Reddit mentions: The best latin american cookbooks

Today's your lucky day! My nickname is Mister Taco. What's UP! Let's get this Master Class on homemade tacos started! The first thing to learn is that there are two basic kinds of tacos:

1. Hard tacos
   
2. Soft tacos
   
   Hard tacos are more Tex-Mex, whereas soft tacos are more Mexican. They come from two basic sources:
   
   
3. Wheat (flour)
   
4. Corn
   
   Before we get into the taco shells, it's important to learn the difference between a taco & variations like fajitas, burritos, enchiladas, quesadillas, taquitos, etc. Here's a basic primer: (although there is a lot of overlap in the United States!)
   
   
5. Fajitas are similar to tacos; traditionally, they are made from skirt steak (beef) & are served with grilled peppers & onions. If you're at a sit-down restaurant, you'd typically assemble it yourself.
   
6. Burritos are a flour tortilla wrapped around the food.
   
7. Enchiladas are burritos covered in salsa.
   
8. Quesadillas are pan-fried in a little bit of oil. Here's the proper way to make them (and make them amazing! Not just kid food!)
   
9. Taquitos are like mini fried burritos, typically made from corn tortillas.
   
   Tacos, on the other hand, are folded in half & eaten with fillings. They can be hard (fried - typically just the yellow corn ones) or soft (just a warm tortilla - either flour or white corn). Size-wise, they are typically much smaller than a burrito wrap; there are tiny street tacos & then regular-sized tacos, maybe 6" long (give or take a few inches). I should note that how amazing your tacos are depends entirely upon you. So let's get started!
   
   ​
   
   Homemade flour tortillas:
   
   There are basically 3 levels of flour tortillas:
   
   
10. Packaged kind (Mission brand, for example)
    
11. Locally-made (like if you have a Latin shop or stand or food truck nearby that sells fresh ones)
    
12. Homemade (oh man)
    
    The packaged kind are fine, if that's all you have. They serve their job as a container for the ingredients in the taco. At minimum, you'll want to warm them up (microwave or oven) & then keep them warm. I recommend this microwavable tortilla warmer pouch, which will keep the tortillas warm for up to an hour. No one likes cold flour tortillas:
    
    https://www.amazon.com/MEXI-10007-Sunburst-Tortilla-Warmer-12-Inch/dp/B00HWF4E7G
    
    If you're fortunate enough to live in an area where you can buy a pack of hand-made tortillas, then you've got it made! These are typically awesome & fit the bill perfectly. If not, or if you're into DIY, then you can also make them pretty easily. There are a variety of ways to do it, which you can find on Youtube & Pinterest, but I'll share with you my recommended secrets for making great tortillas at home!
    
    If you're going to bother making them (they are pretty easy, just takes some time is all), then I say go big or go home! First ingredient you'll need is lard. Not just any lard, either - leaf lard! I get mine here:
    
    https://fannieandflo.net/products/1-pound-leaf-lard
    
    Lard is the secret to delicious, flaky tortillas that are so good you can eat them plain. Ever had good naan bread at an Indian restaurant? Yeah, like that. Here is an excellent starter recipe with step-by-step photos:
    
    https://www.mexicanplease.com/homemade-flour-tortillas-done-right/
    
    Next, you'll need a tortilla press. Rolling pins are for wimps; get yourself this bad boy here:
    
    https://www.amazon.com/Victoria-TOR-003-FBA_TOR-003-Tortilla-Press/dp/B00HWEIKZO/
    
    Note that this is NOT for cooking! This is for SMOOSHING! Don't buy an electric tortilla maker, that's sacrilege! If you do pick up a Victoria cast-iron tortilla press, get this book to go along with it:
    
    https://www.amazon.com/Victoria-Cast-Tortilla-Press-Cookbook-ebook/dp/B01MXPY937
    
    Also note that you should use some sort of liner between the iron plates, like parchment sheets or a split-open ziploc bag or plastic wrap. The goal is to smash it flat in a nice round shape!
    
