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Oaxaca's Sierra Mixe lends its smoky chile to these crisp potato taquitos, fried until the tortilla shatters under your teeth and dressed with crema, queso fresco, and a dark salsa that carries woodsmoke in every spoonful.
This is an Oaxacan dish dressed in a chile most people outside the state have never heard of. The pasilla mixe comes from the Sierra Norte, from the Ayuuk communities in the Mixe region, where it is smoked slowly over wood fires until the flesh turns leathery and dark and the aroma sits somewhere between a campfire and dried fruit. It is not chipotle. It is not pasilla negro. It is its own thing, and if you have never cooked with it, this salsa is your introduction.
Taquitos dorados exist all over Mexico. Every state has a version. But the salsa is what plants this plate in Oaxaca. You can fill taquitos with chicken, with requesón, with picadillo, but the potato filling is the one I learned from a señora at a comedor near the Mercado de Abastos in Oaxaca de Juárez. She fried them in a cast iron skillet with an inch of oil, not deep-fried, and they came out with a tortilla that cracked clean when you bit it and a filling that was creamy and simple. Mashed potato, white onion, a clove of garlic, salt. Nothing else. She said the filling is not the point. The salsa is the point. She was right.
The technique matters. Your tortillas must be fresh enough to roll without cracking. If they crack, they are too cold or too old. Warm them on a comal, one at a time, just enough to make them pliable. Roll them tight and pin them with a toothpick or fry them seam-side down so the oil seals the edge. If they unravel in the pan, you rushed. No me vengas con atajos. This is a dish that rewards patience and punishes impatience in equal measure.
My mother did not make pasilla mixe salsa. She was from Jalisco. But she made taquitos dorados every Friday, filled with the leftover mashed potato from Thursday's dinner, fried in a shallow pool of oil, and served with salsa roja and a pile of shredded lettuce on top. Years later, when I first tasted the pasilla mixe version in Oaxaca, I understood that the same dish can carry a completely different identity depending on what salsa you put on it. Cada estado, su propia cocina.
The pasilla mixe chile, sometimes labeled pasilla oaxaqueño in markets outside the state, is a smoke-dried chile produced almost exclusively by the Ayuuk (Mixe) communities of Oaxaca's Sierra Norte, where the smoking tradition predates the colonial period and likely evolved alongside the region's pre-Columbian practice of preserving chiles over wood-fire hearths called tapescos. Unlike the chipotle, which is a smoked jalapeño, the pasilla mixe is a distinct cultivar with a fruity, smoky complexity that has no substitute. Taquitos dorados as a format appear across Mexico's street food and comedor traditions from at least the early 20th century, but the pairing with pasilla mixe salsa is specifically Oaxacan, tied to the state's broader tradition of building meals around its singular dried chile varieties, of which Oaxaca cultivates more named types than any other Mexican state.
Quantity
1 1/2 pounds
peeled and cut into 2-inch chunks
Quantity
1 tablespoon
Quantity
1/2 medium
finely diced
Quantity
2 cloves
minced
Quantity
1 teaspoon, plus more to taste
Quantity
18
Quantity
about 1 1/2 cups
Quantity
6
stemmed and seeded
Quantity
2 cloves
unpeeled
Quantity
1/4 medium
cut in one piece
Quantity
1 cup
Quantity
1/2 teaspoon, plus more to taste
Quantity
1/2 cup
Quantity
1/2 cup
crumbled
Quantity
2 cups
Quantity
for serving
| Ingredient | Quantity |
|---|---|
| white potatoespeeled and cut into 2-inch chunks | 1 1/2 pounds |
| pork lard (manteca de cerdo) | 1 tablespoon |
| white onion (for filling)finely diced | 1/2 medium |
| garlic (for filling)minced | 2 cloves |
| kosher salt (for filling) | 1 teaspoon, plus more to taste |
| fresh corn tortillas | 18 |
| vegetable oil for frying | about 1 1/2 cups |
| dried pasilla mixe chilesstemmed and seeded | 6 |
| garlic (for salsa)unpeeled | 2 cloves |
| white onion (for salsa)cut in one piece | 1/4 medium |
| hot water (from soaking chiles) | 1 cup |
| kosher salt (for salsa) | 1/2 teaspoon, plus more to taste |
| Mexican crema (optional) | 1/2 cup |
| queso fresco (optional)crumbled | 1/2 cup |
| shredded lettuce (optional) | 2 cups |
| pickled red onion (optional) | for serving |
Place the potato chunks in a medium pot, cover with cold water by two inches, and add a generous pinch of salt. Bring to a boil over high heat, then reduce to a steady simmer and cook for 18 to 22 minutes, until a knife slides through the center of a chunk with zero resistance. Drain completely and return them to the warm pot. Mash with a fork or potato masher until smooth but not gummy. You want body, not baby food. A few small lumps are fine.
