Chef Lupita
Arroz a la Oaxaqueña
Oaxaca's red rice, stained with tomato and fried in lard, steamed with carrots, ejotes, black beans, and epazote. The side that anchors a Oaxacan family meal and earns its place beside the main.
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Calabacitas Gratinadas con Quesillo
Created by
Oaxaca's gratin of sliced calabacitas and fresh corn folded with rajas of chile de agua, bound in crema de rancho, and crowned with melted quesillo from the Sierra de Etla.
Side Dishes
Mexican
Comfort Food
Make Ahead
Dinner Party
30 min
Active Time
45 min cook•1 hr 15 min total
Yield6 servings
This is a Oaxacan dish. Specifically from the Valles Centrales, where calabacitas, sweet corn, and chile de agua all come from the same morning at the Mercado de la Merced in the city of Oaxaca, and where every cazuela on the table at midday holds some version of this gratin.
The chile de agua is what makes this dish Oaxacan and not generic. It is a fresh chile, pale green, mildly hot, with a thin skin and a clean grassy flavor that grows almost nowhere outside Oaxaca. Roasted on a comal, peeled, and torn into rajas, it gives the gratin a smoky thread that no poblano and certainly no bell pepper can replicate. If your chile vendor does not know what chile de agua is, you are not at an Oaxacan mercado. Find one, or accept that you are making a different dish.
The quesillo is the other half of the equation. Not mozzarella. Not string cheese. Quesillo de Reyes Etla, made in the small town outside the city where the cheese has been pulled by hand for generations. It melts into long soft layers, salty and milky, and it is what the senoras of the valley reach for when they want a vegetable dish that feels like an occasion.
My mother did not cook Oaxacan food. She was from Jalisco. But I learned this gratin from a senora named Doña Catalina who had a comedor on the road between Oaxaca and Etla and who fed me a version of this every time I came through with my recorder. She would not let me leave without writing down the proportion of crema to milk in my notebook. Cada estado, su propia cocina, and this one is hers.
Calabacitas, the small Mexican squashes of the Cucurbita pepo family, are one of the three sister crops domesticated in Mesoamerica alongside corn and beans, with archaeological evidence of cultivation in the Tehuacan valley dating back nearly 10,000 years. The chile de agua is an heirloom variety cultivated almost exclusively in Oaxaca's Valles Centrales and is not commercially farmed at scale, which is why it remains a regional marker rather than a national ingredient. Quesillo, often called Oaxaca cheese outside Mexico, was developed in the late 19th century in Reyes Etla, where local lore credits a young cheesemaker named Leobarda Castellanos Garcia with the pulled-curd technique she adapted around 1885 from Italian methods brought to Mexico by Dominican friars centuries earlier.
The technique, the tradition, and the story behind every dish.
Discover Culinary ExplorerIngredients
calabacitas (Mexican squash)
Quantity
2 pounds
sliced into 1/4-inch rounds
fresh white corn
Quantity
3 ears
kernels cut from the cob (about 2 cups)
fresh chile de agua
Quantity
4
roasted on a comal, peeled, seeded, and cut into rajas
white onion
Quantity
1 medium
sliced into thin half-moons
garlic cloves
Quantity
3
finely chopped
manteca de cerdo (pork lard)
Quantity
2 tablespoons
fresh epazote
Quantity
4 sprigs
leaves stripped from the stems
crema de rancho (Mexican thick crema)
Quantity
1 1/2 cups
whole milk
Quantity
1/2 cup
quesillo de Reyes Etla
Quantity
12 ounces
pulled apart into long ribbons
queso fresco
Quantity
1/2 cup
crumbled
kosher salt
Quantity
1 1/2 teaspoons, plus more to taste
freshly ground black pepper
Quantity
to taste
hand-pressed corn tortillas (optional)
Quantity
for serving
warmed
| Ingredient | Quantity |
|---|---|
| calabacitas (Mexican squash)sliced into 1/4-inch rounds | 2 pounds |
| fresh white cornkernels cut from the cob (about 2 cups) | 3 ears |
| fresh chile de aguaroasted on a comal, peeled, seeded, and cut into rajas | 4 |
| white onionsliced into thin half-moons | 1 medium |
| garlic clovesfinely chopped | 3 |
| manteca de cerdo (pork lard) | 2 tablespoons |
| fresh epazoteleaves stripped from the stems | 4 sprigs |
| crema de rancho (Mexican thick crema) | 1 1/2 cups |
| whole milk | 1/2 cup |
| quesillo de Reyes Etlapulled apart into long ribbons | 12 ounces |
| queso frescocrumbled | 1/2 cup |
| kosher salt | 1 1/2 teaspoons, plus more to taste |
| freshly ground black pepper | to taste |
| hand-pressed corn tortillas (optional)warmed | for serving |
Equipment Needed
- •12-inch Oaxacan barro rojo cazuela or heavy ceramic baking dish
- •Cast iron comal for roasting the chiles
- •Wide skillet for cooking the vegetables
- •Sharp knife for slicing the calabacitas thin and even
Instructions
- 1
Roast the chile de agua
Heat a dry comal over medium-high. Lay the chiles de agua directly on the surface. Turn them every minute or so until the skin blisters and chars in patches but the flesh underneath stays firm. Transfer to a bowl and cover with a plate to sweat for ten minutes. The skin will slip off under your fingers. Stem, seed, and tear into rajas about a finger wide. If you cannot find chile de agua at your mercado, the dish loses its Oaxacan accent. A poblano is the closest substitute, but understand that you are no longer cooking what the cooks of the Valles Centrales cook. It is a compromise, not an upgrade.
