ckbk co-founder Matt Cockerill speaks to Yvette Zuniga Jemison, whose cookbook My South Texas Kitchen won an IACP award in 2023 and is now available on ckbk.

Your book is described as “Mexican-inspired cuisine from south Texas” and “a tribute to the home cooking of multiple generations of my Mexican-American family”. How would you say that the south Texan influence shows itself in these takes on classic Mexican dishes?  When previous generations of my family moved from Mexico into Texas they had to cook with American ingredients, however, they continued to use their Mexican culinary knowledge and techniques. This organic fusion of cooking, which is unique to the border region of Texas, is a cuisine in and of itself. Texas' abundant resources influence this Mexican inspired cuisine. For example, the local cattle ranches provide beef for dishes like fajitas, carne guisada, chorizo Mexicano, enchiladas de res, Frito pie, chicken fried steak, Johnny’s Brisket, barbacoa, menudo, and puffy tacos. South Texas also has easy access to the Gulf coast and its seafood often appears within this fusion cuisine, as seen in my coctel de camarones.

You trained at the Natural Gourmet Institute, now part of the (Culinary Institute of America). What did you take away from your culinary school experience? Our instructor used her lessons to immerse our class in the publishing industry, where she primarily worked. She included class visits to magazine headquarters and featured guest speakers ranging from editors, to food photographers and food stylists. I saw how detailed, disciplined and deadline oriented everyone we met was in their work.  I learned that there is a wealth of knowledge in this industry, and I experienced how peers shared their knowledge with one another. I also learned to be detail-oriented in my recipe development. These lessons, along with my developed and tested recipes, allow me to feel confident in sharing my family’s recipes and stories through my cookbooks, conversations at my book signings, my cooking classes and on my website. 

Can you tell us more about the “comal” griddle mentioned in the book? Can we use a regular cast-iron skillet instead?  What are examples of recipes which make good use of a comal? A comal is a hispanic cast iron griddle that most of my family members have permanently sitting on their cooktop because it is part of our daily use for cooking. The more you use a comal, the more oil gets layered into it, creating a nonstick barrier that makes clean-up a breeze. This invaluable griddle is used to make flour tortillas, corn tortillas, gorditas de azucar and for reheating food like tamales. It can be used in place of a grill when making my after-the-game burgers, and fajitas. You can absolutely use a cast iron skillet if you don’t have a comal. Most comals are round and sit on one burner of your cooktop. I have a long oval comal that sits over two burners that I enjoy using. 

Any other kitchen tool or gadget you can’t do without? I actually have two to share: First is a handheld exprimidor or Mexican citrus press. Using the exprimidor I can quickly extract lemon or lime juice for use in my salsa de cilantro, pico de gallo, coctel de camarones, lemon meringue pie, Memo’s sweet tea, agua fresca de sandia and hibiscus sangria. The second would be a clean pile of absorbent dish towels. My family uses dish towels for more than just wiping up spills. We use them to wrap up a stack of warm flour tortillas, to line our work surface when prepping corn husks for pork tamales, and my mother covers her freshly baked banana bread with a dish towel until it cools. I've incorporated these tips in a section of my cookbook titled, “Tips for Cooking South Texas Style”.

When it comes to tortillas, making your own from masa using a tortilla press can seem a bit intimidating. Are home-made tortillas better? There’s nothing like the flavor of a freshly-made corn tortilla or the fried corn tortilla shell for my puffy taco recipe, however, I do prefer store-bought corn tortillas in some recipes because they hold up better. My cheese enchiladas, beef enchiladas and enmoladas (tortillas in mole sauce) are recipes that work well with store-bought corn tortillas.

Any top kitchen tips/tricks/hacks? When you’re selecting limes at the supermarket, look for limes that have thin, shiny skin. These have more juice than the dull, thick skin limes. A tip to quickly reheat your corn and flour tortillas is to set the tortilla directly over the gas flame on your cooktop. Flip every 5 seconds until the tortilla is charred in spots, flexible and heated through. A final tip, whether you’re making my Mexican rice or Alta’s butter rice, be sure to toast your dry rice as indicated in my recipes. This will create separate grains of rice with a beautiful texture.

What’s your favorite under-appreciated ingredient? Cinnamon sticks: I seek out the easy-to-flake apart whole cinnamon sticks for my recipes that call for cinnamon. I buy multiple packages of this incredibly fragrant cinnamon because I keep some whole for my Mexican rice pudding, Aunt Marina’s oatmeal and my Mexican bread pudding. With the remainder of the cinnamon, I fill a blender about half full of these cinnamon sticks and blend them into a powder with a few small bits remaining. I’m always amazed how others notice the difference when I incorporate my freshly ground cinnamon in recipes such as my overnight cinnamon rolls, empanadas de camote, buñuelos and polvorones.

If  you had to choose your “last meal”, what would be on the menu? The perfect Mexican combo plate: My mom’s puffy tacos, cheese enchiladas with onions on top, Mexican rice and Betty’s Tres Leches Cake.

You shared a list of your top 10 cookbooks with us. What do you think makes a really good cookbook? A really good cookbook has well-developed recipes that allow the reader to recreate a dish as closely as possible to what the author makes. As much as I love beautiful creative food photography, the photos in a good cookbook are included as a reference for the reader to have an idea of what the recipe should look like. I chose to include a photo for each recipe in my book because that's what I prefer in a cookbook. One shot can convey so much information to the reader when properly styled. Finally, good headnotes that share a sense of place. In my cookbook, My South Texas Kitchen, I wrote headnotes to illustrate my life in south Texas through the lens of food. My headnotes are the summary of my memories about these recipes, and I work hard to develop approachable recipes for the reader. 

Your own book won the IACP award for best self-published cookbook in 2023. How did you find the experience of self-publishing?  For this book I found self-publishing to be a much better fit than accepting a publisher's offer. As difficult as that decision was, I've enjoyed the opportunities that have presented themselves throughout my cookbook journey. I recognized that many of my family’s recipes and techniques are a dying art, so I set out to preserve these for my family, and having the IACP award my cookbook the best self-published cookbook in 2023 as a result of this endeavor was an indescribable experience. It's been a very spiritual, gratitude filled journey.

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