My Sweet Mexico: Recipes for Authentic Pastries, Breads, Candies, Beverages, and Frozen Treats

Fany Gerson saw a niche that needed filling. Cookbooks and pastry shops highlighting French croissants, British scones, Italian gelato, and American doughnuts are a dime a dozen. But Mexican desserts were a cookbook desert until Gerson's My Sweet Mexico.

The Mexican-born chef, who worked at Akelare in San Sebastián, Spain, as well as at Eleven Madison Park in Manhattan, presents traditional candies like pastel-colored milk fudge, popular pastries such as dead man's bread, and modern desserts like her Mexican opera cake that combines French technique and Mexican flair. Gerson did her homework (this is her first cookbook). She has compiled a remarkable collection of Mexico's dessert traditions, and for this alone My Sweet Mexico is worthy of our attention.

How did the recipes fare? The end results were nice-looking and delicious—once we figured out how to make them work. We baked three sweets, beginning with a pretty complicated one: a Chocolate Rum Tres Leches Cake. A tres leches cake is a cake that is soaked in milk, then topped with frosting. We had a hard time figuring out the best way to soak the cakes (Gerson doesn't explain exactly how to do it). This is what we did: placed the cakes back in the cake baking pans (as she suggests), poured as much tres leches sauce over them as fit, waited several minutes for the sauce to absorb into the cakes, and continued to top them off with more of the sauce. (This will take some time and patience.) We also found that cutting a very thin layer off the top of the cakes to expose their pores helped the sauce absorb faster.

This recipe's biggest glitch was that there wasn't enough icing to completely frost the assembled cake. We looked to Gerson's other tres leches cake to compare. The problem was clear: Both recipes called for the same amount of icing, but the one we were testing had double the amount of cake. The fix was to double the icing, which worked beautifully. We also found that we had to grease the cake pans and decrease the baking time. Once we adjusted the recipe accordingly, the result was a delicious rum-soaked chocolate sponge cake that we couldn't stop eating.

The next recipe, Conchas Blancas (White Shells), was delicious too; it made us wish these briochelike morning buns were as common here as they are in Mexico City. But we also wish Gerson had been more clear in her descriptions. For example, she says to let the dough rise at room temperature for about 1 hour. How much is it supposed to rise? Our dough didn't rise at all either time we made these buns. The topping on this sweet bread is a layer of crumbly sugar that you place on each raw dough round. Gerson instructs you to roll a gumball-size amount of the topping in your hands. I looked at my colleagues and asked, "What size gumball do you think she means, large or small?" Again, a better description, like scoop the topping into 1-tablespoon portions, would have been helpful. To make the topping rollable, we had to add a 1/2 cup more butter, and then had to cut the recipe in half since it made double the amount of topping needed.

The final recipe we tried was the Convent Cookies, a white cookie batter mixed with crushed caramelized almonds. These cookies were not our favorite, especially for the amount of work they required. But I can see their appeal. A typo in the ingredients caused a lot of confusion: It called for "7 ounces (scant 1/2 cup) unsalted butter, softened." But 7 ounces is a scant 1 cup butter, not 1/2 cup. And when making the caramelized almonds, more description would have helped. There is an unwritten expectation in My Sweet Mexico that you, the reader, are an expert cook—that you know that Gerson's sugar-and-water combination takes about 10 minutes to become golden caramel, and that by "cook" the caramel you should boil it.

Yes, there were problems with the recipes. And yes, the author assumes a high level of expertise. But the recipes are authentic, and if you work through them, they can be delicious. Does My Sweet Mexico demand a place on cookbook shelves? We think so, but less as a stainable, workaday cookbook and more as a historical and cultural reference that pays homage to the cuisine of Mexico.

Plenty

When I finally got my hands on Plenty, the padded white tome of vegetarian recipes by Yotam Ottolenghi, I was stoked. The Israeli-born restaurateur with four eponymous, popular locales throughout London (one restaurant in Islington and three smaller takeout/cafés in Kensington, Notting Hill, and Belgravia) has some serious food cred. His first cookbook, Ottolenghi, was a bestseller. Yet I had trouble with Plenty. Flipping through it made my mouth water, but cooking from it was a different story.

