Nopales en su Madre Queretanos con Camarón

Querétaro's semidesierto, the dry country around Cadereyta de Montes, Tolimán, and Peñamiller, is where Nopales en su Madre belongs. Not the plaza version for visitors. The rancho version. Nopal, xoconostle, epazote, shrimp from the market, queso ranchero, and a horno de piedra that browns the top before the cactus loses its bite.

En su madre is literal. The tender nopalitos go back onto the larger penca, the mother pad, then into a barro cazuela with xoconostle pico de gallo, camarones, and cheese. The shrimp does not mean Querétaro has a coast. Please. It means the Bajío knows trade, feast days, and market discipline. A landlocked kitchen is not a poor kitchen.

The women who showed me this in Cadereyta worked the cactus like cloth: scrape the spines, score the paddles, cook off the baba, and never drown the nopal in tomato. The chile is fresh serrano. The herb for the cactus is epazote. The sour edge is xoconostle, and xoconostle is not regular tuna. Tuna is sweet. Xoconostle bites back.

Use a stone oven if you have one. If you don't, heat a baking stone hard and set a wide cazuela de barro over it. This dish needs fierce bottom heat, a little manteca de cerdo, and restraint. Cada estado, su propia cocina.