In a small skillet, melt the lard over medium heat. Add the diced onion and cook for three to four minutes until soft and translucent, not browned. Add the minced garlic and cook for thirty seconds more, until it smells sharp and sweet. Scrape the onion and garlic into the mashed potatoes, add the salt, and stir until everything is incorporated. Taste it. The filling should be well-seasoned on its own because the tortilla and the frying add nothing to it. If it tastes bland now, it will taste bland fried. Adjust the salt. Set the filling aside to cool enough to handle.
Heat a dry comal or cast iron skillet over medium heat. Press each chile flat against the hot surface with a spatula for about 15 to 20 seconds per side. The pasilla mixe is already smoked, so you are not adding smoke here. You are waking up the oils. The chile will puff slightly and release a dark, fruity, woodsmoke smell that is unlike any other dried chile in the Mexican pantry. Do not let them blacken. Burned pasilla mixe turns acrid and there is no coming back from it.
Place the toasted chiles in a heatproof bowl and cover with hot water, not boiling. Let them soak for 15 to 20 minutes until they are soft and pliable. While the chiles soak, place the unpeeled garlic cloves and the quarter onion on the same dry comal. Char them, turning occasionally, until the garlic skin is spotted black and the onion has dark patches on the cut side, about 8 minutes. Peel the garlic. Transfer the softened chiles, charred garlic, charred onion, one cup of the soaking liquid, and the salt to a blender. Blend until smooth. Taste it. The salsa should be smoky, slightly fruity, with a gentle heat that builds. Add more salt if it needs it. The consistency should coat the back of a spoon. If it is too thick, add soaking liquid one tablespoon at a time.
Heat a comal over medium heat. Warm each tortilla for about 15 seconds per side, just until pliable. Do not toast them dry or they will crack when you roll. Work one at a time: place a heaping tablespoon of potato filling across the lower third of the tortilla, roll it tightly into a cylinder, and secure it with a wooden toothpick pushed through the seam. Line them up on a sheet pan as you go. You should get about 18 taquitos.
Pour enough vegetable oil into a large heavy skillet to come about half an inch up the sides. Heat over medium-high until the oil shimmers and a small piece of tortilla dropped in sizzles immediately, about 350 degrees if you are using a thermometer. Lay the taquitos seam-side down in the oil, working in batches of five or six so you do not crowd the pan. Fry for two to threeminutes per side, turning once with tongs, until they are deep golden and the tortilla is rigid and crisp all the way through. Drain on a wire rack, not paper towels. Paper towels trap moisture underneath and soften the bottom. You did not spend this time frying to end up with a soggy taquito.
Arrange the taquitos on a wide platter, five or six per plate if serving individually. Spread a bed of shredded lettuce across the top. Drizzle the Mexican crema in thin lines over the lettuce and taquitos. Spoon the salsa de pasilla mixe generously across or serve it in a small bowl alongside for dipping. Scatter the crumbled queso fresco over everything. If you have pickled red onion, a few strands on top add acid that cuts through the richness of the fried tortilla and crema. Serve immediately. Taquitos dorados wait for nobody. Five minutes on the counter and the crispness starts to go. Recetas probadas y garantizadas.
1 serving (about 370g)
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