The photos by Jonathan Lovekin are gorgeous. The dishes read as both comfortingly familiar and refreshingly different, like sweet potato cakes (a twist on latkes), soba noodles with eggplant and mango (interesting combo), burnt eggplant with tahini (a.k.a. baba ghanoush with pomegranate molasses and seeds), and more. Some vegetarians complain that Ottolenghi, a full-fledged carnivore, sometimes recommends serving his meatless dishes with lamb chops. But his prowess with vegetables turned him into a successful columnist for London's Guardian newspaper. Plenty is a compilation of many of the recipes from his New Vegetarian column.

Things seemed promising until I started cooking. We first tested the roasted butternut squash with sweet spices, lime, and green chile. Flop number one! The tahini yogurt, which tasted mostly of tahini, didn't work with the squash and the abrasive lime slices. The recipe made so much sauce that we could have drizzled it over 20 times the amount of squash called for.

A bit defeated, we returned to the book for another try. This time we decided on crêpe-thin chard and saffron omelets, folded and stuffed with crème fraîche, saffron potatoes, and wilted Swiss chard.

I followed the recipe by simmering small cubed (1-centimeter) potatoes in saffron water for 14 to 19 minutes. As I suspected, by the time the potatoes hit 14 minutes, they were mush. I continued to follow the instructions, draining the chard and potatoes from the saffron water. Wait! That saffron cost me at least $3. And we're going to just pour it down the drain? The potatoes weren't nearly as dark yellow as the ones in the photo; they were fibrous and light yellow, with no traces of saffron flavor.

The omelets cooked up beautifully; you can see the recipe here. They reminded me of the rolled eggs my grandfather used to make. But when folded with the crème fraîche, loose pieces of potato, and wilted chard, the omelets tore. The bland-tasting potatoes and chard fell out of the triangular packages as we ate them. To help bind the dish together and add flavor, it needed a sauce—a poached egg in the center would have helped. Flop number two!

Our last and final attempt was the black pepper tofu. We chose it because it was a main dish and we had never seen anything like it. But once I got started, the recipe seemed flawed. It called for "8 fresh red chilies (fairly mild ones), thinly sliced." Is that with or without seeds? What kind of chiles, and how big? There were more problems: Should the "crushed" garlic be smashed, pressed, or minced? Should the ginger be chopped finely, roughly, or minced? I forged on, deep-frying the tofu, then tossing it into the sauce (made from a huge amount of butter, shallots, chiles, soy sauce, sugar, and 5 tablespoons of coarsely crushed black peppercorns). And why use corn flour with all those Asian flavors? Flop number three. Reports about Plenty from Chowhound's Home Cooking board also singled out this recipe as disappointing. I chuckled when a colleague came to taste it and said, "Yay! Tofu—something healthy." The dish was decidedly unhealthy (too greasy), and too spicy. If I were to make it again, I would add less butter to the sauce or use none at all, I would pan-fry the tofu instead of deep-fry, and I would use less black pepper.

And that is exactly what you should do with this book: Use it for inspiration; don't follow it blindly. Plenty is a great addition to the scarce selection of sexy and creative vegetarian cookbooks. But please, Yotam, next time hire a good recipe tester. We're a dime a dozen.

Stir-Frying to the Sky's Edge: The Ultimate Guide to Mastery, with Authentic Recipes and Stories

Grace Young wants you to cook with a wok. Through travels and interviews, Young (who has a few cookbooks under her belt and is a contributing editor at Saveur magazine) witnessed home cooks in China and Taiwan abandoning woks for nonstick pans. Meanwhile most Asian Americans don't even know how to use the woks that have been passed down from their parents and grandparents. (Guilty as charged—I am Chinese American and didn't own or use a wok until recently.)

