Tostadas de Tinga Poblana

Tinga is from Puebla. Not from the generic Mexican cookbook, not from a Tex-Mex menu, not from anywhere else. Puebla. The same city that gave you mole poblano and chiles en nogada also gave you this weeknight dish, and the city's home cooks have been making it for generations while the rest of the world was still learning how to spell chipotle.

The chipotle is the dish. A tinga without chipotle is not a tinga, it is shredded chicken in tomato sauce. The chipotle, which is a chile jalapeño smoked and dried, brings the deep, smoky heat that defines the sauce. Most modern Mexican cooks use chipotles en adobo from a can, and that is perfectly correct. The adobo, vinegar, tomato, and spices, is part of the flavor. Do not rinse the chiles. Do not drain the adobo. That brick-red liquid in the can is the seasoning.

This is a dish built for a weeknight in Puebla and for a weekend potluck anywhere else. Shred the chicken by hand, not with a fork. Roast the tomatoes on a comal, not in a pot of water. Sweat the onions in lard until they are soft and golden. Fry the sauce until the fat separates. Each of these steps is a small decision and together they are the difference between tinga that tastes like Puebla and tinga that tastes like nothing in particular.

My mother kept a tinga recipe in her notebook on the page after the pozole. She wrote in the margin: 'más cebolla' (more onion). She was right. The onion is half the dish. Cada estado, su propia cocina, and this one belongs to Puebla.