Austin in rightly famous for Tex-Mex food, surely the best in the United States. The streets team with restaurants and food trucks that offer supreme cuisine. And, of course, there are the home kitchens fashioning both the classics and evolving even newer Tex-Mex concepts.
And on a side street, in 1971, a team opened Fonda San Miguel offering Mexican cuisine. Real Mexican cuisine. After four decades, Fonda is still alive, thriving, and now a Texas, no a national, institution.
In this revised edition to the 2005 original, over 100 recipes are presented. Some are signature dishes, enjoyed now by thousands of diners, and some are a sample of Mexican regional dishes from the corners of a great culinary nation.
The recipes are appropriately organized into chapters for:
- Appetizers and Beverage
- Salads
- Soups
- Entrees
- Tortillas and Bread
- Desserts
There are additional sections devoted to pairing fine wine with Mexican food, to organizing an exceptional buffet, basic preparations and equipment, and unique ingredients and techniques.
So, it is all here: the recipes, the techniques, the ingredients. Exceptional food awaits you in these pages. Dishes unfold like the corn husks around a tamale. You peel back the wrappings and enjoy the warm embrace of dishes like these:
Chicken Livers with Figs and Jalapenos
Jicama Melon Salad
Meatball Soup in a Broth of Cloves and Anaheim Chiles
Ancho Chiles Stuffed with Chicken Picadillo [pictured below]
Game Hen in Ground Nut Sauce with Tomatillos
Sweet Potato Casserole with Pineapple
Apple Pie with Cinnamon Crust, Apple-Sour Cream Filling, and Brown Sugar and Walnut Topping
The book is oversized, brilliantly photographed, and accented with a history of the restaurant and profile of the staff. The restaurant is adorned with wonderful art and is itself a museum of importance. Every aspect of the restaurant is presented, and with all that detail you begin to understand what it takes to make a perfect restaurant. Fonda San Miguel is an exceptional restaurant and so is this lovely, important cookbook.
