Chef Lupita
Aporreado Costeño Guerrerense
Guerrero's Costa Chica cooks dry their cattle into cecina, pound it to fibers on a stone, and stew it slow in chile costeño and epazote. The Afro-Mexican noon meal, built on lard, no eggs in this one.
Culinary Explorer
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Mojarra Frita Costeña con Plátano y Arroz
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The everyday plate of the Costa Chica, the Afro-Mexican coast of Guerrero and Oaxaca: a whole lagoon mojarra fried until the skin cracks, fanned with caramelized plátano macho, white rice, and salsa de chile costeño.
Main Dishes
Mexican
Weeknight
Quick Meal
Comfort Food
30 min
Active Time
45 min cook•1 hr 15 min total
Yield4 servings
Start on the Costa Chica, the stretch of Pacific coast that runs from southern Guerrero into western Oaxaca. Cuajinicuilapa on the Guerrero side. Pinotepa Nacional and the lagoons of Chacahua and Corralero on the Oaxaca side. This is the home of Mexico's tercera raíz, the African root that colonial Mexico planted on this coast and then spent four hundred years pretending it could not see. La tercera raíz no es nota al pie. Es plato principal. This fish plate is everyday food here, what a fishing family eats when the boats come in.
The mojarra comes out of the lagoon, most often tilapia these days, and it goes into the fat whole: scored, salted, fried until the skin cracks and the fins go crisp enough to eat. Next to it, two things that tell you exactly where you are. Plátano macho maduro, fried in manteca until the edges caramelize black-gold. Plain white arroz blanco. And the salsa is built on chile costeño, the small fruity chile of this coast and nowhere else. Name it. Do not call it 'a dried chile.' On the Costa Chica the chile has a name and the name is costeño.
The frying is the African inheritance on the plate. The same habit that fries plantain across the Caribbean and West Africa fries it here, in manteca, without apology. La manteca es el sabor. Get the technique right and the rest takes care of itself. Dry the fish until it is truly dry. Score it to the bone. Bring the fat up to heat before the fish goes in, then leave it alone and let it crisp. No me vengas con atajos. There is no shortcut to a crackling skin.
I learned this plate in a palm-roof palapa outside Chacahua, from a cook who fried mojarra over a wood fire all afternoon and slid each one onto a speckled peltre plate without once checking a clock. She knew by the sound. You will get there too. Cada estado, su propia cocina, and this coast guards its own.
The Costa Chica's Afro-Mexican communities descend from enslaved Africans brought to the Pacific coast during the colonial period to work cattle ranches and coastal estates, with towns like Cuajinicuilapa becoming centers of Afromestizo life. Recognition came late: the federal Nuestra Tercera Raíz project of the early 1990s began documenting this heritage, Oaxaca acknowledged its Afro-Mexican population in the state constitution in 2013 and Guerrero in 2014, but the group was not named in Article 2 of the federal Constitution until 2019, nor counted in the national census until 2020. The plate itself carries that history in its ingredients: plátano macho reached the Americas through the colonial Atlantic trade tied to African foodways, and the tilapia that fills the lagoons today is itself an African fish, introduced to Mexican waters for aquaculture in the 1960s.
The technique, the tradition, and the story behind every dish.
