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Ciudad de Mexico's working-kitchen lunch: corn tortillas rolled around chorizo-spiked mashed potato, fried in lard until crisp, dressed with crema and salsa verde. The fonda plate that built a city.
These taquitos belong to Ciudad de Mexico. Not the version you see in American freezer aisles. The version you get at a fonda in Colonia Roma, a cocina economica in the Centro Historico, a Tuesday lunch counter in Coyoacan where the menu del dia costs less than a coffee and feeds you better than most restaurants.
Papa con chorizo is the filling that built this city. Potato is cheap, chorizo stretches far, and a corn tortilla rolled around the two and fried in lard turns three humble ingredients into something a working person eats standing up before going back to the shift. This is budget food, yes. It is also some of the best food in Mexico, and any chilango who tells you otherwise is lying to impress you.
The technique is not negotiable. The potato gets mashed rough, not pureed. The chorizo is the real one, raw and vinegary, not the cured Spanish kind. The tortilla gets warmed on the comal before it is rolled so it does not crack. The frying fat is manteca, not vegetable oil. La manteca es el sabor. And the dressing is crema, salsa verde, queso fresco, lettuce, raw onion, scattered fast and eaten faster.
My mother made these on the days when there was not much in the refrigerator. A bag of potatoes, a quarter kilo of chorizo from the carniceria on the corner, the tortillas she bought that morning. She would fry them while my brother and I set the table, and we would eat ten between the two of us. She would write 'papas con chorizo' in the notebook with a small note in the margin: 'siempre alcanza' (it always stretches). Cada estado, su propia cocina, and the cocina economica of CDMX is its own state of mind.
The taquito dorado, sometimes called flauta in northern and western Mexico, emerged in the late 19th and early 20th centuries from the urban fondas and cocinas economicas of central Mexico, where the rolled-and-fried tortilla was a thrift technique that turned day-old tortillas and leftover guisados into a serviceable hot lunch. The papa con chorizo filling specifically reflects Ciudad de Mexico's working-class kitchen economy, where the potato (a New World tuber that the Spanish carried from the Andes through colonial trade routes back into central Mexican cooking) and Mexican chorizo (a colonial adaptation of the Spanish embutido, rebuilt with native chiles guajillo and ancho and aggressive vinegar) became a pantry staple by the post-Revolutionary period. The dish remains a signature of CDMX's cocinas economicas, the small family-run lunch counters that still feed office workers, students, and laborers a complete three-course comida corrida for less than the price of a Starbucks coffee.
Quantity
1 1/2 pounds
peeled and cut into 2-inch chunks
Quantity
1 tablespoon
Quantity
8 ounces
casings removed
Quantity
1/2 medium
finely diced
Quantity
2
finely minced
Quantity
1/2 teaspoon
Quantity
to taste
Quantity
16
the freshest you can find
Quantity
1 1/2 cups
for frying
Quantity
1 cup
Quantity
1 cup
tomatillo and chile serrano
Quantity
1 cup, crumbled
Quantity
1/2 cup
finely shredded
Quantity
1/2 small
finely diced
Quantity
for serving
| Ingredient | Quantity |
|---|---|
| yellow potatoes (papa amarilla or Yukon Gold)peeled and cut into 2-inch chunks | 1 1/2 pounds |
| kosher salt for cooking water | 1 tablespoon |
| Mexican chorizocasings removed | 8 ounces |
| white onionfinely diced | 1/2 medium |
| garlic clovesfinely minced | 2 |
| dried Mexican oregano | 1/2 teaspoon |
| kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper | to taste |
| standard corn tortillas (6-inch)the freshest you can find | 16 |
| pork lard (manteca de cerdo) or neutral oilfor frying | 1 1/2 cups |
| Mexican crema | 1 cup |
| salsa verde crudatomatillo and chile serrano | 1 cup |
| queso fresco | 1 cup, crumbled |
| iceberg or romaine lettuce (optional)finely shredded | 1/2 cup |
| white onion for serving (optional)finely diced | 1/2 small |
| pickled jalapenos en escabeche (optional) | for serving |
Place the potato chunks in a pot, cover with cold water by two inches, add the tablespoon of salt, and bring to a boil. Reduce to a strong simmer and cook for 15 to 18 minutes, until a knife slides through with no resistance. Drain well and let them steam dry in the colander for two minutes. Wet potato makes a wet filling and a wet filling tears the tortilla. No me vengas con atajos.
While the potatoes cook, heat a heavy skillet over medium. Crumble the chorizo into the dry pan. There is no oil needed. The chorizo will release its own red fat within a minute. Cook for five to seven minutes, breaking it up with a wooden spoon, until the meat is dark, the fat has separated into a deep brick-red slick, and the kitchen smells like vinegar and toasted chile. That red fat is the soul of the filling. Do not drain it.
Push the chorizo to one side of the pan. In the rendered red fat on the empty side, add the diced onion and cook for two minutes until soft and stained orange. Add the garlic and oregano and cook for 30 seconds more. Stir everything together. Add the drained potatoes directly to the skillet and mash them right into the chorizo with the back of a fork or a potato masher. You want a rough mash, not a puree. Lumps are the point. Taste, then salt and pepper aggressively. The filling needs to be assertive because the tortilla is mild.
Heat a comal or dry skillet over medium. Pass each tortilla over the comal for about 10 seconds per side, just until pliable and lightly puffed. Stack them in a clean kitchen towel as you go. Cold tortillas crack the second you try to roll them. Warm tortillas bend. This is not optional. So is how it is done in every cocina economica in CDMX. Asi se hace y punto.
Working with one warm tortilla at a time, spread about two tablespoons of the potato-chorizo filling in a line across the lower third. Roll it up tightly, the way you would roll a cigarette, ending seam side down. Place each one seam side down on a plate or sheet pan, packed close so they hold their shape while you roll the rest. Do not overfill. A fat taquito unrolls in the oil and the filling escapes.
Pour the lard into a heavy 10-inch skillet to a depth of about 1/2 inch. Heat over medium-high until the lard shimmers and a small piece of tortilla edge dropped in bubbles immediately and turns golden in 30 seconds. That is about 350F. La manteca es el sabor. Lard fries cleaner than oil and the taquitos taste like CDMX, not like a fast food chain.
Lay the taquitos in the hot fat seam side down first, four or five at a time. The seam seals against the bottom of the skillet in the first 30 seconds and locks the roll closed. Fry for two minutes per side, turning with tongs, until the tortillas are deep gold and the surface has small blistered spots. They should be crisp and audible when you tap them with the tongs. Drain on a wire rack set over a sheet pan. Never on paper towels. Paper traps steam against the bottom and they turn soft in two minutes.
Arrange the hot taquitos on a platter. Drizzle generously with crema, then spoon salsa verde over the top. Scatter with queso fresco, shredded lettuce, and diced raw white onion. Set the pickled jalapenos on the side. Eat them the moment they hit the plate. A dorado that sits goes soft, and a soft taquito is a sad taquito. Saber cocinar es saber vivir.
1 serving (about 500g)
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