Chilaquiles en Cazuela

This nontraditional chilaquiles receipt is nearly foolproof. A Le Creuset dish works well. I often add grilled cesina as a side or incorporate it in as well. Excuse the lost context, it's cut and paste from here:

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This is the easy version. If you don't want to use canned, bottled and prepackaged stuff, God bless you.

The only trick is to use as light a hand as possible when folding ingredients together. Overworking can turn this into a pasty mush. Ideally, you will maintain the integrity of many tortilla chips, chunks of chorizo, bits of fried egg, etc. Also, don't worry if the chips seem too dry before placing the dish in the oven. They will soften considerably while baking. This is a really easy dish, despite my wordy instructions.

Ingredients:

(Main)

Chicken broth

(Green) tomatillo based salsa, whichever heat level you choose

2 large bags of thick, homestyle tortilla chips. El Ranchero brand is local and very good for this. Otherwise, fry strips of stale corn tortillas in lard or other oil until crisp.

1lb Mexican chorizo. Fresh from a Mexican grocer's butcher counter is best. Two very good grocers are on Ashland -- Carneceria Leon and Guanajuato. Otherwise, V&V is a decent commercial brand. Order it without casing or remove from casing.

Eggs

Soft Mexican cheese (Chihuahua, queso quesadilla, Oaxaca, etc.) and dry/aged Mexican cheese (queso anejo, cotija, etc.)

(Garnish)

Cilantro, avocado, lime, additional salsas, crema (Mexican sour cream)

Construction:

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.

In a large, deep pan, casserole, or Dutch oven, mix 10oz broth with 6oz salsa and bring to a simmer.

Meanwhile, in a skillet/frying pan brown the crumbled chorizo. Start with a hot pan. Don't move the chorizo much until the bottom is well-seared and caramelized. Then mix the chorizo and loosen the browned bits with a wooden spoon until the meat is cooked through. Once browned, drain most, but not all, excess fat. Add 6 eggs to the pan (spaced evenly on top of the chorizo) and cover for a minute or two, allowing the eggs to begin to set. Then loosely scramble the eggs into the chorizo with a spatula or wooden spoon. Remove from the flame when the eggs are nearly cooked soft. Cover and set aside.

(Back to the simmering broth.) Add 1/2 bag of tortilla chips to the broth/salsa mixture, increasing the flame to continue a light simmer. Mix lightly with a wooden spoon to coat the chips. As the chips start to soften, add more by the handful, folding them into the pot. As you add chips, add more broth and salsa, alternating as you go, to maintain approximately 1/4 inch of liquid at the bottom of the pot. Kitchen tongs can be used to lightly integrate the wetter and drier chips if folding becomes difficult. Use 1 to 1.5 bags of chips in all, depending of the size of the pot. Stop adding chips and broth/salsa at the point where the pot will be full after the egg/chorizo mixture is added -- probably 3/4 of the pot's volume. You should end with a range of textures among the chips, from very soft to still crisp.

Turn off the flame. Cover and allow to sit for 2-3 minutes to allow the chips to absorb any remaining broth.

Add the chorizo/egg mixture to the pot and fold into the chips (again, kitchen tongs might help), being careful not to overwork or compact the mixture. Once the ingredients are well combined, add a light sprinkling of salsa on top.

Top with the soft Mexican cheese(s), followed by crumbled or grated hard cheese(s).

Cover and place in oven; bake for 15-20 min

Remove cover and broil until cheese is bubbling and browned. Be careful. Broiling times vary.

Serve with chopped cilantro, avocado slices, crema, and additional salsas.


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Jeff,

Terrific recipe. Thanks for digging it up.

Forgive my ignorance, but is the existence of the soft cheese (and the subsequent baking) the primary thing that makes it "nontraditional"? Or is there something else I'm missing?

Best,
Michael

Michael,

I think that baking it in the oven to make, God forbid, what some have called "Mexican lasagne" is fairly non-traditional. It seemed like a natural move to me, and it makes the dish travel very, very well. The next day you have great leftover leftovers. As a bonus, one gets a sort of chilaquiles soccarat/raspa. If you tell me that it is actually authentic to some part of Mexico this way, I won't be surprised. I'm proud to say that several Mexican American ladies here at the office, who know how to cook, gave me a major stamp of approval and spoke to me in Spanish for the first time based on my contribution to a recent pot luck. I live for such things.

Jeff

JeffB wrote:I think that baking it in the oven to make, God forbid, what some have called "Mexican lasagne" is fairly non-traditional. It seemed like a natural move to me, and it makes the dish travel very, very well. The next day you have great leftover leftovers. As a bonus, one gets a sort of chilaquiles soccarat/raspa. If you tell me that it is actually authentic to some part of Mexico this way, I won't be surprised. I'm proud to say that several Mexican American ladies here at the office, who know how to cook, gave me a major stamp of approval and spoke to me in Spanish for the first time based on my contribution to a recent pot luck. I live for such things.

Thanks Jeff,

Daisy Martinez made chilaquiles once on her cooking show. She made them like a "Mexican lasagne", even carefully layering the chips and cheese in a rectangular baking pan. She even went so far as to cut out square shaped portions, as one might with a lasagne. I have to say that I found it very odd, but I wrote it off as a Puerto Rican derivation of a Mexican dish.

Best,
Michael

JeffB wrote: I'm proud to say that several Mexican American ladies here at the office, who know how to cook, gave me a major stamp of approval and spoke to me in Spanish for the first time based on my contribution to a recent pot luck. I live for such things...

Well, I was intending on giving your recipe a try before seeing this post but now there's even more motivation!

I love corn tortillas but as soon as they're slightly stale I spurn them... unless, of course, they are recycled into chilaquiles. The texture of the fried and partially softened tortillas is really wonderful.

Many thanks for the recipe.

Antonius

JeffB wrote:This nontraditional chilaquiles receipt is nearly foolproof.

ronnie_suburban wrote:
JeffB's chilaquiles en cazuela by Terrasini

Ronnie_suburban's great photos from the LTHForum 1,000-Recipe Potluck, June 22, 2008, appear here, including this shot of JeffB's chilaquiles, as prepared by Terrasini.