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Ciudad de México's fonda standard: long corn tortillas rolled tight around shredded chicken, fried until dorada, and dressed with salsa verde, crema, queso fresco, and shredded lettuce. Eaten the moment they hit the plate.
Flautas live in the fondas of Ciudad de México. Every neighborhood has one, the small family-run comedor with three tables and a menu chalked on the wall, where the cook fries flautas to order between eleven and four and the diners eat them standing if the tables are full. This is comida corrida food. Working food. The midday plate that holds the city together.
The flauta is not the taco dorado. A taco dorado is a single round tortilla folded and fried. A flauta is long and thin, rolled from a long oval tortilla or from two regular tortillas overlapped, and it has to be skinny or it does not crisp properly. The name means flute. It should look like one. Fat flautas with too much filling are a beginner's mistake and you will see them on every Pinterest board claiming to be Mexican food. They are not what the fondas serve.
The filling is shredded poached chicken with a quick guisado of tomato and onion. Not raw chicken breast cubed and seasoned. Not rotisserie chicken pulled apart in chunks. Poached, shredded fine, cooked with the tomato until the moisture is gone. Wet filling steams the tortilla from the inside and you cannot fry your way out of that mistake. The dressing is what makes them flautas de fonda: salsa verde that is tart and hot, crema that cools it down, queso fresco that adds salt and a little crumble, lettuce that adds crunch, raw onion for bite. Five things. Five things in balance. My mother served them this way every time my cousins came over from Guadalajara, on the Talavera platters she brought from Puebla one summer, and she would tell us to eat them before the crema soaked through. Saber cocinar es saber vivir.
Flautas and tacos dorados share a common ancestor in the pre-Columbian practice of rolling tortillas around fillings, but the fried version as we know it emerged in central Mexico during the 19th century, when frying in lard became a defining technique of urban fonda cooking. Ciudad de México's fondas, the small family comedors that proliferated after the Revolution to feed a growing working class, codified the flauta as a midday plato fuerte topped with crema, queso fresco, and salsa verde, distinguishing them from Sinaloa's chimichangas and the northern states' fried burritos. The dish's signature dressing of crema and queso fresco reflects the dairy traditions of the central Mexican highlands, where Holstein and criollo cattle have been raised since the colonial period and where fresh cheeses are still produced daily in small operations across Estado de México and Hidalgo.
Quantity
1 1/2 pounds
Quantity
1/2 medium
Quantity
1/4
finely diced
Quantity
4
smashed
Quantity
2
Quantity
1 sprig
Quantity
1 tablespoon, plus more to taste
Quantity
2 tablespoons
Quantity
2
finely diced
Quantity
1
finely minced
Quantity
1/2 teaspoon
Quantity
18
or 18 fresh thin corn tortillas
Quantity
for securing
Quantity
4 cups
Quantity
1 pound
husked and rinsed
Quantity
3
stemmed
Quantity
2
peeled
Quantity
1/4
Quantity
1/2 cup
Quantity
1 cup
Quantity
1 cup
crumbled
Quantity
2 cups
finely shredded
Quantity
1/2
sliced into thin rings
Quantity
for serving
| Ingredient | Quantity |
|---|---|
| bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs and breasts | 1 1/2 pounds |
| white onion (for poaching) | 1/2 medium |
| white onion (for filling)finely diced | 1/4 |
| garlic clovessmashed | 4 |
| bay leaves | 2 |
| fresh epazote | 1 sprig |
| kosher salt | 1 tablespoon, plus more to taste |
| lard (manteca de cerdo) | 2 tablespoons |
| Roma tomatoesfinely diced | 2 |
| fresh chile serrano (for filling) (optional)finely minced | 1 |
| dried Mexican oregano | 1/2 teaspoon |
| long oval corn tortillas (tortillas para flauta)or 18 fresh thin corn tortillas | 18 |
| toothpicks | for securing |
| lard or neutral oil, for frying | 4 cups |
| tomatilloshusked and rinsed | 1 pound |
| fresh chiles serranos (for salsa)stemmed | 3 |
| garlic cloves (for salsa)peeled | 2 |
| white onion (for salsa) | 1/4 |
| fresh cilantro leaves and tender stems | 1/2 cup |
| Mexican crema | 1 cup |
| queso frescocrumbled | 1 cup |
| romaine lettucefinely shredded | 2 cups |
| white onion (for garnish)sliced into thin rings | 1/2 |
| pickled jalapeños and carrots (optional) | for serving |
Place the chicken in a pot with the half onion, smashed garlic, bay leaves, epazote, and salt. Cover with cold water by two inches. Bring to a gentle simmer over medium heat and skim the gray foam that rises in the first ten minutes. Cook at a lazy simmer for 30 to 35 minutes, until the meat pulls easily from the bone. Cold water and a slow simmer give you tender chicken and a clean broth. A hard boil gives you stringy meat and cloudy water.
Lift the chicken out and let it cool until you can handle it. Pull off the skin and discard the bones. Shred the meat with two forks or your fingers into thin, even strands. Even shreds roll tight. Chunks of chicken push the tortilla open and split it in the oil. La cocina no es decoración, es trabajo.
Heat the lard in a wide skillet over medium. Add the diced onion and cook until translucent, about three minutes. Add the diced tomato and the minced serrano if using. Cook until the tomato breaks down and most of the liquid has cooked off, about six minutes. Stir in the shredded chicken and the oregano. Salt to taste. The filling should be moist but not wet. If you can see liquid pooling, cook it down more. Wet filling means soggy flautas.
While the filling cools, put the tomatillos and serranos in a small pot with water to cover. Simmer for about eight minutes, until the tomatillos turn from bright to olive green and feel soft. Drain and transfer to a blender with the garlic, onion, cilantro, and a generous pinch of salt. Blend until smooth but not foamy. Taste. It should be tart, hot, and a little salty. A salsa verde that tastes timid will not stand up to crema and queso later.
Heat a comal over medium. Pass each tortilla over the comal for about ten seconds per side, just until pliable. A cold tortilla cracks when you roll it. A tortilla that has been warmed properly folds around the filling like cloth. Stack them under a clean kitchen towel so they stay soft while you work.
Lay a warm tortilla on the counter. Place about two tablespoons of filling in a line down the lower third. Roll tightly away from you into a thin cigar. Secure with a toothpick straight through the seam. Keep the rolls thin. A fat flauta will not crisp properly in the oil and the inside will still be pale when the outside is too dark. Repeat with the rest. Set them seam-side down on a tray so they do not unroll.
Heat the lard or oil in a deep heavy skillet to 350 degrees. If you have no thermometer, drop in a scrap of tortilla. It should bubble immediately and turn gold in about 20 seconds. Fry the flautas four or five at a time, seam-side down first, turning once, for about two to three minutes per side. They should turn deep golden and the bubbles around them should slow down. That is the water leaving the tortilla. When the bubbling quiets, the flauta is crisp through. Lift them out with tongs and drain on a wire rack set over a sheet pan. Never on paper towels. Paper traps steam and softens the bottom.
Pull the toothpicks. Lay three or four flautas on a plate over a bed of shredded lettuce. Spoon salsa verde generously across the middle, then drizzle with crema in a zigzag, then shower with crumbled queso fresco and a few onion rings. Eat them now. Flautas wait for nobody. The second the crema hits the crust, the clock is running. This is fonda food and fonda food is served the moment it is ready. Así se hace y punto.
1 serving (about 340g)
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