Tortitas de Charal en Caldillo de Guajillo y Nopales

Ingredients

Equipment Needed

• •Cast iron comal or heavy skillet for toasting chiles and charring tomatoes
• •High-powered blender
• •Fine-mesh strainer
• •Wide 4-quart cazuela or pot for the caldillo
• •Heavy skillet for frying the tortitas
• •Clean dry bowl and whisk or stand mixer for beating egg whites

Instructions

1. 1

   Clean the charales

   Spread the dried charales on a sheet pan and pick through them. Pull out any heads that came loose, any bits of fin that look broken, and any specks of debris from the drying racks. They are tiny whole fish, eyes and all, and you eat the whole thing. That is the point. Toast them on a dry comal over low heat for two or three minutes, just until they smell nutty and the kitchen fills with the scent of the lake. Do not let them darken. Set aside to cool.

   Charales from Lago de Patzcuaro in Michoacan or from Xochimilco are the right fish. If your market sells them under the name 'pescaditos secos,' check the size. You want them small, no longer than your pinky finger. The bigger dried fish are a different ingredient entirely.
2. 2

   Prepare the nopales

   Place the diced nopales in a saucepan with cold water to cover, the quarter onion, and a teaspoon of salt. Bring to a boil and cook for eight to ten minutes, until the bright green dulls and the slime, la baba, releases into the water. Drain in a colander and rinse under cold running water until the nopales no longer feel slick. This is the step most people skip and then they wonder why their caldillo is gummy. Set the nopales aside.

3. 3

   Toast the chiles and build the caldillo

   Heat a dry comal over medium. Toast the guajillo, ancho, and arbol chiles about 20 seconds per side, pressing them flat with a spatula. The skin will puff and the kitchen will smell like the inside of a chile vendor's stall at Mercado de Jamaica. Do not burn them. Burned chile makes a bitter caldillo and there is no fixing it. Transfer to a heatproof bowl and cover with hot tap water. Hot, not boiling. Let them soften for 15 minutes.

4. 4

   Roast the tomato and aromatics

   On the same comal, char the tomatoes, the quarter onion, and the garlic cloves still in their skins. Turn them as the skins blister and darken in patches, about eight minutes total. The char is the flavor. Peel the garlic once cool enough to handle. Drop the tomatoes, onion, and garlic into a blender with the drained soaked chiles and one cup of the cooking water. Blend on high until smooth. Strain through a fine-mesh sieve back into a clean bowl. Press hard on the solids and discard them.

5. 5

   Fry the chile base

   In a 4-quart pot or wide cazuela, heat the two tablespoons of lard over medium-high until shimmering. Pour the strained chile puree into the hot fat. It will sputter and the color will deepen almost immediately. Cook for five to seven minutes, stirring often, until the puree darkens and you see the fat separating at the edges. This step is not optional. Raw chile puree tastes raw. Fried chile puree tastes like food. Pour in the four cups of water or chicken broth, drop in the sprig of epazote, and bring to a gentle simmer. Season with salt. Let it cook quietly while you make the tortitas.

   The caldillo should be light, not thick. This is a soupy broth that bathes the fritters at the table, not a heavy sauce. If it reduces too much, add a splash of water.
6. 6

   Beat the egg whites

   In a clean dry bowl, beat the egg whites with a half teaspoon of salt until they hold stiff peaks. Stiff means stiff: when you lift the whisk, the peak stands up and does not curl. This is the structure of the tortita. Soft peaks will give you a flat, dense fritter that soaks up oil. Stiff peaks give you the cloud the dish is named for.

   Any speck of yolk or grease in the whites will keep them from whipping. Separate the eggs one at a time over a small bowl so you never lose five whites to one broken yolk. My mother wrote this in the margin of her notebook and underlined it twice.
7. 7

   Fold in the yolks, flour, and charales

   Beat the yolks lightly with a fork. Sprinkle the quarter cup of flour over the whipped whites. With a spatula, fold the yolks and flour into the whites with broad, gentle strokes from the bottom of the bowl up. Do not stir. Stirring deflates the air you just spent five minutes whipping in. Once the batter is uniform and pale yellow, fold in the toasted charales and the two tablespoons of finely chopped white onion. The batter should be airy and hold a soft shape on the spoon.

8. 8

   Fry the tortitas

   Heat the frying oil or lard in a heavy skillet over medium until it reaches about 350F. Test it with a dab of batter: it should sizzle steadily and rise to the surface within seconds, not violently. Drop the batter by heaping tablespoons into the oil, four or five tortitas at a time. Do not crowd the pan or the temperature crashes. Fry for about a minute and a half per side, turning once, until they are golden and the surface is firm. Lift them onto a plate lined with paper. They should look like little golden clouds, puffed and uneven, with the charales visible inside.

9. 9

   Marry the tortitas and caldillo

   Bring the caldillo back to a gentle simmer. Taste for salt one last time, the chile broth needs to be assertive because the tortitas are mild. Add the cooked nopales to the broth. Slip the fried tortitas into the simmering caldillo and let them sit for one to two minutes, no longer. They will drink in the broth and soften slightly while keeping their shape. Any longer and they fall apart. Asi se hace y punto.

10. 10

    Serve immediately

    Ladle the caldillo and nopales into wide shallow bowls and float two or three tortitas in each. Pull out the spent epazote sprig. Serve with lime wedges and warm corn tortillas. This is the Cuaresma dish of central Mexico, the meatless lunch of Wednesdays and Fridays during Lent, and it has been feeding families through fasting season for centuries. Recetas probadas y garantizadas.

Chef Tips

• •The charales must be the small dried variety, not the larger pescaditos or anchovies. Mercado de San Juan in Ciudad de Mexico and any Michoacan market by Lago de Patzcuaro will have them. In the US, look in Mexican grocery stores in the dried seafood aisle, in clear plastic bags. If your charales are larger than your pinky finger, they are the wrong fish.
• •Stiff peaks on the egg whites are the entire structure of the tortita. If you under-whip, the fritter is flat and greasy. Over-whip, and the whites turn dry and refuse to fold. Stop the moment the peaks stand straight up without curling.
• •The nopales must be boiled separately and rinsed thoroughly to remove the baba. If you cook them directly in the caldillo, the broth turns slimy and the dish is ruined. No me vengas con atajos on this step.
• •Substituting fresh fish for charales is not a substitution, it is a different dish. If you cannot find charales, make tortitas de camaron seco instead. Both belong to the same Cuaresma tradition.

Advance Preparation

• •The caldillo can be made one day ahead and refrigerated. Reheat gently before adding the nopales and tortitas.
• •The nopales can be cooked, rinsed, and refrigerated one day ahead.
• •The tortitas themselves must be fried and served the same day. The batter cannot be made in advance because the whipped whites deflate within minutes. Fry, drop into broth, eat.

Frequently Asked Questions

Nutrition Information

1 serving (about 465g)