Rick Martinez’s ‘Mi Cocina’ Is a Stunning Regional Tour of Mexico

The introduction to Mi Cocina, former Bon Appetit editor Rick Martinez’s 2022 cookbook, is undeniably moving. In it, Martinez gives a compelling and sometimes difficult backstory about his upbringing in Austin, Texas, as a Mexican-American boy, including a tender discussion of his family and some of the hardships they faced: prejudice, inequality, culture shock. He talks about how grocery store offerings (and our attitudes towards them) affect our categoric understanding of the ingredients and cooking of particular cultures. “At a time when everyone, even Mexican-Americans, were using chili powder (used to flavor the dish of the same name), canned sauces, and jarred moles, [my mother] experimented with chiles anchos, pasillas, and guajillos,” he writes. “My aunts saw it as the equivalent of churning your own butter; if you had access to McCormick’s, why would you take the time to buy a whole dried chile, reconstitute it, and puree it?” It’s a question that I’d imagine a great many people ask about this kind of food, and it’s one Martinez explores throughout his excellent and expansive book. While it came out last May, it’s only recently that I had the opportunity (read: courage) to really go deep and explore some of its most challenging recipes. They were worth the wait.

I’ve always wanted to make a mole. Like, a real, time-consuming, many-ingredient mole, not one from paste you can get at the store. It’s a dish that’s always felt intimidating to me; maybe I felt like I didn’t have the knowledge base or skill, or on some level was hung up on who should and shouldn’t be making mole in the first place. Also, honestly, with all the ingredients and steps, I was just scared that I’d fail. When Mi Cocina came out, my household bought a signed copy immediately, and we explored it and cooked from it. It took almost a year, however, for me to become brave enough to make the mole Coloradito, but when Mi Cocina was chosen as the March selection for my cookbook club, I knew it was time, for better or worse, to try. 

Mi Cocina contains an imperative guide on how to buy, handle, and cook both fresh and dried chiles (as well other essential ingredients like herbs, spices, and flour), but that’s perhaps less important than what the book wants to show us about how to think about them. It’s not only the ingredients, but the words we use to describe food that shapes our understanding of a culture (and of our own). At one time, Martinez sought to cook “authentic” food for this book. “But I have come to hate the word ‘authentic’ as well as ‘genuine,’ ‘cookable,’ ‘modern,’ ‘easy,’ and ‘simple,’” he writes. “When you’re a person of color, these words are like cattle prods.… I even started off marketing this very book as ‘simple, modern Mexican you can cook right now.’” Eventually, he reconsidered his angle and produced a colorful, highly detailed cookbook that felt authentic to himself, because it mirrored his own life and experiences.

If we want to understand the food of a certain culture or region—and Martinez is boundless in his exploration of the regions of Mexico here—the best way to do it is to look beyond the descriptors and just cook the damn food yourself. Even (or maybe especially) if it makes you uncomfortable.

From my counting, the mole recipe I chose to take on has about 28 ingredients, and the first challenge was to find all of them. Fortunately, I live in a neighborhood with a lot of Mexican grocery stores, meaning I could walk two blocks and find a vast selection of dried chiles, plantains, fresh corn tortillas, and whole spices; items like animal crackers (yes, animal crackers), raisins, nuts, and seeds were easier to track down. Once I had everything, I did my best to follow the recipe super closely. Just preparing all the ingredients was time-consuming, and since things can happen very quickly with elaborate sauces like this, I wanted everything ready and within arm’s reach before I began (gotta get the mise en place rockin’, even at home). Throughout the fairly long process of cooking the mole, I had to learn to prepare a number of components I hadn’t really done before, like toasting a bunch of dried chiles and cooking plantain. Ultimately, after a few hours (and using a beautiful blood orange Made In Dutch oven that reminded me of the brilliant colors of Martinez’s stunning kitchen), I had a rich, deep-colored, complex mole that smelled and tasted even better than I’d hoped it would. Honestly, it’s one of the best things I’ve made in years.

For that dinner, we had an amazing array of dishes from Mi Cocina. We made the tacos capeados, which saw halibut dredged in an airy, bubbly mixture of masa harina, baking powder and soda, Modelo, sparkling water, and apple cider vinegar. The resulting fried fish was crispy and flavorful, but still light, almost like a tempura; and the creamy, anchovy-tinged salsa blanca and the tomatillo and papaya salsa both elevated it to a pretty transcendent place. It was so refreshing to fry food that wasn’t intensely heavy (which can, for the record, be extraordinary). 

The decadent, creamy esquites relied on a rich, umami combination of butter, crema, Cotija, poblano, and chiles de árbol for its spicy-velvety vibe; and the aguachile brought an invigorating levity with its fresh shrimp, cucumber, onion, and avocado. The papadzules was probably the most unique and surprising dish of the night—it saw tortillas filled with jammy eggs and topped with a flavorful pumpkin seed sauce, served alongside salsa tatemada, a punchy charred tomato, onion, and serrano blend. A central dish of the Yucatán, the papadzules is almost hard to explain; it just needs to be tasted. Such is the case with a lot of the delights in Mi Cocina. 

Cooking from Mi Cocina is a beautiful and educational experience. Obviously this is specifically my own problem as a Jew from the Midwest, but it really challenged and expanded my conceptions of what regional Mexican cuisine is. This book is the eloquent result of Martinez searching deeply for his roots, and finding something that, ultimately, can bring us all together.

Find Mi Cocina on Amazon.

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