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Revoltijo de Romeritos con Tortitas de Camarón
Created by
Mexico City's Christmas Eve and Lenten cazuela of wild romeritos greens, nopales, and potatoes drowned in mole poblano, with crisp dried-shrimp fritters folded through at the last minute.
Main Dishes
Mexican
Christmas
Holiday
Easter
45 min
Active Time
1 hr 15 min cook•2 hr total
Yield8 servings
Revoltijo is Ciudad de México's dish. Specifically a centro and Estado de México dish, and it lives on two tables every year: Nochebuena and Viernes Santo. If you grew up in the capital, you know the smell, mole frying in lard, the wet green tang of romeritos coming out of the colander, the salty brine of camarón seco being ground in a molcajete. That smell is December.
The romeritos themselves are the heart of it. They are not rosemary, despite the name, and they are not spinach. They are a wild, succulent, salty-leaved plant (Suaeda torreyana) that grows around the salt flats of the central valleys and shows up at the mercado from late November through Easter. Their season is the dish's season. When the romeritos are gone, the dish is gone. Mexican grandmothers cook with what the mercado is selling today.
My mother was from Jalisco and she did not grow up with revoltijo. She married into it. Her notebook has a page with my paternal grandmother's instructions copied in pencil, including a note in the margin that says 'no escatimes en el camarón seco', do not skimp on the dried shrimp. She was right. The ground camarón seco is what seasons the mole. It is the salt, the umami, the thread that ties the wild greens to the chiles to the fritters. Without it, you have mole with vegetables. With it, you have revoltijo.
This is a fasting dish that does not taste like a fasting dish. The Church forbade meat during Lent and on Christmas Eve vigil, so the cooks of central Mexico built a plate around shrimp, eggs, and wild greens that is richer and more layered than most meat dishes will ever be. Saber cocinar es saber vivir, especially when the calendar tells you what you cannot eat.
Revoltijo is the colonial-era fusion of pre-Columbian and Iberian fasting traditions, born in the kitchens of central New Spain where the indigenous mole, romeritos (called 'romerillos' in 16th-century chronicles), and nopal met the Spanish liturgical calendar's prohibition on meat during Advent and Lent. The dried shrimp came from the salt-cured fisheries of the Pacific and Gulf coasts, traded inland for centuries before Spanish contact and adopted into the Catholic fasting repertoire because shrimp, classified as a fish, was permitted on vigil days. The dish's name, from the Spanish 'revolver' (to stir together), refers to the way the cook folds everything into a single cazuela at the end, a method documented in 19th-century Mexico City cookbooks as the defining preparation of Christmas Eve and Holy Week in the capital.
The technique, the tradition, and the story behind every dish.
Discover Culinary ExplorerIngredients
fresh romeritos
Quantity
2 pounds
thick stems removed, washed in three changes of water
nopales
Quantity
3 medium
despined and diced into 1/2-inch pieces
yellow waxy potatoes
Quantity
4 medium
peeled and cut into 3/4-inch chunks
mole poblano paste
Quantity
1 1/2 cups
homemade or a serious brand like Mayordomo or Don Pancho
chicken broth
Quantity
5 cups
warmed
manteca de cerdo (pork lard)
Quantity
3 tablespoons
white onion
Quantity
1/2 medium
garlic cloves
Quantity
2
kosher salt
Quantity
to taste
dried shrimp (camarón seco)
Quantity
4 ounces
heads and tails removed for the fritters
additional dried shrimp
Quantity
1 ounce
ground to a powder for the broth
large eggs
Quantity
4
separated, at room temperature
all-purpose flour
Quantity
2 tablespoons
neutral oil
Quantity
for frying the tortitas
toasted sesame seeds (optional)
Quantity
for serving
hand-pressed corn tortillas (optional)
Quantity
for serving
| Ingredient | Quantity |
|---|---|
| fresh romeritosthick stems removed, washed in three changes of water | 2 pounds |
| nopalesdespined and diced into 1/2-inch pieces | 3 medium |
| yellow waxy potatoespeeled and cut into 3/4-inch chunks | 4 medium |
| mole poblano pastehomemade or a serious brand like Mayordomo or Don Pancho | 1 1/2 cups |
| chicken brothwarmed | 5 cups |
| manteca de cerdo (pork lard) | 3 tablespoons |
| white onion | 1/2 medium |
| garlic cloves | 2 |
| kosher salt | to taste |
| dried shrimp (camarón seco)heads and tails removed for the fritters | 4 ounces |
| additional dried shrimpground to a powder for the broth | 1 ounce |
| large eggsseparated, at room temperature | 4 |
| all-purpose flour | 2 tablespoons |
| neutral oil | for frying the tortitas |
| toasted sesame seeds (optional) | for serving |
| hand-pressed corn tortillas (optional) | for serving |
Equipment Needed
- •Wide 12-inch clay cazuela or heavy enameled pot
- •Volcanic stone molcajete or spice grinder for the dried shrimp
- •Stand mixer or electric hand mixer for the egg whites
- •Cast iron skillet for frying the tortitas
- •Wooden spoon and rubber spatula
Instructions
- 1
Clean the romeritos
Romeritos hold dirt like nothing else in the mercado. Pick through the bunches and pull off any woody stems, keeping the tender green needles and the soft side shoots. Submerge them in a large bowl of cold water, swish, and lift them out into a colander. Do this three times until the water at the bottom of the bowl is clean. If you skip this step, you will eat grit. There is no recovering from it later.
