Cocadas Oaxaqueñas

Ingredients

Equipment Needed

• •Heavy 4-quart saucepan or clay cazuela
• •Box grater or food processor
• •Sturdy wooden spoon
• •Heavy sheet pan
• •Banana leaves (or parchment paper)
• •Two soup spoons for shaping the mounds

Instructions

1. 1

   Open the coconut

   Pierce the soft eye of the coconut with a screwdriver and drain the water into a bowl. Save it. You will use a few tablespoons later. Crack the shell with the back of a heavy knife or a hammer, working around the equator until it splits. Pry the white meat out in pieces with a paring knife. Peel off the brown skin if you want a paler cocada, leave it on if you want flecks of color and more flavor. Both are correct in Oaxaca.

   Use a fresh mature coconut, not the dry shredded coconut from a bag. Bagged coconut is sweetened and stripped of its oil. The cocada will not set the same way and the flavor will read flat. No me vengas con atajos.
2. 2

   Shred the meat

   Shred the coconut on the medium holes of a box grater, or pulse it in a food processor until it looks like coarse snow. You want texture, not paste. The cocada needs the strands to hold its shape on the tray. Measure four packed cups.

3. 3

   Build the milk and sugar base

   In a heavy 4-quart saucepan or a clay cazuela, combine the whole milk, condensed milk, sugar, cinnamon stick, salt, and three tablespoons of the reserved coconut water. Bring to a gentle simmer over medium heat, stirring with a wooden spoon. Once the sugar dissolves, lower the heat and let the mixture cook for about ten minutes, until it just begins to thicken and you can see the bottom of the pot for a moment when you drag the spoon through. La cocina no es decoracion, es trabajo. This is patience work.

4. 4

   Add the coconut and cook it down

   Stir in the shredded coconut. Cook over low heat, stirring often with a wooden spoon, for 25 to 35 minutes. The mixture will go from soupy to glossy to thick. You are ready when you can drag the spoon across the bottom and see a clear path that holds for a few seconds before closing back. The mixture should mound on the spoon and not run. This slow reduction is the convent technique. The Dominican nuns of Oaxaca worked sugar like this for centuries before there were thermometers.

   Stir from the bottom and into the corners. Sugar burns silently. The moment you smell anything bitter, you have lost it and there is no recovering.
5. 5

   Temper the yolks

   Pull the pot off the heat. Fish out the cinnamon stick. Whisk a ladle of the hot coconut mixture slowly into the beaten yolks to warm them, then pour the tempered yolks back into the pot, stirring constantly. Return the pot to low heat for two more minutes. The yolks tighten the mixture and give the cocada that pale gold center the senoras at the dulcerias around the Zocalo are known for. Stir in the vanilla.

6. 6

   Color the top, if traditional

   If you want the classic two-tone cocada you see at Mercado 20 de Noviembre, scoop out about a third of the mixture into a separate bowl and tint it pale pink with cochineal or natural coloring. Cochineal is the historical Oaxacan dye, the same one that colored the wool of the Spanish empire. Use it if you can find it. The rest stays its natural pale gold.

7. 7

   Shape the mounds

   Heat the oven to 325F. Line a heavy sheet pan with banana leaves wiped clean, or with parchment if banana is out of season. Using two soup spoons, drop generous mounds of the gold mixture onto the pan, about two inches across, leaving an inch between each. Press a small spoonful of the pink mixture onto the top of each mound. Do not flatten them. Cocadas should look like small domes.

8. 8

   Bake until the edges brown

   Bake for 18 to 22 minutes, until the edges of the coconut strands turn deep gold and the pink tops set with just a touch of color at the peaks. The center should still feel slightly soft when you press it. The cocadas firm up as they cool. Pull them too early and they collapse. Leave them too long and they go dry and chewy. Watch them in the last five minutes. Asi se hace y punto.

9. 9

   Cool and store

   Let the cocadas cool completely on the pan. They will lift cleanly off the banana leaf or parchment once they are room temperature. Store in a tin or a clay jar with a lid. They keep for a week and the texture only improves after the first day, when the sugar settles and the coconut tightens. Saber cocinar es saber vivir.

Chef Tips

• •Find a fresh mature coconut at a Mexican market or a Caribbean grocery. Shake it. You should hear water sloshing inside. A coconut with no water is old and dry and will give you a sad cocada.
• •Cochineal is sold as grana cochinilla in Oaxacan markets and through specialty Mexican food suppliers. It is the historically correct color. If you cannot find it, use a few drops of natural beet-based coloring. Skip artificial red dye number 40. The cocada deserves better.
• •Banana leaves give the cocadas a faint green-tea note on the bottom that parchment cannot match. If your local Mexican or Asian market carries them frozen, thaw them, wipe them clean, and pass them briefly over a flame to soften. If not, parchment works. A compromise, not an upgrade.
• •Watch the sugar reduction. The line between a cocada that mounds and a cocada that runs flat is about three minutes of cooking. Keep stirring and trust your eyes.

Advance Preparation

• •Cocadas keep for a week stored in a tin or a sealed clay jar at room temperature. The texture deepens after the first day as the sugar settles.
• •The shredded coconut and the milk-sugar reduction can be prepared one day ahead and combined the next morning before baking.
• •Cocadas travel well, which is why they are picnic and Day of the Dead ofrenda staples across Oaxaca. Pack them in a tin between layers of waxed paper.

Frequently Asked Questions

Nutrition Information

1 serving (about 40g)