    Next, you'll need to throw it on a hot pan to cook, about a minute per side. This can be done on a non-stick skillet, a cast-iron skillet, or in my case, a piping-hot, high-heat retention Baking Steel: (hey, go big or go home!)
    
    https://www.bakingsteel.com/
    
    You can freeze cooked or uncooked tortillas, which is handy if you're in a tortilla-making mood & want to pop out a few dozen for an hour or so's worth of work.
    
    part 1/5

Nothing formal, really! Throw a bunch of onions, bell peppers, mushrooms, and whatever other veg you like (broccoli, green onion, summer squash, carrots, that random bunch of whatever needs to get eaten ASAP from the back of your fridge) in a cast iron skillet with some oil, salt and pepper, cumin, and garlic. Cook it until it looks delicious. Serve with black beans, rice, avocado, cilantro (if you're not the kind of person who's genetically predisposed to hate it), fresh lime, pico de gallo (or just tomatoes if you can't be bothered) and warm tortillas. Or whatever suits your fancy. We make our own tortillas at home, but throw some store-bought ones in the microwave or a warm oven with a bit of lime juice sprinkled on them and they'll do just fine.

If you're into this kind of thing, The Taco Cleanse is a tongue-in-cheek cookbook made up entirely of plant-based taco recipes. It's hilarious and very tasty as well!

Decolonize Your Diet is vegetarian rather than vegan, but also has amazing Mexican and Mesoamerican recipes.

I might own too many cookbooks. :D

I know this isn't a direct link to the recipe, but the Green Chile Posole with Pork in this cookbook is my favorite. Definitely worth a check-out from the library if you don't want to buy the book. I love to add some sliced avocado on top and eat it with tortillas.

Decolonize Your Diet - Vegan Mexican with an emphasis on pre-Columbian ingredients

Bought, Borrowed, and Stolen - Interesting recipes from the around world and a lot of talk about the most basic cooking tool, the knife. That + the broad style of cooking included might make it a good starter book.

The Family Meal - Actually useful recipes from super obnoxious-fancy chef Ferran Adria but with step-by-step pictures that are really helpful.

Moosewood Cookbook - Classic cookbook of vegetarian dishes.

I think you should get this map of Middle Earth because bad ass
I would like this cookbook because I have been getting back into cooking & summer is coming so homemade Popsicle would be amazing.
I love Kevin

I doubt you'll find something with a multitude of countries in one book, but you should be able to easily find something like this or this. Both of these found on the first page of google search results for (peruvian/nigerian cookbook)

Also check out your local library. Most libraries I go to have at least a few good ethnic cookbooks

If you want to go all in, here's a link to the cookbook my Chilean grandma used and gave to me.

If you don't want to get a whole cookbook, for a party, I would make chorrillana (fries with steak, caramelized onions and fried eggs - delicious! Recipe here), avocado and celery salad (chopped avocado and celery dressed with olive oil and lemon juice) or Chilean salad (chopped tomatoes and onions dressed with olive oil and lemon juice), alfajores for dessert, and pisco sours (because I like cocktails more than wine, personally). Empanadas de pino are very traditional and a big feature at all of my family events, but more time consuming to make than the dishes above.

Also, if you can find Chilean or Argentinian chorizo and marraqueta bread, grilled choripan sandwiches are my favorite asado food.

Thai Vegetarian Cooking (Thailand)

Real Vegetarian Thai (Thailand)

Teff Love (Ethiopia)

Kansha (Japan)

The Lotus and the Artichoke (Malaysia and Sri Lanka are my two favorites, but also has India, Mexico, and Ethiopia)

Decolonize Your Diet (Mexico)

Tahini & Turmeric (the Middle East)

I also like Isa Chandra Moskowitz's books for baking. For slightly fancier, more involved books, I like Bryant Terry's (especially Afro-Vegan).

Here are all the local Amazon links I could find:


amazon.co.uk

amazon.ca

amazon.com.au

amazon.in

amazon.com.mx

amazon.de

amazon.it

amazon.es

amazon.com.br

amazon.nl

amazon.co.jp

amazon.fr

Beep bloop. I'm a bot to convert Amazon ebook links to local Amazon sites.
I currently look here: amazon.com, amazon.co.uk, amazon.ca, amazon.com.au, amazon.in, amazon.com.mx, amazon.de, amazon.it, amazon.es, amazon.com.br, amazon.nl, amazon.co.jp, amazon.fr, if you would like your local version of Amazon adding please contact my creator.

