Product Description

A fresh, exciting, accessible approach to Mexican cooking, in glorious full-color, by the highly respected chef of the wildly popular Rosa Mexicano restaurants.

Rosa Mexicano has been named Best New York City Mexican Restaurant by New York Magazine, The Village Voice, CitySearch, and Zagat. Rosa’s chef, Roberto Santibañez, has been featured everywhere from Martha Stewart Living, Gourmet, and Bon Appétit to Us and Life. Together, this chef and these restaurants are at the very pinnacle of Mexican food—a mediagenic star and his extraordinarily popular restaurants that serve more than 1 million (!) customers a year. Rosa's contemporary approach—lighter, easier, more accessible—is a much needed breath of fresh air for Mexican cooking, including:

• Starters such as Rosa's world-famous Guacamole and incredibly easy ceviches like Red Snapper with Mango
• Triumphant tortilla creations like Tacos with Grilled Adobo-Marinated Chicken, and Octopus Enchiladas with Yellow Tomato Sauce
• Entrées such as Salmon in a Fruity Mole, Boneless Slow-Braised Short Ribs, Shrimp and Vegetable Skewers, and Rack of Lamb with Pistachio Pipian
• Simple, delicious sides like Grilled Corn Street Vendor Style and Traditional Refried Black Beans, and irresistible desserts such as Chili-Spiked Chocolate Cake, Cajeta and Cream Cheese Flan, and Almond Cinnamon Cookies.

An exhaustive, authoritative section on essential ingredients, equipment, and techniques rounds out this eminently useful, home-cook-friendly—and beautifully photographed—book, which is destined to set a new standard in the category.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #111992 in Books
• Published on: 2007-03-30
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 288 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9781579653248
• Condition: USED - VERY GOOD
• Notes:

From the Inside Flap
New Yorkers love Rosa Mexicano with a fidelity few restaurants ever achieve.

Since it first opened its doors nearly twenty-five years ago, it's been the place to meet up with friends, to talk, to drink, to eat. All day long people drop by for a quesadilla or torta or for the famed guacamole dubbed by one food critic "green ecstasy in a bowl." Come evening, the bar hums and crowds arrive for Rosa's homey entrees: short ribs served off the bone with a sauce of roasted tomatillo and chipotle chiles, or its red snapper Veracruz, or one of the many vegetarian meals, such as the roasted poblanos stuffed with spinach and goast cheese. Each is the epitome of contentment, and each is in this book.

Mexican food is downright delicious, and Chef Roberto Santibañez's food is triumphant because it succeeds in being true to its antecedents yet open to the tastes of the cities this growing family of restaurants now calls home. Rosa's New Mexican Table is entirely about the food we want to eat today, and it's simple enough so that we can enjoy it on any given work night. Every page is the product of Santibañez's determination to simplify the complexities of his native cuisine and to share his fascination with its multicultural currents with you.

His twists and innovative takes bring magic to cooked and uncooked sauces, such as his delicious mahogany-hued pecan-prune mole. There are fork-tender meats redolent of classic Mexican pit roasts (barbacoas), as well as great moist adobos—made from chiles, garlic, and spices and used as rubs—which make fowl and grilled meats sparkle.

Expect surprises: spectacular haricots verts baked with tomatoes, orange juice, achiote paste, and oregano in a slow oven for two hours; a ceviche green with basil; salmon served with a sauce that's both sweet and hot; and a stunning orange-gold-colored roasted yellow tomato salsa, uncommon in Mexico, and uncommonly good. Each dish is a study in intriguing contrasts: spicy and sweet (chile with pineapple); or rich and lean (a chorizo and turkey enchilada). Even desserts excite: the individual baked chocolate cakes called bocas negras offer a mix of chocolate, smoke, heat, and sweet that's heavenly.

