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'Antojitos: Festive and Flavorful Mexican Small Plates'
by Barbara Sibley and Margaritte Malfy with Mary Goodbody
Photography by Lucy Schaeffer
Ten Speed Press -- 2009
Buy it on Amazon

Antojitos, as Barbara Sibley and Margaritte Malfy explain in their book of the same name, are small bites sometimes eaten as appetizers in Mexican cuisine and sometime just downed as a street snack to satisfy between-meals hunger pangs.

The owners of New York City's La Palapa have written a book that covers all manner of these spicy snacks -- from empanadas and tacos to ceviches and mole. Along the way, they give brief stories about the dishes as well as menus perfect for any fiesta, and colorful pages filled with images of Loteria cards and stock Mexican art that add a whimsical touch to the cookbook.

See what we tested and whether it's worth buying after the jump.

Chipotle chiles are not a unique chile, but are actually dried, smoked jalapeno chiles. They are dark brown and wrinkly, in sharp contrast to the glossy look of fresh chiles, but have a wonderfully rich flavor. Most of the heat of the jalapeno is retained when the chile is dried, so chipotles are fairly spicy, falling in the middle ranges of the heat scale. They have smoky overtones, but the real flavor of the chiles is complex and earthy. Instead of causing a sharp and immediate heat, the heat grows gradually as you eat it and takes time to fade away.

In truth, most kinds of chilies can be smoke-dried and sometimes they are all called "chipotle" no matter what they started out as, but the vast majority of the chipotle chiles on the market were originally jalapenos.