Bacalao a la Mexicana

This is the Nochebuena dish of central Mexico. Ciudad de México, Puebla, the State of Mexico, Tlaxcala. The 24th of December would not be the 24th of December without a cazuela of bacalao on the table. Not bacalao a la vizcaína, the Basque original. Bacalao a la mexicana, what central Mexico did with the Spanish dish over four centuries until it became something else entirely.

The chile güero is what makes it ours. Long, pale yellow, brined in vinegar with carrots and onions, sold by the jar in every market in the country. Set them whole on top of the stew so each diner can take one with their bacalao. That heat against the sweet jitomate and the briny olives is the signature of the mexicana version. Take the chile out and you have something Spanish. Leave it in and it belongs to us. Cada estado, su propia cocina, and this one belongs to the center.

My mother made bacalao every Christmas Eve. She started desalting the cod on the 22nd, changing the water before bed, before breakfast, before lunch, talking to the bowl like it was a child. The pot came together on the morning of the 24th and sat covered on the stove all afternoon while the rest of the kitchen worked on the romeritos and the ensalada de Nochebuena. By eight o'clock at night the bacalao had been sitting for ten hours and tasted like it had been waiting all year. La cocina no es decoración, es trabajo, and bacalao is the proof.

Do not rush the desalting. Do not skip the tomato reduction. Do not use canned tomato sauce. And do not, under any circumstances, leave out the chiles güeros. Recetas probadas y garantizadas.