But as Young explains, woks are so versatile: They can steam, smoke, poach, boil, deep-fry, pan-fry, and stir-fry food. A wok's wide, carbon-steel bowl can cook food in minutes, requires less oil than most pans, and is a safer alternative to nonstick Teflon pans. Young's latest cookbook, Stir-Frying to the Sky's Edge, touts the benefits of wok cooking, with comprehensive details on purchasing, seasoning, and using a wok. Nuggets of good advice pop up throughout the book, such as to never crowd your wok and to dry vegetables properly if you want them to stir-fry instead of steam. Substitutes are given for some of the harder-to-find Asian ingredients (there is also is an excellent pantry section in the beginning with descriptions and pictures). And Young gives useful timing tips and descriptions throughout the cooking process to guide a wok novice.

[caption id="attachment_56398" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Hoisin Explosion Chicken"][/caption]

The accompanying recipes show a global influence: Malaysian-style stir-fried turmeric shrimp uses fresh curry leaves, and Chinese Burmese chili chicken incorporates sweet paprika and ground cumin—spices not often seen in the Chinese kitchen. The stir-fried ginger tomato beef recipe leapt out at me immediately: It sounded just like one of my favorite recipes from my grandmother. Plus Young's tip to use canned tomatoes instead of out-of-season ones means I can make this dish after tomatoes' summer peak. I prepared it, adding scrambled eggs to the finished product just like my grandmother did. Not as good as Grandma's, but still quite good.

The other recipe I tried, Hoisin Explosion Chicken, incorporates a unique Chinese technique called velveting (watch a video about it), which helps keep the meat moist during the cooking process. As for the recipe's name, it is a taste explosion: Sweet, salty, and spicy flavors come together with a quick flip in a raging-hot wok. Young has me convinced: It's time to rock the wok.

Make food approachable, enjoyable, and attractive. That's the philosophy on food and eating shared by Frank Castronovo and Frank Falcinelli, and it's reflected in their new cookbook, The Frankies Spuntino Kitchen Companion & Cooking Manual. The Franks, as they are known, grew up around the corner from each other, worked their way through professional kitchens, and in 2004 started Frankies Spuntino 457.

The book, cowritten by Peter Meehan, is as attractive and approachable as the small Brooklyn restaurant. The fancy trimmings—dark blue faux leather with gold-stamped print and gilded edges—suggest coffee-table status, but this Cooking Manual is really meant to gather stains on the kitchen counter.

The recipes include ingredients from leaner times in Southern Italy, like ground meat, pasta, breadcrumbs, and sardines. They are everyday comfort foods—meatballs, salads, and crostini—that soothe and satisfy. Vegetable roasting charts, detailed illustrations, and equipment and pantry guides give readers a strong dose of the Franks' combined 40 years of cooking experience. The chefs tell you what they think you need (an Atlas pasta machine) and what's nice but not necessary (a 10-inch slicing knife).

I like their quirky sense of style, from "The Frankies Crest" on the last page to their loose lips and down-to-earth attitude about food. I've made a few of the recipes and can vouch for their airy ricotta cheesecake, pine nut– and raisin-studded meatballs, and red wine–glazed prunes. But I've made better spaghetti alle vongole than their bare-bones recipe offered. What caught my eye was the Orecchiette with Pistachios. I last tasted pasta with pistachio sauce in Palermo at a cool little snack shop (also a spuntino) called Cibus. It was similar to a pesto but with fewer herbs and more nuts. I remember thinking that I wanted to make it. The Franks provided! They don't grind their pistachios as finely as the dish I had in Sicily; they coarsely chop them so that the chunks nicely tuck into the little pasta ears, bound in olive oil and pasta water. I tried their recipe a second time, this time grinding the nuts finer. The result was an unctuous, homogenous sauce—one I liked better than the original. It was a toss-up: Half of my colleagues liked one version, half the other. Whichever method you choose, make this dish. It takes a mere 25 minutes to get on the table and is delicious.

Overall, The Frankies Spuntino Kitchen Companion & Cooking Manual is a fun guide for people of all ages and cooking levels, though it's better for newer cooks. The Franks dedicate several pages to topics like cheese, wine pairings, cooking with children, and how to grow an avocado tree. Their book is entertaining, appetizing, and informative—your go-to manual for Italian American cooking.