While it isn't exclusively South American, https://www.amazon.com/Gran-Cocina-Latina-Latin-America/dp/0393050696 covers South America (as well as Central America and the Caribbean and Mexico). Nice book. I haven't cooked from it yet.

For Brazilian, I've cooked from https://www.amazon.com/Brazil-Culinary-Journey-Hippocrene-Cookbook-ebook/dp/B0030P1WBI/ with tasty success.

This is the best lomo saltado recipe. This recipe is from the book & website El Arte de la Cocina Peruana (The Art of Peruvian Cuisine) by Felipe Antonio Custer. I like to add extra beef stock to mine to make it more juicy. Real lomo saltado is garnished with parsley rather than cilantro.

>Ingredients:
>
> 1 tsp minced garlic
> 2 tsp finely chopped ají limo
> 2 lbs (1kg) beef steak
> 1 lb (½ kg) red onions, sliced
> 1 lb (½ kg) plum tomatoes, sliced lengthwise into sixths
> 2 lbs (1 kg) large yellow potatoes, peeled and cut into sticks
> 3 ajíes amarillos, sliced fine
> 6 tbsp soy sauce
> 2 tbsp freshly chopped cilantro
> Pinch ground cumin
> Red wine vinegar
> Salt and freshly ground pepper
>* Oil for stir frying and deep frying.
>
>Preparation:
>
>Cut meat into ½ in- (1¼ cm-) wide strips or into gougeonettes.
>
>Heat enough oil to cover the base of a large pan or wok and, over medium heat, sauté garlic and ají limo for 2 minutes. Raise the heat, add meat and brown all over. Season with salt, freshly ground pepper and a pinch of ground cumin.
>
>Remove the meat from the pan along with the juices so as to keep it moist. Set aside.
>
>Add a little more oil to the pan if necessary and stir-fry onion until barely soft, about 1 minute. Season with salt and pepper. Add a few drops of vinegar and continue stir-frying until it has evaporated, about another minute. The onion should still have some bite. Remove onion from the pan, set aside and repeat procedure with tomato.
>
>In a separate skillet, deep fry potato slices until just slightly golden. Remove with a slotted spoon, drain on paper towel and season with salt to taste.
>
>Return meat, onion and tomato to the wok. Add ají amarillo and soy sauce and cook for ½ minute. Finally add the large French fries and mix everything
>together carefully. Garnish with freshly chopped cilantro and serve immediately, accompanied by white rice.

> And fyi I'm not clicking on your gore-porn. Which I am assuming is what you've posted based on the title of the hyperlink.

Sounds like you care so much about animals being alive that even just looking at a dead one scares you this much. (The photo is live dogs living in a cage.)

>To you maybe. But morals are not fixed. Morality is not a constant in the universe. And applying your morals to others people's or cultures is basic colonialism.

Glad to see a critique of colonialism! This should appeal to you, then: https://www.amazon.com/Decolonize-Your-Diet-Plant-Based-Mexican-American/dp/1551525925

I have these books and they're fantastic:

1. Joon
   
2. Peru: The Cookbook
   
3. Taste of Persia

If you want a physical book, I'm fond of Secrets of Colombian Cooking (ISBN 0-7818-1025-6). 90% of what I know from Colombian cooking comes from my mother, 9% from her translating Gran Cocina Colombiana, and 1% from this book, but my very Colombian aunt swears by it. I can understand your predicament, my Spanish is atrocious, too. You can get it on Amazon here. The one thing I would note is that some ingredients (like masa harina / yuca harina) can be hard to come by, depending on where you live in the States.

Dennis Rodriguez occasionally uses vanilla with meat in his book Nuevo Latino.

Calvados is a type of apple brandy, so it would work, but I think I'd use something cheaper for cooking. That would be like using anejo tequila to make tequila shrimp.

Decolonize your diet is my favorite for authentic Mexican food that is plant based.

>In fact, you could probably consider vegan diet to be colonialist and imperialist since it was created with European climate in mind.

Decolonize Your Diet is a vegan Mexican food cookbook.

Buy her this :) https://www.amazon.co.uk/Peru-Cookbook-Gast%C3%B3n-Acurio/dp/0714869201

A book with [argentinian recipes] (https://www.amazon.com/Food-Cooking-Argentina-Traditional-Recipes/dp/1908991372) or maybe you can try to cook something argentinian for him.

Check out the Green Chile Bible