Chef Lupita
Atole Agrio de la Mixteca
Oaxaca's Mixteca region ferments nixtamalized masa for days until it turns tart and alive, then simmers it with piloncillo and canela into a thick, warm atole served at first light in clay.
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Entomatadas Oaxaqueñas con Quesillo
Created by
Oaxaca's weekday breakfast, corn tortillas dipped in a roasted tomato and smoked pasilla oaxaqueño salsa, filled with strings of quesillo, crowned with a fried egg, and finished with crema and queso fresco the way every fonda in the Valles Centrales serves them.
Breakfast & Brunch
Mexican
Weeknight
Comfort Food
Quick Meal
15 min
Active Time
25 min cook•40 min total
Yield4 servings (12 entomatadas)
This is Oaxaca's breakfast. Not the weekend mole, not the fiesta tamale. This is what a cook in the Valles Centrales makes on a Tuesday morning when the family needs to eat before work and school. Entomatadas: corn tortillas passed through a roasted tomato salsa, filled with quesillo, folded on a plate, and crowned with a fried egg. Thirty minutes from comal to table.
The salsa is where this stops being generic and starts being Oaxacan. One or two chile pasilla oaxaqueño, smoked over wood in the Mixe highlands, go onto the comal alongside the tomatoes. That smoky, fruity heat is the fingerprint of Oaxacan cooking. A toasted hoja de aguacate goes into the blender with everything else and gives the salsa an anise undertone that you will not find in entomatadas from any other state. These two ingredients, the smoked chile and the avocado leaf, are the line between entomatadas and Oaxacan entomatadas. Cada estado, su propia cocina.
The other thing that marks this dish is asiento. Not manteca de cerdo, not vegetable oil. Asiento is the dark, dense sediment that settles at the bottom of the pot when lard is rendered. It tastes like concentrated pork, smoky and rich, and Oaxacan cooks spread it on tlayudas, smear it on memelas, and use it the way French cooks use butter: on everything. You warm the tortillas in it before they go into the salsa. You fry the egg in it. The asiento gives a depth that clean lard does not, and clean lard gives a depth that vegetable oil never will. If you cannot find asiento, use manteca. It is a compromise, not an upgrade, but the dish will still work.
I collected this version from a señora who sold entomatadas from a clay comal outside the Mercado 20 de Noviembre in Oaxaca city. She pulled the quesillo into long strings, laid them across each tortilla, and folded them with a confidence that came from doing it ten thousand times. When I asked for her recipe, she told me the measurements in handfuls, not tablespoons. My mother would have understood perfectly. Saber cocinar es saber vivir.
Entomatadas belong to the pre-Columbian family of tortillas dressed in sauce, a daily practice documented in colonial-era sources alongside enchiladas (chile-sauced) and enfrijoladas (bean-sauced), with the name specifying the jitomate, the red tomato native to Mesoamerica, as the defining ingredient. Oaxaca's quesillo, a stretched-curd cheese whose origin is attributed to an accident in the town of Reyes Etla in the late 19th century when a young cheesemaker overheated her curds and discovered they could be pulled into long elastic ropes, became the filling that distinguished the Oaxacan version from entomatadas elsewhere in Mexico. The use of asiento, the dark pork-fat sediment rendered in the same regional fat economy that produces Oaxacan tasajo and cecina enchilada, further roots this breakfast dish in a specific culinary infrastructure that predates the industrial cooking oils which replaced lard across much of urban Mexico in the 20th century.
The technique, the tradition, and the story behind every dish.
Discover Culinary ExplorerIngredients
Roma tomatoes (jitomates guaje)
Quantity
6
dried chile pasilla oaxaqueño
Quantity
2
stemmed
garlic cloves
Quantity
2
unpeeled
white onion (for salsa)
Quantity
1/4 medium
dried avocado leaf (hoja de aguacate)
Quantity
1
kosher salt
Quantity
1/2 teaspoon, plus more to taste
corn tortillas
Quantity
12
asiento (or manteca de cerdo)
Quantity
4 tablespoons
quesillo
Quantity
10 ounces
pulled into long strings
large eggs
Quantity
4
Mexican crema
Quantity
1/3 cup
queso fresco
Quantity
1/4 cup
crumbled
white onion (for serving)
Quantity
1/2 medium
sliced into thin rings
| Ingredient | Quantity |
|---|---|
| Roma tomatoes (jitomates guaje) | 6 |
| dried chile pasilla oaxaqueñostemmed | 2 |
| garlic clovesunpeeled | 2 |
| white onion (for salsa) | 1/4 medium |
| dried avocado leaf (hoja de aguacate) | 1 |
| kosher salt | 1/2 teaspoon, plus more to taste |
| corn tortillas | 12 |
| asiento (or manteca de cerdo) | 4 tablespoons |
| quesillopulled into long strings | 10 ounces |
| large eggs | 4 |
| Mexican crema | 1/3 cup |
| queso frescocrumbled | 1/4 cup |
| white onion (for serving)sliced into thin rings | 1/2 medium |
Equipment Needed
- •Cast iron comal or heavy skillet for roasting
- •Blender
- •Wide skillet or clay cazuela for the salsa
- •Second skillet for warming tortillas and frying eggs
Instructions
- 1
Roast the tomatoes and chiles
Heat a dry comal or cast iron skillet over medium-high. Place the whole tomatoes, unpeeled garlic cloves, and quarter onion on the comal. Roast, turning occasionally with tongs, until the tomatoes are blackened in spots, blistered, and soft through, about 8 to 10 minutes. The garlic and onion should be charred on the cut sides. Add the stemmed pasilla oaxaqueño chiles for the last 2 minutes, pressing them flat against the comal and turning once. They will puff, darken, and release a smoky, fruity scent that fills the kitchen. Remove everything to a bowl. Peel the garlic.