Discover Culinary ExplorerIngredients
whole mojarra or tilapia
Quantity
4 (about 1 pound each)
scaled and gutted
limes
Quantity
3
juiced, plus lime halves to serve
garlic
Quantity
4 cloves
mashed to a paste
kosher salt
Quantity
2 teaspoons, plus more for finishing
all-purpose flour (optional)
Quantity
1/2 cup
for dusting
manteca de cerdo or neutral oil
Quantity
3 to 4 cups
for frying the fish
long-grain white rice
Quantity
1 1/2 cups
manteca de cerdo (for the rice)
Quantity
2 tablespoons
white onion (for the rice)
Quantity
1/4
garlic (for the rice)
Quantity
1 clove
hot water
Quantity
3 cups
serrano chile (optional)
Quantity
1, whole
kosher salt (for the rice)
Quantity
1 1/2 teaspoons
ripe plátano macho
Quantity
3
skins yellow to black
manteca de cerdo (for the plátanos)
Quantity
1/4 cup
chile costeño rojo
Quantity
8
stemmed
Roma tomatoes (jitomate)
Quantity
3
garlic (for the salsa)
Quantity
2 cloves
unpeeled
kosher salt (for the salsa)
Quantity
1/2 teaspoon, or to taste
water
Quantity
1/4 cup
as needed for the salsa
white onion (optional)
Quantity
1/2
thinly sliced, to serve
hand-pressed corn tortillas (optional)
Quantity
for serving
warmed
cucumber and tomato (optional)
Quantity
for serving
sliced
| Ingredient | Quantity |
|---|---|
| whole mojarra or tilapiascaled and gutted | 4 (about 1 pound each) |
| limesjuiced, plus lime halves to serve | 3 |
| garlicmashed to a paste | 4 cloves |
| kosher salt | 2 teaspoons, plus more for finishing |
| all-purpose flour (optional)for dusting | 1/2 cup |
| manteca de cerdo or neutral oilfor frying the fish | 3 to 4 cups |
| long-grain white rice | 1 1/2 cups |
| manteca de cerdo (for the rice) | 2 tablespoons |
| white onion (for the rice) | 1/4 |
| garlic (for the rice) | 1 clove |
| hot water | 3 cups |
| serrano chile (optional) | 1, whole |
| kosher salt (for the rice) | 1 1/2 teaspoons |
| ripe plátano machoskins yellow to black | 3 |
| manteca de cerdo (for the plátanos) | 1/4 cup |
| chile costeño rojostemmed | 8 |
| Roma tomatoes (jitomate) | 3 |
| garlic (for the salsa)unpeeled | 2 cloves |
| kosher salt (for the salsa) | 1/2 teaspoon, or to taste |
| wateras needed for the salsa | 1/4 cup |
| white onion (optional)thinly sliced, to serve | 1/2 |
| hand-pressed corn tortillas (optional)warmed | for serving |
| cucumber and tomato (optional)sliced | for serving |
Equipment Needed
- •Wide heavy skillet or clay cazuela for frying the fish
- •Wide metal fish spatula and a spider skimmer
- •Comal or heavy dry skillet for toasting the chiles and tomatoes
- •Volcanic stone molcajete
- •Wire rack set over a sheet pan for draining
Instructions
- 1
Clean and score the fish
Scale and gut the mojarra if your pescadería has not, then rinse under cold water and pat them very dry, inside and out. Cut three diagonal slashes on each side, down to the bone. The scores let the heat reach the thick part of the fish so the flesh cooks through while the skin crisps. Dry fish is the whole game here. A wet fish steams instead of frying, it sticks to the pan, and it throws hot fat across your stove.
Leave the heads on. They hold flavor, they are how the coast serves it, and the cheeks are the cook's quiet reward while everyone else waits for the platter. - 2
Season the fish
Mash the garlic with the salt into a rough paste and rub it into the slashes and the belly cavity. Squeeze the lime over both sides. Let the fish sit fifteen minutes while you start the rice. Just before frying, pat the surface dry one more time, and if you want extra crackle, dust each fish lightly with flour and shake off what does not cling. The coast does it both ways. Floured or bare, the rule does not change: dry fish, hot fat.
- 3
Cook the arroz blanco
Rinse the rice in a few changes of cold water until the water runs nearly clear, then drain it well. Melt the manteca in a pot over medium heat, add the rice with the quarter onion and the garlic clove, and stir until the grains turn chalky white and smell toasted, about four minutes. Pour in the hot water, add the salt and the whole serrano, and bring to a boil. Cover, drop the heat to low, and cook eighteen minutes without lifting the lid. Pull it off the heat and let it rest, still covered, ten minutes. Fluff with a fork and discard the onion and serrano.