If romeritos are not at your mercado, do not substitute spinach. Spinach is not romeritos. Wait until you find the real thing. The season runs from late November through Easter in central Mexico. - 2
Cook the nopales
Place the diced nopales in a pot with cold water to cover, a quarter onion, one garlic clove, and a teaspoon of salt. Bring to a boil and cook for 12 to 15 minutes, until tender and the slime is gone. Drain in a colander, rinse with cold water, and shake dry. Cooking them separately is the difference between clean nopales and a slimy pot.
- 3
Boil the potatoes and blanch the romeritos
In a second pot of well-salted boiling water, cook the potato chunks until just tender, about 10 minutes. Lift them out with a slotted spoon. Drop the cleaned romeritos into the same water and blanch for 2 minutes, just until they collapse and turn deep green. Drain immediately and reserve. Do not overcook them. Romeritos that have been simmered to death lose the wild grassy flavor that makes this dish what it is.
- 4
Build the mole base
In a wide cazuela or heavy pot, melt the manteca over medium heat. Add the mole poblano paste and fry it, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon, for 4 to 5 minutes. The paste will darken and the kitchen will smell of toasted chile, sesame, and chocolate. La manteca es el sabor. Skip this step and your mole tastes raw and one-dimensional.
A serious mole paste from Puebla or Oaxaca, sold by the kilo at La Merced or San Juan, will carry this dish. The jarred sauces at the supermercado will not. If all you can find is a jar, accept the compromise but know what you are missing. - 5
Loosen and season the mole
Whisk in the warmed chicken broth, one cup at a time, until the mole is the consistency of heavy cream. Stir in the ground dried shrimp powder. That powder is the salt of this dish, so taste before you reach for the salt jar. Simmer gently for 15 minutes, stirring often. The mole should coat the back of a spoon and leave a clear line when you drag your finger through.
- 6
Beat the egg whites for the tortitas
In a clean, dry bowl, beat the egg whites with a pinch of salt until they hold stiff peaks. The bowl and the whisk must be completely dry, no trace of yolk in the whites, or they will not climb. Beat the yolks separately with the flour until smooth and pale. Fold the yolks into the whites in three additions, gently, with a rubber spatula. You want a cloud, not a paste. Do not deflate them.
This is the same batter that goes around a chile relleno. Light, airy, almost a soufflé. If your tortitas come out dense and flat, you over-folded or your whites were not stiff enough. Así se hace y punto. - 7
Fry the tortitas de camarón
Heat half an inch of neutral oil in a skillet to 350F. Drop scant tablespoons of the egg batter into the hot oil, then press 3 or 4 cleaned dried shrimp into the top of each one. Fry for about a minute and a half on the first side, until golden and puffed, then flip and cook another minute. Lift them out with a slotted spoon onto a plate lined with paper. Work in batches. Crowding the pan drops the oil temperature and the tortitas come out greasy.
- 8
Bring it all together
Add the drained romeritos, nopales, and potatoes to the simmering mole. Fold gently with a wooden spoon so the potatoes do not break. Let everything warm through for 5 minutes, then slip the tortitas de camarón into the cazuela. Spoon some mole over each one so the batter drinks it in. Cook for 3 more minutes, no longer. The tortitas should soften slightly at the edges but still hold their shape.
- 9
Serve at the center of the table
Bring the cazuela to the table. Sprinkle toasted sesame seeds over the top and serve with a stack of hot corn tortillas wrapped in a servilleta. Make sure every plate gets greens, a chunk of potato, a piece of nopal, and at least one tortita. This is a Christmas Eve plate and a Holy Week plate. It feeds memory as much as it feeds the table. Recetas probadas y garantizadas.
Chef Tips
- •Romeritos are seasonal and regional. If you are not in central Mexico between late November and Easter, you will struggle to find them. Mexican grocery stores in cities with large central Mexican communities sometimes carry them frozen during the holidays. Frozen romeritos are a real compromise but they work. Do not substitute spinach. The flavor is wrong and the texture collapses.
- •Camarón seco is sold whole at the mercado, usually in plastic bags by the ounce. Buy from a vendor with high turnover. The shrimp should smell briny and clean, not rancid or fishy. Pull off the heads and tails for the fritters. Grind the heads and tails into the powder for the broth. Nothing gets wasted.
- •If you are making mole poblano from scratch for this, start two days ahead. If you are using a paste from La Merced or a serious brand, you can do it the same day. Pre-made mole sauces in jars from the supermercado are a different category and will give you a different, lesser dish. No me vengas con atajos.
Advance Preparation
- •The mole base can be made up to three days ahead and refrigerated. The flavor deepens overnight.
- •The nopales can be cooked one day ahead and refrigerated, drained.
- •The tortitas de camarón should be fried the day you serve, no earlier. The egg batter loses its lift if you fry it in advance and the fritters turn soggy in the refrigerator.
- •Romeritos should be cleaned and blanched the same day. They oxidize and turn dark if you hold them too long.
Frequently Asked Questions
Nutrition Information
1 serving (about 510g)
Calories
485 calories
Total Fat
23 g
Saturated Fat
5 g
Trans Fat
0 g
Unsaturated Fat
17 g
Cholesterol
135 mg
Sodium
1640 mg
Total Carbohydrates
44 g
Dietary Fiber
11 g
Sugars
3 g
Protein
26 g
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