The pasilla oaxaqueño is already smoked, so it needs less time on the comal than a raw dried chile. Two minutes is enough to wake the oils. Any longer and it turns acrid. Watch it. - 2
Toast the avocado leaf and blend
Hold the dried avocado leaf over the hot comal with tongs for five seconds per side. It will turn brittle and release a sharp anise scent. That scent is the flavor you are adding to the salsa. Crumble the toasted leaf into the blender jar. Add the roasted tomatoes with any juices from the bowl, peeled garlic, charred onion, the pasilla oaxaqueño chiles, and the salt. Blend until smooth. Taste it. The salsa should be bright from the tomato, smoky from the chile, with a quiet anise note underneath. Adjust salt now. If the blender struggles, add two tablespoons of water, no more.
Do not strain this salsa. It is a rustic breakfast sauce, not a fine-dining puree. The texture from the chile skins and the avocado leaf is part of it. - 3
Fry the salsa in asiento
Heat one tablespoon of asiento in a wide skillet or clay cazuela over medium heat. When the fat shimmers, pour in the blended salsa. It will sputter and pop, so stand back. Cook for five to seven minutes, stirring occasionally, until the salsa darkens a shade, thickens enough to coat the back of a wooden spoon, and the fat begins to pool at the edges. That color change is the sugars in the tomato concentrating. The asiento underneath gives the salsa a porky depth that oil never will. Reduce the heat to the lowest setting and keep the salsa warm while you work.
- 4
Warm the tortillas and fill
Heat one tablespoon of asiento in a separate skillet over medium. Warm each tortilla in the fat for about 15 seconds per side, just long enough to soften it and give it a faint sheen. Do not crisp them. Working one at a time, dip the warmed tortilla into the salsa, coating both sides. Lay it flat on a plate, place a small handful of quesillo strings across the center, and fold in half. Arrange three per plate, slightly overlapping. Spoon more warm salsa generously over the top. The tortillas should be sitting in sauce, not drying out.
Work quickly once you start dipping. A salsa-soaked tortilla that sits too long will fall apart in your hands. Dip, fill, fold, plate. That is your rhythm. - 5
Fry the eggs
Add the remaining tablespoon of asiento to the tortilla skillet over medium heat. Crack the eggs into the hot fat and fry until the whites are fully set and the edges are lacy and golden, but the yolks are still soft and runny, about two to three minutes. The asiento will give the egg whites a faint tint and a flavor that butter cannot replicate. This is how they fry eggs in Oaxacan fondas and there is a reason for it.
- 6
Plate and serve
Place one fried egg on top of each plate of entomatadas. Drizzle the crema across the plate in thin lines. Scatter the crumbled queso fresco over everything. Lay the raw white onion rings across the top. Serve immediately. The yolk should break when the diner cuts into it, running into the tomato salsa underneath. That is the moment the dish comes together. Recetas probadas y garantizadas.
Chef Tips
- •Quesillo is not mozzarella. They share a stretched-curd method, but the flavor is different: quesillo is milky, mild, and slightly salty, with a texture that melts into soft threads. If you cannot find it at a Mexican grocery store or online, fresh mozzarella is the closest substitute, but I will tell you what you are missing: that clean, lactic Oaxacan flavor that comes from the highland milk and the hand-pulling. A substitution is a compromise, not an upgrade.
- •Asiento is sold at every market in Oaxaca in small plastic bags or clay pots. Outside Oaxaca, you will have to make your own: render pork fat slowly over low heat, let it cool, and scrape the dark layer that settles at the bottom. That is your asiento. It keeps in the refrigerator for weeks. If you do not have it, use manteca de cerdo. Do not use vegetable oil. La manteca es el sabor.
- •Do not confuse the pasilla oaxaqueño with the pasilla negro (chile negro) from central Mexico. They are different chiles. The Oaxacan one is smoked, fruity, and has a moderate heat that builds slowly. If you cannot find it, a small piece of chipotle morita can approximate the smokiness, but the flavor profile will shift. Know what you are trading.
- •The avocado leaf used in Oaxacan cooking comes from the Mexican native avocado (Persea drymifolia), not from the Hass avocado tree. Hass avocado leaves are not safe for cooking. Dried Mexican avocado leaves are available at Mexican markets and from online spice vendors. If you cannot find them, leave them out entirely rather than guessing at a substitute. The dish will be good. It will not be complete.
Advance Preparation
- •The tomato salsa can be roasted, blended, and fried up to two days ahead. Refrigerate it in a sealed container and reheat gently over low heat before assembling. The smoky flavor from the pasilla oaxaqueño only deepens overnight.
- •Quesillo keeps well wrapped tightly in plastic in the refrigerator for up to a week. Pull it into strings just before assembling, not ahead of time, or it dries out.
- •The tortillas, eggs, and assembly must be done at serving time. Entomatadas that sit become soggy. This is a dish you finish at the stove and carry straight to the table.
Frequently Asked Questions
Nutrition Information
1 serving (about 380g)
Calories
655 calories
Total Fat
40 g
Saturated Fat
19 g
Trans Fat
0 g
Unsaturated Fat
21 g
Cholesterol
255 mg
Sodium
790 mg
Total Carbohydrates
46 g
Dietary Fiber
8 g
Sugars
6 g
Protein
30 g
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