Roots run deep. Chef Josef Centeno grew up in San Antonio, a capital city of Tex-Mex cuisine. He wanted to be a chef, migrated to New York and worked in Michelin three-star restaurants in New York, San Francisco, and Santa Cruz. And ultimately, Tex-Mex drew him back.
Now he has a galaxy of restaurants including Ama located next to an alley off Fourth Street in downtown LA. Traditional Tex-Mex is rancho food: meats, stews, beans, chiles and tortillas by the mound. Criticized as not being “authentic” Centeno says that is exactly the point: Tex-Mex is an indigenous and evolving cuisine that expands and enriches decade by decade.
Seven chapters span the day from breakfast to dessert, plus the pantry:
- Larder
- Tex-Mex Breakfast
- Ama’s Table
- Verduras
- La Reunion
- Super Nacho Hour
- Dulces and Desserts
“Larder” is too simple a word for the clever ideas presented there:
Preserved kumquats with lime and chile
Pine nut and tepin salsa
Charred green-onion salsa
Cascabel pimento cheese
A Tex-Mex Breakfast comes with fruit and chile in abundance:
Broiled piloncillo Texas grapefruit
Kielbasa and potato scramble
Cornmeal pancakes with maple-molasses syrup
Ama’s Table is the chapter with the big dishes, ideas filled with heat and color:
Chicken and chile tortilla soup
Slow-roasted beef belly with pomegranate and cotija
Chile shrimp ceviche with watercress and avocado
Lobster diablo
The Verduras chapter shows the Tex-Mex respect for veggies and the grand exploration to give them full expression:
Roasted cauliflower with cilantro-pecan pest
Roasted Asian squash with piloncillo and butter
Anchovy butter-roasted red onions
Super Bowl is upon us. What better source of ideas than the Super Nacho Hour chapter. There are twenty-seven ideas here from guacamole to that spicy beverage michelada:
Vegan cashew queso
Deviled eggs with bacon
Peel-and-eat shrimp with chile and peanuts
Cascabel pimento cheese chiles rellenos
Corn quesadillas with poblano, cilantro and green onions
That michelada is beer with some “warmish” additions:
- Clamato juice
- Hot sauce
- Wine vinegar
- Horseradish
- Adobo sauce
- Worcestershire
- Celery sauce
- Sea salt
- Chile powder
- Habanero
And Dulces will let you end your meal with flavors that always amplify the night:
Berries with hibiscus-ginger syrup
Cinnamon-fennel conchas
Tex-leches chocolate-coconut cake
This book is a treasure trove of what it means today to be Tex-Mex. It is a cuisine to be relished and embraced with all the passion and heat of those chile peppers.
Just saying, when you drink the michelada, do have some ice water around. Or maybe a secondary beer. Cold. Ice cold.
Ama is an important book and one you’ll surely cook, and drink from, from over and over again.