Molletes Capitalinos

Molletes are capitalinos. This is a Ciudad de Mexico dish, born in the cafeterias and fondas of the Centro Histórico where office workers, students, and grandmothers all order the same thing for breakfast or for a late merienda. There are mollete-like dishes in other parts of Mexico, but the version with bolillo, refried beans, melted cheese, and salsa mexicana on top is ours. The chilangos own this one.

The whole dish rests on the bolillo. Not a baguette. Not a hoagie roll. A bolillo, that crusty oval roll with a soft white crumb that you find at any panadería in the country and at every corner panadería in the capital. Day-old bread is better than fresh. The dryness gives the bread structure under the weight of the beans. The beans must be hot and spreadable, fried in lard the way frijoles refritos are supposed to be made, not the canned brick that someone scoops out of a tin. The cheese is queso manchego mexicano, which has nothing to do with Spanish manchego, or queso Chihuahua from the north. Both melt into the bubbling golden sheet that gives the mollete its identity. Yellow cheddar is a Tex-Mex error. Do not make it.

My mother kept a paper bag of bolillos on top of the refrigerator and when they went stale, she would split them open, smear the cut side with manteca, pile on whatever beans were left from the night before, and run them under the broiler. The pico de gallo was whatever the mercado had that morning. That is the soul of the dish. It is a way of using bread that has begun to harden and beans that have begun to thicken, and turning them into something that tastes like the city you live in. Cada estado, su propia cocina, y los molletes son del DF.