Roberto Santibañez makes all these good flavors accessible with virtually no last-minute work. Dishes can be made ahead and most improve with time. Step-by-step plans for festive dinners—a traditional taco party, a cocktail party, a dinner for vegetarians, a barbecue—make for lively get-togethers that provide happy times for all.

This is the perfect book for those new to the joys of cooking Mexican food at home as well as anyone in search of delicious, low-stress recipes with a modern approach.

About the Author
Roberto Santibañez, the culinary director of Rosa Mexicano, has been featured in Martha Stewart Living, Bon Appétit, Gourmet, Life, Us, Self, and The Washington Post; this is his first book. Rosa Mexicano opened its doors in 1984; more than two decades later, there are three outposts in New York City, one apiece in Washington and Atlanta, one in Palm Beach, and two new ones opening in Miami and Hackensack, New Jersey.

Christopher Styler has enormous culinary range. He is a chef, cookbook writer, editor, restaurant consultant, and culinary producer of some of PBS-TV’s most successful cooking series. He lives in New Jersey.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
If you enjoy Mexican food in restaurants but are reluctant to cook it at home, this book is for you. The recipes are designed for people with busy lives and precious little time for kitchen duty, especially during the week. Many of the dishes can be executed in thirty to sixty minutes—or less, if you have on hand a few Mexican staples like zesty homemade salsas that you put together in minutes, as well as condiments and spices. And many can be made ahead and are in fact better made ahead. Once you get into the rhythm of Mexican cooking, you may find yourself showing off your newfound skills by preparing some of the more elaborate recipes for dinner parties that would surely impress even the most jaded gastronome.

In the United States, the common perception of Mexican cooking is that it calls for a lot of heavy lifting—labor-intensive preparations, complicated techniques, and all kinds of exotic ingredients. As you will see in this book, that is hardly the case. This style of cooking is no more work than other more familiar cuisines. As for kitchen skills, you don’t have to be a knife-twirling Iron Chef to pull it off. Often the blades of your blender will do the work for you. There may be a few new ingredients and techniques for you to learn about, but we give you alternatives and shortcuts.

It goes without saying that high-quality ingredients make the difference between a good dish and great dish. Ten years ago, it was difficult to find a variety of chile peppers and vegetables like jicama. Today, many Mexican ingredients can be found in American supermarkets as well as in Latin American and Mexican groceries. And if you can’t locate the ingredients in stores, online sources like mexgrocer.com, among others, carry virtually everything. (See Ingredients, Equipment, and Techniques, pages 2–23, and Sources, pages 268–69.)

There is one thing you can count on in a Mexican kitchen—just about everything is laced with chiles, but the dishes are not always necessarily hot. On pages 2–11, you’ll find a brief primer. Aside from contributing heat, different chiles add distinct and pronounced flavors to dishes—smoky, sweet, even floral. Before long, you will understand how important it is to add chiles to a dish incrementally, not all at once. Individuals have different tolerances to hot and spicy—and a bonfire is easier to build than extinguish.

You might be surprised to discover that Mexican food is exceptionally healthy. The cuisine uses little butter, very little cream, and no flour-based sauces; almost all sauces are based on thickened vegetables purees. The dried beans served with almost every meal are excellent sources of fiber and minerals. (I say “almost” because frijoles negros are traditionally cooked in lard. If that is a scary prospect, use vegetable oil, as we do at Rosa Mexicano.)

Mexican cooking is as varied as the regions of the country: the seafood of Veracruz, the moles and pipianes of the central high plains, the spice mixtures of the Yucatán Peninsula, and the flour tortillas of the north reflect each region’s specialized cooking. When the original Rosa Mexicano opened in New York City in 1984, it was nothing short of revolutionary. At the time, the Mexican restaurants in the city were characterized by mountains of shredded iceberg lettuce, viscous sauces, indigestible fried tacos, and more starch than a Chinese laundry. Rosa Mexicano broke the mold by serving lighter, inventive yet authentic regional fare. Among the early offerings were sliced duck with pumpkin seed sauce, grilled red snapper with warm cilantro vinaigrette, dishes made with cuitlacoche (see page 15), soft tacos filled with pulled pork, and, for dessert, sweet pink-fleshed cactus pears. As the company’s culinary director, I strive to preserve the soul of Rosa while helping the restaurants evolve in a manner that is both exciting to our guests and respectful of Mexico’s culinary heritage.