Do not rinse the roasted chile under water. The water washes the smoky flavor down the drain. Peel by hand, dry. - 2
Sweat the onion and garlic
In a wide skillet or 12-inch cazuela, melt the lard over medium heat. Add the sliced onion with a pinch of salt. Cook for about six minutes until soft and translucent, never browned. Add the garlic and cook one minute more, until you smell it. La manteca es el sabor and onion cooked in lard tastes nothing like onion cooked in oil. Use the lard.
- 3
Cook the calabacitas and corn
Raise the heat to medium-high. Add the calabacita rounds and the corn kernels. Spread them in a single layer if you can. Let them sit for a minute before stirring so the squash takes on a little color. Stir, then cook for about eight minutes total, until the calabacitas are tender at the edge but still hold their shape in the middle. They will finish cooking in the oven and you do not want a watery gratin.
- 4
Add the rajas and epazote
Stir in the rajas of chile de agua and the epazote leaves. Season with the salt and several grinds of black pepper. Cook one minute more so the epazote releases. The smell at this point should anchor you in Oaxaca: roasted chile, lard, sweet corn, and that unmistakable green pine-and-citrus note of epazote. Do not skip the epazote and do not substitute cilantro. They are not interchangeable. Asi se hace y punto.
- 5
Mix the crema
In a small bowl, whisk the crema de rancho with the milk until smooth and pourable. The milk thins it just enough to coat the vegetables without seizing in the oven. Mexican crema is not American sour cream. Sour cream will break and turn grainy under the broiler. Find the real thing or skip the dish.
- 6
Layer the gratin
Heat the oven to 400F. Spoon half the calabacita mixture into a 12-inch clay cazuela or shallow baking dish. Pour over half the crema. Scatter half the quesillo ribbons. Repeat with the remaining vegetables, crema, and quesillo. Finish with the crumbled queso fresco scattered across the top. The double layer matters. A single layer leaves the top cheesy and the bottom plain, which is not the same dish.
- 7
Bake and finish under the broiler
Bake on the middle rack for 20 to 25 minutes, until the crema bubbles around the edges and the quesillo has melted into a single soft layer. Switch on the broiler and move the cazuela up. Broil for two to four minutes until the top blisters in patches of dark gold. Watch it the whole time. The line between blistered and burned is about thirty seconds.
If your cazuela is not flameproof, finish under the broiler with caution and never take a cold cazuela straight to a hot oven. Temper it on the open door for a minute first. - 8
Rest and serve
Pull the cazuela out and let it sit for five minutes. The gratin needs to settle so the crema sets and the quesillo stops pulling threads across the room. Bring the whole cazuela to the table with warm tortillas alongside. In Oaxaca this is a side, but with a stack of tortillas and a bowl of black beans it is a full supper. Saber cocinar es saber vivir.
Chef Tips
- •Calabacitas means the small, pale green Mexican squash, not zucchini. They have thinner skin, sweeter flesh, and they hold their shape better in a gratin. If your mercado calls them tatuma or grey squash, you are in the right aisle. Italian zucchini is a compromise.
- •Use crema de rancho if you can find it. The thick, slightly sour Mexican kind. Cacique and Tropical brands work. Sour cream will break under the broiler and ruin the dish. No me vengas con atajos.
- •Pull the quesillo into long thin ribbons by hand. Do not grate it. Grated quesillo turns into rubber under heat. The hand-pulled strands melt into soft layers the way they should.
- •If you make this in summer when the corn is at its sweetest, you do not need to add anything else to the dish. If you make it outside corn season, add half a teaspoon of sugar to the calabacitas while they cook. Mexican grandmothers cook with what the mercado is selling today, not with what is missing.
Advance Preparation
- •The vegetable mixture can be cooked one day ahead and refrigerated. Bring to room temperature before layering with crema and quesillo, or add ten minutes to the oven time.
- •The chile de agua can be roasted, peeled, and cut into rajas up to three days ahead. Store in a covered jar with a teaspoon of olive oil over the top.
- •Do not assemble the gratin in advance. The crema thins the longer it sits against the cooked squash, and the gratin will weep liquid in the oven.
Frequently Asked Questions
Nutrition Information
1 serving (about 380g)
Calories
500 calories
Total Fat
38 g
Saturated Fat
21 g
Trans Fat
0 g
Unsaturated Fat
15 g
Cholesterol
125 mg
Sodium
850 mg
Total Carbohydrates
23 g
Dietary Fiber
4 g
Sugars
5 g
Protein
23 g
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