Calabacitas con Elote y Rajas Estilo Oaxaqueño

This is Oaxaca's calabacitas. Not the central Mexican version with squash blossoms and a heavy hand of crema, not the northern version with cumin and cheddar, the Valles Centrales version, where the corn is the star and the quesillo is pulled into long strands at the end.

The calabacita itself is the small, pale-green Mexican squash, not the dark Italian zucchini that supermarkets sell as a substitute. If you can find calabacita criolla at a Mexican mercado or a Latin grocer, use it. If not, use the smallest, palest summer squash you can find. The flavor is sweeter, the flesh is firmer, and it does not turn to water in the pan.

The poblano rajas are charred over open flame until the skin lifts and the flesh underneath holds its shape. You peel them with your fingers, not under running water. Water washes the smoke down the drain. The corn goes in fresh, off the cob, never canned, never frozen if you can help it. And the quesillo, Oaxaca's pulled string cheese, goes in at the very end and melts off the heat into the long threads that are the visual signature of this dish.

My mother made calabacitas every summer in Mexico City with whatever the market gave her, but the Oaxacan version came into my notebook from a senora named Doña Margarita who sold quesillo at the Mercado Benito Juarez in Oaxaca de Juarez. She told me the secret is to add the cheese off the heat. "Si lo cocinas, se quema. Si lo apagas, se estira." If you cook it, it burns. If you turn off the heat, it stretches. Asi se hace y punto.