My road to Rosa Mexicano involved many exciting detours. The journey began in my hometown of Mexico City, where I was inspired by both my mother and grandmother (doesn’t every chef say that?). My grandmother, in particular, was a superb and well-traveled cook who held informal cooking classes in our home incorporating techniques and seasonings from around the world. From my earliest years, there was never a second thought about my career path. At nineteen, I went off to Paris and the Cordon Bleu, where I learned classical French techniques and a great respect for European foods of all kinds.

While at school, I was fortunate enough to secure apprenticeships at several first-rate Paris restaurants, including the celebrated La Bourgogne, followed by study at the famed pâtisserie Lenôtre, and finally, two cooking stints in England. Having sampled the best of European cuisine, I started to look at Mexican food through a more global prism upon returning home. I began researching every aspect of Mexican cuisine and attempted to raise the bar in both the sophistication and presentation of my cooking. Within several months, I was hired as chef of El Olivo, one of the better restaurants in downtown Mexico City. My dream of owning my own restaurant was realized in 1990 when I opened La Circunstancia. Once diners understood what I was doing, they took to it enthusiastically, and the restaurant was a great success. It was at La Circunstancia that I met Josefina Howard, one of Rosa Mexicano’s founders.


Next stop was the United States—specifically, Austin, Texas. I took over the kitchen of a restaurant called Fonda San Miguel and continued my experimentation with Mexican ingredients. The cooking of Fonda San Miguel garnered much praise.

Shortly after leaving Fonda San Miguel, I met one of the principals of the growing restaurant community called Rosa Mexicano. He described their dream of developing Rosa nationwide. I was thrilled to join as culinary director, to oversee an ever expanding family of restaurants. So that is where I am today. This book is a reflection of what we have accomplished so far. I often say that the food at Rosa Mexicano, and in this book, is authentic but not orthodox. As you will see, from time to time we have a little fun with a recipe, by imparting a new flavor fillip, or playing around to make it look really great on the plate. And, for professional and home cooks alike, isn’t fun the whole point of cooking?

Customer Reviews

Fantastic
I'm the biggest fan of chef Roberto Santibanez and I can't get over this cookbook. I've tried all the ceviches recipies,the snaper Vera Cruz Style, the salsas and the desserts of course and they are FANTASTIC!
And I've noticed that most of this recipies have been on the restaurants menu. I go very often.....it's too close to home. If you want to learn or refine your mexican cooking skills don't wait and get this book, it's a must.

Excellent Book!
I can recommend this book to anyone who wants to get to know the mexican cuisine! Everything is explained in detail and there is also a lot of additional information about the background of mexican food in it. A great value for this price!

Oh, how I LOVE this book!
Wildly imaginative and colorful in both content and design, this book and its inventive recipes remind me of wonderful meals at Rosa Mexicano each time I open it. It's tough to evoke the sensual memories of a really good restaurant on two-dimensional pages, but that's what this marvel of a cookbook does. Anyone who's been to Rosa Mexicano cannot help but remember the bold splashes of color, both on the walls and on the plates. Open 'Rosa's New Mexican Table' and I think you'll be transported as I was. The recipes are clear and easy to follow, using ingredients that are easy to find in most markets these days. The section on the many different kinds of chilis is an education in itself. The explanations and headnotes to the recipes offer an insider's perspective that makes me want to rush back to the restaurant and try the many dishes I've eaten there all over again. If you've been to Rosa Mexicano, you'll know what I mean. And if you haven't been yet, check out this book and you'll soon be making a special trip there.