Green Chilaquiles (Chilaquiles Verdes)

// SUPPLY LIST

// OPERATIONS

1. 1 Start with dry tortillas. If yours are fresh and pliable, stack four at a time, cut each stack into 6 wedges — 72 wedges in all — spread them in a single layer on trays and leave them uncovered at room temperature for 12-24 hours, until they bend with resistance and feel like thin leather. In a hurry, dry them on two oven trays for 20-25 minutes at 90°C/194°F fan, turning once; that shortcut is completely normal in Mexican kitchens. Skipping the drying is not: a moist tortilla drinks oil and fries into a greasy, hollow crisp that dissolves the instant it meets salsa.
2. 2 Put the tomatillos and whole serranos in a 3 litre saucepan, cover with cold water by 2 cm, bring to a bare simmer over medium heat and cook for 8-10 minutes, until the tomatillos have gone from bright grass-green to dull olive and a knife tip slides into one with no resistance. Lift them out before any of them split and bleed — a burst tomatillo leaves its body and its acidity behind in the water, and the salsa comes out thin and flat. Drain, keeping 120 ml of the cooking water: 60 ml goes into the blender, and the other 60 ml is held back to slacken the salsa later if it tightens while it waits.
3. 3 Tip the drained tomatillos and chillies into a blender while still hot, along with the onion chunk, garlic, chopped coriander, 1 tsp fine salt and 60 ml of the reserved cooking water. Take the centre cap out of the lid and cover the hole with a folded tea towel before you start — a sealed blender full of hot tomatillos builds steam and will lift its lid and throw scalding puree across the kitchen — then blend for only 20-30 seconds, to a slightly coarse puree the thickness of pouring cream with visible green flecks. The onion and garlic go in raw and get cooked in the next step, which is what gives the salsa its edge; do not run the blender on to a smooth pale froth, because aerated salsa verde cooks out grey and dull. Taste it for heat now and blend in another serrano if it is shy, since you cannot add heat once the crema is on.
4. 4 Heat the lard in a 28-30 cm heavy skillet, cazuela or deep sauté pan at least 6 cm deep, over medium-high heat, until it shimmers and a drop of the puree hisses instantly on contact (about 180°C/350°F). Stand back and pour in all the puree at once — it will spit hard for the first 20 seconds — then cook, stirring with a wooden spoon every 30 seconds, for 6-8 minutes, until it darkens from bright green to deep olive, thickens enough that a spoon dragged across the pan leaves a trail that closes slowly, and smells sweet and cooked rather than sharp and grassy. This step, sazonar la salsa, is the entire difference between chilaquiles and chips with salsa; an unfried salsa stays sour and watery and will never coat a tortilla.
5. 5 Pour in the hot chicken stock, bring back to a simmer and cook for 4-5 minutes, until you have roughly 650 ml of salsa that lightly coats the back of a spoon but still runs off in a sheet, about the consistency of single cream. Season with about 1 tsp more salt: tasted alone it should be a touch too salty and a touch too sharp, because 300 g of barely seasoned fried tortilla is about to go in and blunt it. Add the sugar only if the tomatillos genuinely make you wince. Turn the heat to its lowest setting and hold the salsa hot — it must be at a simmer when the totopos arrive — and if it thickens past a pouring sauce while it waits, loosen it with the reserved tomatillo water a splash at a time.
6. 6 Drop the paper-thin onion half-rings into a bowl of ice water now, so they get their 5 minutes while you fry. Pour the frying oil into a 24 cm heavy saucepan or deep skillet to a depth of 1.5 cm — a 24 cm pan needs the full 700 ml to reach that — and heat to 180°C/350°F: one wedge dropped in should rise and bubble steadily within 2 seconds without browning on contact. Fry in 4 batches of about 18 wedges, moving them with a spider, for 90 seconds to 2 minutes per batch, until the loud hissing drops to a whisper (that is the water leaving) and the wedges are pale straw-gold and rigid rather than bendy. Drain on a wire rack, never on kitchen paper, which traps steam and softens the undersides, and salt them very lightly while hot. Bring the oil back into range between batches: below 165°C/329°F they soak up fat and turn heavy, above 195°C/383°F they colour before they dry and stay leathery in the middle.
7. 7 While the last batch drains, put everything for the table within reach, because from here the dish moves in under a minute: crumble the queso fresco, lift the onion rings out of the ice water and drain and pat them dry (the soak takes the harsh edge off without cooking the onion out of the dish), loosen the crema until it falls from a spoon in a ribbon, and warm the plates. If you are serving eggs, fry them now in a 20 cm nonstick pan in a little oil over medium heat for 2-3 minutes, until the whites are set with lacy brown edges and the yolks are still liquid, then slide them onto a warm plate — they will hold happily for the two or three minutes the rest of this takes.
8. 8 Bring the salsa back to an active simmer over medium-high heat, tip in all the totopos at once, and fold rather than stir — a wide spatula, lifting from the bottom, four or five turns over 30-45 seconds — until every wedge is glossy and green and the outer ones have gone from brittle to just yielding while the centres still snap. Do not cover the pan and do not leave it on the heat: by two minutes the chips have given up, and chilaquiles are eaten at the crossfade between crisp and soft, not after it.
9. 9 Take the pan off the heat and let it stand for 60 seconds so the salsa grips and the wedges settle into their final texture. If you prefer them the way most fondas serve them, softer and more spoonable, give them 3 minutes instead — beyond that you have a casserole, not chilaquiles.
10. 10 Serve straight from the pan or on the warm plates, finishing off the heat and in this order so nothing steams or splits: crema zigzagged over the top, then queso fresco, then the drained onion rings, coriander leaves, avocado, and a fried egg per plate. Eat within five minutes, with refried black beans alongside and strong coffee or café de olla; reheated chilaquiles are a different and sadder dish, so cook only what will be eaten.

// CLASSIFICATIONS