Catemaco Shredded Eel (Minilla de Anguila)

Ingredients

Equipment Needed

• •Wide pot for poaching the eel
• •Cast iron comal for toasting chiles
• •High-powered blender
• •Fine-mesh strainer
• •12-inch clay cazuela or heavy skillet

Instructions

1. 1

   Poach the eel

   Place the eel pieces in a wide pot with the hoja santa, epazote, half onion, 2 whole garlic cloves, bay leaf, salt, and enough water to cover by one inch. Bring to a gentle simmer and cook 18 to 22 minutes, until the flesh pulls from the bone but has not fallen apart. Do not boil it hard. Eel has fat and gelatin, and rough boiling makes the flesh ragged before you can shred it cleanly.

2. 2

   Cool and shred

   Lift the eel onto a tray and let it cool until you can handle it. Strain and reserve 1 cup of the poaching liquid. Pull the meat from the bones and skin, then shred it with your fingers into fine strands. Feel for pin bones as you work. This is the step the senoras do slowly, because nobody wants a bone hidden in a tortilla.

3. 3

   Toast the chiles

   Heat a dry comal over medium. Toast the chile ancho about 20 to 30 seconds per side, just until the skin softens and smells sweet. Toast the chile chipotle seco briefly, 10 to 15 seconds per side, because it is already smoked and turns bitter fast. Cover the chiles with hot water and soak 15 minutes.

   The ancho gives body and dark fruit flavor. The chipotle gives smoke and a little heat. If you use canned chipotle in adobo, you will get sweetness and vinegar that belong to a different guiso.
4. 4

   Blend the chile

   Drain the soaked chiles and blend them with 1/2 cup of the reserved eel poaching liquid until smooth. Strain through a fine-mesh sieve. Press hard on the solids and discard the skins. You want a dark red paste, not flakes of chile skin stuck to the eel.

5. 5

   Fry the sofrito

   Heat the aceite de oliva in a 12-inch clay cazuela or heavy skillet over medium heat. Add the chopped onion and cook 8 to 10 minutes, stirring often, until it turns translucent and sweet at the edges. Add the chopped garlic and cook 1 minute. Add the jitomate, tomato paste, and oregano. Cook 12 to 15 minutes, until the tomato loses its raw smell and the oil begins to show around the edges.

6. 6

   Reduce the minilla

   Stir in the strained chile paste and cook 5 minutes, scraping the bottom of the cazuela. Add the shredded eel, olives, capers, raisins, chopped jalapeno, escabeche brine, black pepper, and 1/2 cup of the reserved poaching liquid. Reduce the heat to medium-low and cook 20 to 25 minutes, stirring gently, until the mixture is moist but no longer watery. The raisins should plump, the olives should stay bright, and the eel should hold together in glossy strands.

7. 7

   Balance and rest

   Taste for salt, then stir in the lime juice. Let the minilla rest off the heat for 10 minutes. That rest matters. The sweet raisin, salty caper, tomato, chile, and eel need a few minutes to settle into one guiso instead of tasting like separate ingredients.

8. 8

   Serve Catemaco style

   Line a warm clay cazuela with fresh hoja santa leaves and spoon the minilla over them. Serve family-style with warm corn tortillas and black beans. Flour tortillas do not belong here. That is a northern tradition. Catemaco gives you corn, lake fish, acuyo, and beans. Así se hace y punto.

Chef Tips

• •If you cannot find anguila de Catemaco, ask a serious fishmonger for cleaned freshwater eel. If that fails, use robalo or sierra and call it minilla de pescado, not minilla de anguila. A substitution is a compromise, not an upgrade.
• •Use pimiento-stuffed green olives and real capers. Veracruz cooking carries the history of the port, and those salty, briny ingredients are not decoration. They are part of the structure.
• •Hoja santa, also called acuyo in Veracruz, should smell like anise, sassafras, and wet earth. If the leaves are blackened or tired, leave them out of the cooking water and use one fresh leaf only for serving.
• •The minilla should be spoonable but not soupy. If liquid gathers at the bottom of the cazuela, keep reducing. If it dries too far, add a spoonful of the reserved poaching liquid. Watch the pan, not the clock.
• •This is better the next day. Veracruz cooks know this. The raisins soften, the chile settles, and the eel tastes more deeply of the tomato and olive.

Advance Preparation

• •The eel can be poached, cleaned, and shredded one day ahead. Refrigerate it with a few spoonfuls of strained poaching liquid so it does not dry out.
• •The finished minilla keeps refrigerated for three days and improves overnight. Reheat gently in a cazuela with a splash of reserved poaching liquid or water.
• •Do not freeze this dish. The eel becomes cottony and the tomato base separates. Some foods are meant for the refrigerator, not the freezer.

Frequently Asked Questions

Nutrition Information

1 serving (about 410g)