Notes about Recipes in this book

• Orange, onion, and pepita salad

  • Yildiz100 on February 02, 2018

    Delicious. The picture in the book shows whole pepitas, but the instructions direct you to finely chop them. I followed the instructions and was glad I did. The texture worked perfectly and it looked nice as well. You can reduce the amount of pepitas a bit if the oranges are small. Used Korean chile flakes instead of guajillo.

• Crab ceviche (Ceviche de cangrejo)

  • Yildiz100 on August 03, 2016

    Crab+the smokiness of chipotle creates a flavor that reminds me of Kalles Kaviar (Swedish smoked cod roe paste.) This was not what I was hoping for from ceviche! It might be delicious with truly fresh crab, but with the pasteurized lump crab sold in tubs, it just did not work. I did enjoy crab as a basis for ceviche without the chipotle flavor (I set some aside for testing and just used Jalapeno) but it wasn't my favorite way to use such an expensive ingredient.

• Kick-in-the-pants-spicy shrimp in chile-lime dressing (Aguachile de camarones)

  • Yildiz100 on September 20, 2016

    Delicious! The only change I made was to reduce the cilantro by half (personal taste) and I added a few cucumber slices per some other recipes I've seen. Serve on tostadas.

  • Yildiz100 on February 16, 2019

    Made this again with some surimi I needed to use up instead of shrimp. Worked well!

• Corn pancakes with cheese (Cachapas)

  • Yildiz100 on June 23, 2019

    Delicious. I started by adding just the egg, corn and salt to the blender (she asks you to add flour too) because my blender is not great. Got the egg and corn blended then added flour and sure enough, the mix was too thick to blend. Added a little milk to get it working. Judging by YouTube videos of cachapas, the batter is supposed to be very thick (she gives no guidance on batter consistency, which would have been nice, because some corn is juicier than others) so next time I would puree the egg and corn then stir in the flour by hand, only adding a bit of milk if the batter is too thick to spread. Also note on the butter-she says to have it at room temp, but there is really no reason to, it does not get worked into the batter. Just greases the pan and butters the finished cachapas. Cook until very well browned or they will be too soft in the middle. 5 stars for the results, 3 stars for less than perfect recipe writing.

• Coconut macaroons (Cocadas)

  • Yildiz100 on February 16, 2019

    I subbed unsweetened coconut for the sweetened so I added a tbsp of brown sugar. Probably more is needed for ideal sweetness but this was still really delicious. Crispy candyish on the outside, soft on the inside. Needed a bit more time in the oven but I had rounded down when converting to Celsius. Next time use 165 and try about 3 tbsp brown sugar. No toping.

• Dulce de leche sandwich cookies (Alfajores)

  • Yildiz100 on November 11, 2022

    These are really good. For future reference note that the dough becomes very difficult to work with when it starts to warm up which doesn't take long at all, so make these in batches keeping the extra dough in the refrigerator or freezer if necessary. Unfortunately, these don't hold very well and get a little soft by the next day. The ones that were darker and I thought were slightly overcooked turned out to be the best ones because they stayed crisp.

• Fine Cooking

  Gutierrez's lively and informative chapter and recipe introductions made me want to travel to all the countries represented. For now, however, I'll just turn up the salsa music and get cooking.

  Full review