Mexico: The Cookbook

The book arrived before the expected date of delivery was in amazing condition. Well packed in bubble wraps. Really excited to go through it.

This book is crazily comprehensive and it's so big that it's bigger than two to three average cookbooks. The cover is beautiful and the pages are thick, although they're not glossy so watch them with food splats. Also - it's so big that it struggles to sit on my cast iron cookbook stand. Just something to bare in mind.I can't comment on how authentic this is, but I can say that there is such a wide variety of Mexican dishes in here that you would struggle to get bored of this book.Here's why I only gave it four stars:There is not a picture for every dish, in fact, there's probably only a picture for every 10-20 dishes. I don't expect one for every single dish in a book of this size, but for some of the recipes it would be nice to see what the finished dish is supposed to look like.There is no description or introduction to any of the recipes, just a name. This leaves you scanning ingredients and cooking instructions to try and get an idea of what the dish is. This coupled with no pictures makes this book rather long winded to use.I would recommend this, but bare in kind the lack of pictures and introductions. Otherwise, it's fantastic. The small amount of pictures that are included are beautiful and the sheer amount and variety of recipes is staggering. It's all bound in a beautiful cover with great quality paper, this really is a fantastic book. In fact, it's more of a Mexican food encyclopedia. Even if the recipes aren't authentic, it's still amazing! I would love to see a revised edition with some more pictures added, or just some introductions to the dishes. With no pictures and no description, a fair bit of googling is required to figure out what it is that you fancy cooking!

The book is amazing in terms of variety of recipes and they all are authentic from Mexico. However, because the recipes are so authentic it is pretty much impossible to get full list of ingredients to make something. The items required for some even basic recipes are impossible to just pop out and get from the supermarket or easily replace. So unless you live in Mexico or next door to specialised Mexican shop I would reeeeeealy consider if this book is worth it.Also some of the directions are a bit vague, for example the book recommends to cook the chicken - boil, fry, roast or how exactly you are supposed to cook it does not bother explaining.If you want to get it for someone as a gift - it does look impressive and wraps in a big bundle :D

It's my third book purchase of Phaidon cooking series, first Mexican book ever, and they've all been an absolute hit.What can I say about this one? It's beautifully decorated, really brings out the colourful look of Mexico and Mexican cuisine, makes me happy to even open it.But be warned - Mexican cuisine is quite unique, a lot of ingredients you can only find online for quite a sum of money, at least in the UK, making it impossible to even try some of the recipes. Those unique ingredients include, vast range of dried chiles (ancho, guajillo, chipotle, jalepeno, poblano, serrano), fresh epazote leaves, tomatillos... You can substitute them with others, they will still make amazing dishes, but they will not be quite as authentic. But don't get sad, I still cooked plenty of recipes from the book and they're absolutely amazing!

Great little cookbook with a vast range of recipe suggestions. I guess my only gripe would be a lot of the ingredients arent easily accessible in the UK (Cactus paddles for example) aside from that worth picking up

A beautiful and very comprehensive book. My only criticism, and the reason I have not given it 5 stars, is that there are very few photos. I am new to Mexican cooking and would like to have seen some more photos of the dishes, both for inspiration and so that I know that whatever I make actually looks like it's supposed to!