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Ciudad de Mexico's rainy-season quesadilla, blue masa pressed by hand and folded around huitlacoche braised with epazote, garlic, and serrano, then fried in manteca until the crust crackles.
This is from Ciudad de Mexico. Specifically from the central markets, San Juan, Jamaica, La Merced, where the huitlacoche vendors set out wide enamel basins of the black corn fungus from June through September. Outside of the rainy season, you do not make this dish. Cook what the mercado is selling today, not what you wish were on the shelf.
Let me settle the argument before anyone in CDMX corrects you: a quesadilla in the capital does not require cheese. It requires masa folded around a filling, fried or comaled. Cheese is one option among many. Huitlacoche, flor de calabaza, picadillo, tinga, chicharron prensado, sesos. The chilangos will fight a tourist about this and the chilangos are right.
Huitlacoche itself was nearly lost to industrial agriculture, which treats the fungus as a disease of corn and breeds against it. In the United States it is still called corn smut and sprayed off the cob. In Mexico it is a delicacy and the rainy-season cooks build entire menus around it. Earthy, mushroomy, with a mineral sweetness no other ingredient gives you. The epazote is not garnish. Epazote and huitlacoche grow together in the milpa and they belong together on the comal. One without the other is half a dish.
My mother was not from Mexico City. She was from Jalisco. But she learned huitlacoche quesadillas from a neighbor in Colonia Roma, a senora from Tlalpan who would knock on the door in July with a paper bag of the black galls and say, ya llego el huitlacoche. My mother would press the masa and the neighbor would build the guisado and they would feed half the building. Saber cocinar es saber vivir.
Huitlacoche, from the Nahuatl 'cuitlacochi,' is a fungus (Ustilago maydis) that grows on the ears of corn during humid weather and was cultivated deliberately by pre-Columbian Mesoamerican farmers, who valued it alongside the corn itself. Spanish chroniclers in the 16th century recorded its consumption in the Valley of Mexico, though European agricultural science later classified it as a pathogen and US corn breeders spent the 20th century eliminating it from commercial varieties. The quesadilla-as-folded-masa tradition of central Mexico predates the introduction of European cheese and the word 'quesadilla' itself: chilangos retained the original definition, in which the filling, not the cheese, defines the dish, while the rest of the country adopted the cheese-required convention.
Quantity
1 pound
or 2 cans (7 ounces each) good Mexican huitlacoche
Quantity
3 tablespoons
Quantity
1/2 medium
finely diced
Quantity
3
finely minced
Quantity
2
finely chopped, seeds and all
Quantity
1 large bunch (about 1/2 cup packed)
roughly chopped
Quantity
1 teaspoon, plus more to taste
Quantity
2 cups
or 1 pound fresh blue masa from a tortilleria
Quantity
1 1/4 cups
if using masa harina
Quantity
1/2 teaspoon
Quantity
1/2 cup
Quantity
for serving
Quantity
for serving
Quantity
for serving
| Ingredient | Quantity |
|---|---|
| fresh huitlacocheor 2 cans (7 ounces each) good Mexican huitlacoche | 1 pound |
| manteca de cerdo (pork lard) | 3 tablespoons |
| white onionfinely diced | 1/2 medium |
| garlic clovesfinely minced | 3 |
| fresh chile serranofinely chopped, seeds and all | 2 |
| fresh epazote, leaves onlyroughly chopped | 1 large bunch (about 1/2 cup packed) |
| kosher salt | 1 teaspoon, plus more to taste |
| masa harina azul (blue corn masa flour)or 1 pound fresh blue masa from a tortilleria | 2 cups |
| warm waterif using masa harina | 1 1/4 cups |
| kosher salt for the masa | 1/2 teaspoon |
| manteca de cerdo, for frying | 1/2 cup |
| salsa verde cruda (optional) | for serving |
| crema mexicana (optional) | for serving |
| crumbled queso fresco (optional) | for serving |
If you have fresh huitlacoche from the mercado, pick through it on a wooden board. Pull off any pieces still attached to dry corn silk or husk. The dark gray-black galls are what you want, soft and slightly damp. Chop them into rough pieces about the size of a peso coin. Do not rinse them. Water washes the flavor straight down the drain. If you are using canned, drain off the brine but keep the liquor that clings to the kernels. That is concentrated huitlacoche flavor.
In a heavy 10-inch skillet or small cazuela, melt the 3 tablespoons of manteca over medium heat. Add the diced white onion and cook for 4 minutes, until soft and translucent but not browned. Add the garlic and the chopped serrano. Stir for 30 seconds, until the kitchen smells sharp and green. La manteca es el sabor, and right now it is the base of everything else.
Add the chopped huitlacoche to the pan with the salt. Stir to coat with the manteca and aromatics. Within two or three minutes the huitlacoche will start to release its black liquor. The pan will turn ink-black. This is correct. This is what huitlacoche does. Lower the heat to medium-low and cook, stirring occasionally, for 10 to 12 minutes, until most of the liquid has cooked off and the mixture looks glossy and thick. Stir in the chopped epazote during the last two minutes. Epazote loses its perfume if you cook it too long. Taste and adjust salt. Set aside off the heat.
If you bought fresh masa from a tortilleria, knead it briefly with the 1/2 teaspoon of salt and a tablespoon or two of warm water until it feels like soft clay. If you are working from masa harina azul, combine it with the salt in a large bowl, pour in the warm water, and knead with your hands for 3 to 4 minutes. The masa should be smooth, pliable, and just slightly tacky. Pinch a piece between your fingers. If it cracks at the edges, add water a teaspoon at a time. If it sticks to your palm, add a tablespoon of masa harina. Cover with a damp cloth and let it rest for 10 minutes. This rest is not optional. Hydrated corn flour needs time to relax or your tortillas will crack.
Divide the masa into 8 balls about the size of a small lime. Cut a quart-size plastic bag down the seams to make two flat squares, or use plastic wrap, and line both plates of a tortilla press. Place a ball of masa slightly off-center toward the hinge. Close the press and push the lever down firmly. The tortilla should be about 5 to 6 inches across and the thickness of a stack of three coins. Too thin and it will tear when you fold it. Too thick and the masa will not cook through before the outside browns.
Peel the top plastic off the pressed tortilla. Flip the tortilla onto your palm and peel off the second plastic. Place about 2 tablespoons of the huitlacoche guisado on one half of the round, leaving a half-inch border. Fold the empty half over the filling like a half-moon. Press the edges gently to seal. Do not overfill. A quesadilla that bursts in the manteca is a quesadilla that lost. Repeat with the remaining masa and filling, keeping the finished quesadillas under a damp cloth so they do not dry out.
In a deep heavy skillet or small cazuela, heat the 1/2 cup of manteca over medium-high heat until it shimmers, about 350F. A small piece of masa dropped in should sizzle steadily and rise to the surface within a few seconds. Slide two or three quesadillas at a time into the hot manteca. Fry for 2 minutes per side, turning once with a spider or slotted spatula. The blue masa will darken almost to black where it touches the fat, with crisp golden edges around the seal. Lift them out and drain on a wire rack set over a plate. Do not stack them. Stacking steams the crust soft. Así se hace y punto.
Pile the fried quesadillas on a warm clay platter. Set out the salsa verde cruda, crema, and crumbled queso fresco in small dishes. Each person spoons salsa and crema onto their own. Eat them with your hands while the masa is still crackling at the edges. A cold agua de jamaica on the table is the only other thing you need.
1 serving (about 290g)
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