrates Tex-Mex food in all its glory and you want to find a recipe that you can make more than once a week, pick a copy of AMA: A Modern Tex-Mex Kitchen.
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Want to learn more about Tex-Mex? Read here.
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