- 4
Make the salsa de chile costeño
Heat a dry comal over medium. Toast the chiles costeños just until they turn fragrant and a shade darker, ten to fifteen seconds a side. Watch them every second. The costeño is thin and hot and it goes from toasted to burnt faster than you can turn around, and burnt chile is bitter chile. Pull them off. On the same comal, char the tomatoes and the unpeeled garlic until blackened in spots and soft. Peel the garlic. Grind everything in the molcajete with the salt and just enough water to loosen it into a coarse salsa. Taste for salt.
If you truly cannot find chile costeño, two chiles de árbol with one guajillo will get you close on heat and color, but the costeño carries a fruitiness the árbol does not. A substitution is a compromise, not an upgrade. - 5
Fry the plátanos in manteca
Peel the plátanos and slice them on a long bias, about half an inch thick. Melt the manteca in a skillet over medium heat. Fry the slices until the edges turn deep gold and caramelize, about two minutes a side. They should be soft inside and sticky-sweet at the edges. Drain on a rack or a plate. This is where you do not negotiate the fat. The plátano macho fries in manteca, never oil. La manteca es el sabor.
- 6
Fry the fish
In a wide heavy skillet or cazuela, heat the manteca or oil to 350F, about an inch deep, until it shimmers and a wooden spoon handle sends up a steady stream of small bubbles. Lay one fish in at a time, away from you. Do not crowd the pan and do not move the fish. Let it fry undisturbed five to seven minutes, until the underside is deep golden and the fins have gone crisp, then turn it once with a wide spatula and fry the other side. Lift it out, let it drain on a rack, and salt it the moment it comes out of the fat. Fry the rest in batches, letting the fat come back to temperature between each one.
Test with a corner of one fish or a cube of bread. If it browns in about a minute, the fat is ready. Too cool and the fish drinks the fat and turns greasy. Too hot and the skin burns before the inside cooks. - 7
Plate and serve
Lay each fish on a peltre platter with a mound of white rice and a fan of fried plátano beside it. Spoon the salsa de chile costeño over the fish or set it alongside in the molcajete. Add lime halves, sliced raw onion, and a stack of warm corn tortillas. Eat it right away, while the skin still cracks under your fork. Fried fish keeps for no one. Saber cocinar es saber vivir.
Chef Tips
- •Chile costeño is the chile of this coast, a small red chile grown around the Costa Chica of Guerrero and Oaxaca. Look for it at Mexican markets with a good dried-chile selection, or from oaxaqueño and guerrerense vendors online. If you cannot find it, two chiles de árbol with one guajillo will get you close on heat and color, but the costeño carries a fruitiness the árbol does not. A substitution is a compromise, not an upgrade.
- •Dry fish, hot fat. Pat the mojarra bone-dry before it goes near the pan and bring the fat up to a true 350F. A wet fish in cool fat steams, sticks, and drinks the oil until it turns greasy. A dry fish in hot fat crisps in minutes.
- •The plátano macho has to be ripe, skins gone yellow to black, or it will not caramelize. And fry it in manteca, not oil. This is the African frying habit that built this coast's cooking, and the flavor is not the same in anything else. La manteca es el sabor.
- •If you can fry the fish in manteca instead of oil, do it. The volume is more than the plátanos need, so most home cooks reach for oil, but a mojarra fried in lard tastes of this coast in a way oil never will.
Advance Preparation
- •The salsa de chile costeño can be made a day ahead. It keeps refrigerated and the flavor settles and deepens overnight.
- •The arroz blanco can be cooked an hour or two ahead, kept covered off the heat, and fluffed just before serving.
- •Fry the fish and the plátanos at the last minute. A fried mojarra holds its crackle for no one, and reheating gives you a soft, sad fish. The crisp is the whole point, so eat it the moment it leaves the fat.
Frequently Asked Questions
Nutrition Information
1 serving (about 680g)
Calories
1110 calories
Total Fat
41 g
Saturated Fat
12 g
Trans Fat
0 g
Unsaturated Fat
25 g
Cholesterol
150 mg
Sodium
2380 mg
Total Carbohydrates
137 g
Dietary Fiber
8 g
Sugars
25 g
Protein
51 g
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