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Atole de Guayaba de Calvillo
Created by Chef Lupita
Aguascalientes gives this atole its perfume: ripe Calvillo guavas blended into masa-thickened milk with piloncillo and canela, the morning drink that belongs beside tamales.
This comes from Aguascalientes, from the guava country around Calvillo, where the fruit is not decoration. It is livelihood. The mercados there smell of ripe guayaba before you see the crates: yellow skin, pink flesh when you are lucky, seeds hard enough to remind you not to be careless with the blender.
Atole is corn first. Remember that. The guava perfumes it, the milk softens it, the piloncillo sweetens it, but the body comes from masa de maiz. Without masa, you are making hot fruit milk. Good, maybe. Not atole. Cada estado, su propia cocina.
I learned this version from a woman in Calvillo who sold tamales de rajas and atole from a blue enamel pot before sunrise. She strained the guava twice because the seeds have no mercy. My mother wrote the same warning in her notebook: 'cuela bien, o nadie te perdona.' Strain it well, or nobody forgives you. Así se hace y punto.
Ingredients
ripe guavas
Quantity
1 pound
washed, stem ends trimmed, and quartered
whole milk
Quantity
5 cups
divided
water
Quantity
2 cups
| Ingredient | Quantity |
|---|---|
| ripe guavaswashed, stem ends trimmed, and quartered | 1 pound |
| whole milkdivided | 5 cups |
| water | 2 cups |
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