Last month, a new MadhuKnitsandCooks.com reader noticed my Rick Bayless post, and graciously offered to lend me a Rick Bayless cookbook, Authentic Mexican, that she owned (thank you!). The cookbook is pretty great — lots of general preparation tips for Mexican cuisine, as well as substitution recommendations for many of the recipes so one can truly customize meals to personal preferences. Unfortunately for me, and I think fairly common for Mexican food, there is only a limited amount of main course vegetarian recipes in the book. Thankfully though, the first two vegetarian recipes I tried were both easy to make and provided me new methods for cooking Mexican food which are undoubtedly helpful for the future.
One of the recipes turned out to be spectacular and something I am sure I have had in restaurants before — Calabacitas con Crema (Zucchini with Roasted Peppers, Corn and Cream). The other was unfortunately pretty bland and uninteresting (Arroz a la Mexicana (con Verduras) or Mexican Tomato-Colored Rice (with fresh vegetables) — probably a function of not using enough salt, lard and meat-based broth 🙂
The only modification I would make to the calabacitas recipe is reducing the amount of cream — I think the cream overwhelmed the flavor of the dish, and made the dish just feel "heavy" upon consumption. For the arroz dish, I would probably recommend experimenting with a few different spices to achieve a more interesting flavor to this otherwise bland dish. One could also cook the rice with pork or other "natural" flavors, but for vegetarians/healthy eaters, I think the default probably is adding in some chili powder, paprika, maybe even a bay leaf, etc. I added a roasted jalapeno (peeled, seeded and coarsely chopped) to the rice, but that change didn't result in a more enjoyable and flavorful dish.
Finally, I want to point out that the preparation of the calabacitas dish introduced a wonderful new cooking accessory to my kitchen — an All-Clad stainless steel fry fan, which I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE (and is displayed below). The rice dish though is shown in an uninteresting, overly used bowl from my cupboards.
Calabacitas con Crema:
Arroz a la Mexicana:
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