Catemaco Shredded Eel (Minilla de Anguila)

Veracruz, Los Tuxtlas, Lake Catemaco. That is where this minilla lives. Not on the Gulf coast, not in a restaurant calling everything Veracruz-style because it found a jar of olives. Catemaco is freshwater, green hills, rain, acuyo leaves, black beans in the pot, and fish cooks who know how to make a second-day guiso taste better than the first-day meal.

Minilla is the Veracruz habit of taking cooked fish, shredding it fine, and stewing it with jitomate, onion, garlic, olives, capers, and raisins until it becomes something you can tuck into a tortilla, fill an empanada with, or spoon beside black beans. With anguila from Lake Catemaco, the flesh is richer than robalo or sierra. You need the acid of the tomato, the salt of the olive, the small sweetness of the raisin, and the dark base of chile ancho with a little chile chipotle seco. Not much. This dish is not about punishing anybody with heat.

I learned a version of this from a woman near the Catemaco market who cleaned the eel with the patience of someone who had done it since childhood. She used aceite de oliva, not manteca, because Veracruz has always cooked with one eye toward the port and one eye toward the milpa. She lined the serving cazuela with hoja santa. That leaf perfumes the eel without shouting over it. Cada estado, su propia cocina.

The work is in the shredding and the slow reduction. Do it carelessly and you get wet fish salad. Do it properly and the minilla turns glossy, dark red, sweet-salty, and firm enough to hold in a tortilla. La cocina no es decoracion, es trabajo.