For about nine months I’ve been toying with the idea of finally buying a Mexican cookbook. It had seemed like a glaring omission in my ever growing collection, which at this point includes Jamaican, Irish, Swedish, and even Trinidadian cuisines. Heck, I even have a hilarious cookbook titled “A Passion for Mushrooms,” which I may have purchased at a library sale based on the name alone. The point is this: I needed a Mexican cookbook, and who better to turn to than Rick Bayless, the preeminent American master of Mexican cuisine?

I originally was going to snatch up Bayless’s seminal book, Authentic Mexican, but then after reading Serious Eats rave about his simpler Mexican Everyday, I had a change of heart. Turns out Mexican Everyday had been penned with healthy eating in mind, and as some of you may know, that’s been my mission for 2013. And so while I’m not often a fan of the “fast and easy” cookbooks, I decided to go this route anyway (after all, Madhur Jaffrey’s Quick & Easy Indian Cooking rocks my world, and that’s of the same ilk).

For my first attempt at a recipe from Mexican Everyday, I opted for Pollo Pulquero, or “Slow-Cooked Chicken with Tomatillos, Potatoes, Jalapeños and Fresh Herbs.” It’s a very simple dish requiring only a handful of ingredients, and according to various other bloggers across the interwebs, it’s an out-of-the-park winner. Naturally, I was intrigued. Would this recipe live up to the hype? And would Pollo Pulquero prove to finally be the first dish to come out of my slow cooker that’s truly amazing? Answers after the jump…

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