Huevos Encamisados Poblanos

This is from Puebla. Not the city, the campo. The small towns and ranches outside the capital, where a woman feeding a family before dawn does not have time for separate pans and separate plates. The tortilla is already on the comal. The egg goes inside it. The salsa is already simmering. Breakfast is on the table in fifteen minutes and nothing is wasted.

Encamisado means dressed in a shirt. That is exactly what the masa does. You crack the egg onto a half-cooked tortilla, fold the masa over the yolk like you are buttoning a shirt around it, and finish the package on the comal. The white sets inside the tortilla. The yolk stays soft if you pull it at the right moment. The chile pasilla salsa goes on top. Queso fresco, a few leaves of epazote, refried black beans on the side. That is the dish.

This is campo food, which means it is honest food. The masa has to be the right hydration or the tortilla tears the moment the egg goes in. The comal has to be hot enough to set the bottom but not so hot that the masa burns before the egg cooks. The fold has to be quick. Cooks in the small towns around Cholula and Atlixco do this without thinking. You will fumble the first two. The third one will work. By the fifth you will understand why the women in the campo never bothered to write the recipe down.

My mother did not make encamisados. She was from Jalisco. I learned this dish from a woman named Doña Rosalba in a kitchen outside Atlixco who pressed the tortillas with her hands while telling me her husband would not eat eggs any other way. She did not own a tortilla press. She did not need one. Saber cocinar es saber vivir.