Huevos con Chapulines y Quesillo

Ingredients

Equipment Needed

• •Wide cast iron skillet or clay comal for toasting and scrambling
• •Wooden spoon or heat-resistant spatula
• •Green-glazed Atzompa clay plate or barro negro plate for serving
• •Comal for warming tortillas

Instructions

1. 1

   Pull the quesillo

   Take the ball of quesillo and pull it apart into long, thin ribbons the way the quesilleras in Etla do: peel it along its natural grain, strand by strand, until you have a loose tangle of cheese strings. Do not chop it. Do not shred it. The uneven ribbons are the point. Some will melt into the eggs. Some will stretch when you lift a forkful. Set the ribbons aside on a plate.

   Good quesillo should pull apart easily into long strings and smell fresh, like warm milk. If it crumbles or smells sour, it is past its day. Mozzarella fresca is not a substitute. It melts differently and tastes like nothing. If you cannot find quesillo, this dish waits until you can.
2. 2

   Toast the chapulines

   Heat the asiento in a wide skillet or on a comal over medium heat. When the fat is hot and shimmering, add the garlic and stir for fifteen seconds, just until it smells sharp. Add the chapulines in a single layer. Toss them in the fat for two to three minutes. They will darken from dusty brown to brick-red and the kitchen will smell nutty, toasted, faintly smoky from the asiento. Squeeze the lime juice over them and toss once more. The lime sizzles on contact. Season with a pinch of salt. Transfer half the chapulines to a small bowl and set aside for garnish. Leave the rest in the skillet.

   Use chapulines chicos, the smallest size. The large ones have legs that catch between your teeth and a chewiness that fights the soft eggs. The small ones are all crunch, all flavor, and they disappear into the scramble the way they should.
3. 3

   Beat and season the eggs

   Crack the eggs into a bowl. Add a pinch of salt and the torn epazote leaves if using. Beat with a fork until the yolks and whites are just combined. Do not overbeat. You are not making an omelet. You want streaks of white and yellow visible in the bowl. That unevenness gives the scramble texture.

4. 4

   Scramble with the chapulines

   Return the skillet with the remaining chapulines to medium-low heat. If the pan looks dry, add another half tablespoon of asiento. Pour in the beaten eggs. Let them sit untouched for twenty seconds until the edges barely begin to set. Then push them gently with a wooden spoon or spatula, folding the cooked edges toward the center in slow, wide strokes. You are not stirring. You are folding. The chapulines will distribute through the curds as you work. Keep the heat low. Scrambled eggs cooked fast over high heat turn rubbery and dry. This takes patience. Three minutes of slow folding.

   Pull the pan off the heat while the eggs still look slightly underdone and wet. They will continue to cook from residual heat for another thirty seconds. If they look done in the pan, they are overdone on the plate.
5. 5

   Fold in the quesillo

   When the eggs are soft, creamy, and just barely set, scatter the quesillo ribbons across the top. Fold them in with two or three gentle strokes. No more. The cheese should soften and begin to melt from the heat of the eggs but not disappear entirely. You want visible strings of quesillo pulling through the curds when you serve. Remove from heat immediately.

6. 6

   Plate and serve

   Spoon the eggs onto a warm clay plate or green-glazed Atzompa dish. Scatter the reserved toasted chapulines over the top so they sit on the surface, visible and crisp. Serve with a generous mound of frijoles negros refritos, a stack of warm hand-pressed tortillas, and salsa de pasilla oaxaqueno on the side. This is a breakfast that does not wait. Eat it the moment it leaves the comal. Asi se hace y punto.

Chef Tips

• •Asiento is the dark pork fat sediment that collects at the bottom of the cazo where chicharron is fried. In Oaxaca, it is sold at every market by the chicharroneros, scooped into plastic bags still warm. It has a deeper, smokier, more complex flavor than clean manteca de cerdo. If you are outside Oaxaca and cannot find it, use manteca de cerdo. It is a compromise. A good one, but a compromise. Do not use vegetable oil. The pork fat is not optional in this dish.
• •If you buy your chapulines already toasted and seasoned from a market vendor or an online source, skip the toasting step and just warm them briefly in the asiento with garlic before adding the eggs. Taste one first. If they are already salted and limed, adjust accordingly. Preguntale a las senoras del mercado: they will tell you exactly how their chapulines were prepared.
• •The epazote is not decoration. In Oaxaca, a few torn leaves go into eggs, beans, quesadillas, anything cooked with cheese or corn. It has a resinous, slightly medicinal flavor that rounds out the richness of the asiento and the quesillo. If you cannot find fresh epazote, leave it out entirely. Dried epazote has lost most of what makes it worth using.
• •For the frijoles negros on the side, cook dried black beans from Oaxaca with epazote, white onion, and salt, then refry them in asiento until they form a thick, creamy paste that holds its shape on the plate. Canned black beans refried in vegetable oil are not frijoles oaxaquenos. They are not even close.

Advance Preparation

• •The chapulines can be toasted in asiento with garlic and lime up to two days ahead and stored in an airtight container at room temperature. They stay crisp. Warm them briefly in the skillet before adding eggs.
• •The frijoles negros refritos can be made three days ahead and refrigerated. Reheat in a small saucepan with a splash of bean broth or water, stirring until creamy again.
• •The quesillo ribbons can be pulled apart up to one hour ahead and kept covered at room temperature. Do not refrigerate them once pulled or they will dry out and lose their stretch.
• •The eggs cannot be made ahead. Scramble them the moment you are ready to sit down. Cold scrambled eggs are not food.

Frequently Asked Questions

Nutrition Information

1 serving (about 195g)