PORTLAND, Maine — Shannon Bard does not quit.
Days after the Portland chef’s first cookbook was released, the co-owner of Zapoteca Restaurante Y Tequileria is already planning her next one.
“I am compiling recipes and stories for tequila dinners, a chef tasting table book,” she said on the phone from her Kennebunk home Tuesday morning.
The former “ Kitchen Inferno” champion is up by 7 a.m. most days, planning menus, tasting dinners, managing a third restaurant, and trying new and innovative flavors. “I eat, sleep and breathe cooking,” said Bard, 44. “I am all about the restaurant.”
Her passion and drive springs from every page in the colorful “Gourmet Mexican Kitchen,” published by Page Street Publishing Co. and photographed by local photographer Ted Axelrod. Loaded with more than 100 recipes, from mole sauces to her famed Taco de Langosta de Puerto Nuevo (lobster tacos), the cookbook is a behind-the-scenes look at the fundamental and fabulous work of one of Maine’s rising chefs.
Whip up Bard’s watermelon habanero margaritas (there is an entire chapter on margaritas) and plan your next fiesta with this easy-to-thumb-through paperback.
Bard’s home chef handbook seeks to demystify the intricate tastes that she is known for. For this modern Mexican chef, it’s bold flavors and a-ha moments that take Mexican cuisine in a fresh direction.
“The biggest a-ha moment is when you are dry roasting,” said Bard, who favors charring the outside of tomatoes, Serrano peppers and garlic (the makings of her salsa roja) over cooking with oil. “It adds an extra and different dimension, and you get that old world flavor.”
What does a late-bloomer from Oklahoma know about Mexican food? Mucho it turns out.
“My grandmother had a Mexican cafe in Oklahoma. It is something I developed a passion for,” said Bard, who went to culinary school at York County Community College when her youngest child went to school, and followed that with intense Mexican training at the Culinary Institute of America in San Antonio.
No sooner did she have tamales down, than her husband Tom called to say, “We are opening a restaurant,” said Bard.
Less than a year out of culinary school, Bard was cooking at Zapoteca, the Fore Street restaurant that attracts foodies from near and far. They come for her inventive combinations, such as cashew salsa and duck with cranberry pecan mole.
In the book, Bard untangles the mystery of moles. She breaks the sauces down as a “combination of chilies and spices. As a new modern Mexican chef, I have a tendency to appreciate the culture, what a mole is and isn’t. The way that the chiles are prepared …”
Her cranberry pecan mole, which turned her adobo-glazed duck breast into an instant smash, can be learned, she says. “I want to make recipes approachable and easy for the home chef. In these dishes, it’s the flavor that is memorable.”
Speaking of memorable, you won’t forget this trick from her book. Want the secret to perfectly steamed tamales? Drop a dime.
“You roll the tamales and drop a clean coin in the water when you are making one,” said Bard. The coin rattles around in the water; when it stops, you need to add more water.
Even homemade tortillas can be tackled with Bard’s help. “You don’t have to have a corn tortilla press. You can roll them out and use the bottom of saucepan, or a book, something heavy. It’s incredibly easy,” she says. “And eating them fresh is such a huge difference.”
By offering tips and tricks for this zesty cuisine, Bard wants to encourage neophytes to explore more.
“Anyone can cook these recipes at home. One recipe calls for a special pressure cooker, but that’s the most advanced. Anyone will be able to grab the book and cook without special equipment,” said Bard.
What was her favorite cookbook growing up?
“The red-and-white-and-plaid Better Homes and Garden cookbooks. It’s something that my parents lived off of. My grandmother was a huge cookbook collector and literally had a room in her home with wall-to-wall books,” recalls Bard. “I remember cooking from it when I was young, and love to see my 14-year-old daughter cook from it today.”
Her earliest cooking memories were when her grandmother was laid up after knee surgery and instructed a 10-year-old Bard on making fried chicken.
“She pulled a chair beside the oven and walked me through every step,” Bard says. “To this day, fried chicken is still one of my favorite things to make.”
That’s how Bard learned to cook instinctively. These are lessons she teaches her cooks at Zapoteca in Portland and Mixteca in Durham, N.H.
“You have to use your palate and think. Cooking is so instinctive. It’s all about the scenes. You listen, you smell, you taste, you look,” said Bard.
“I’ve always wanted to write a cookbook. This might have been the ideal cookbook I wanted to write when I was younger. I have more cookbooks to come. I’d like to have 10 cookbooks. I am someone who never ever settles. I am always thinking of the next step.”
A cookbook launch event is scheduled for March 12 at Longfellow Books in Portland. A “cook the book” dinner, where Bard will prepare meals directly from “Gourmet Mexican Kitchen” will be held April 19 at Zapoteca.
