Molletes and Salsa Fresca

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Molletes are common lunch fare, found in mercados and street stalls, but so easy to make at home. They are Mexico’s grilled cheese sandwiches, but heartier with refried beans and salsa fresca, fresh salsa that Russ and I still call pico de gallo — beak of the rooster — because that’s the name we learned when we first encountered it on our early trips to Mexico.

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Bolillos, the crusty yeast rolls found everywhere in Mexico, are the base for molletes. During these covid days (months), my neighbor Maria and I take turns going into Mascota to pick up our pre-ordered groceries from Pepe’s. When I ordered bolillos, I got round, soft rolls. Not what I wanted. The next time it was my turn to go in, I pointed to the pointy rolls in the glass case in front of the store, not knowing what to call them, because to Pepe they weren’t bolillos. But they were! The grocery receipt itemized them as bolillos telera grande, a full 8″ (20 cm) long. We had molletes muy grande! If you can’t get bolillos or teleras by any name, crusty French bread makes a fine substitution.

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Molletes ~ serves 4-6

• 3 bolillos, or French bread cut into 6 4-6″ lengths
• 4 tablespoons soft butter
• 2 cups refried black beans, hot
• 9 ounces grated manchego or Oaxaca cheese
• 6 tablespoons cotija cheese, crumbled, optional garnish
• 2 cups fresh salsa (recipe below)

1. Cut bolillos in half lengthwise. Using a fork, pull out much of the doughy interior. Lightly butter cut side of bolillos and toast under a broiler until light brown.
2. Heat oven to 400ºF (180ºC).
3. Spread about 1/ 3 cup of refried beans across toasted side, filling cavity.
4. Sprinkle cheese over beans and return to oven until cheese is melted.
5. Spoon salsa generously over melted cheese, topping with optional cotija cheese. Serve immediately. Good with pickled onion, cebolla encurtida.

Salsa Fresca or Pico de Gallo ~ about 2 cups

• 2 Roma tomatoes, about 10 ounces (283 g), finely chopped
• 1/2 cup (2.4 oz/68 g) minced red onion, finely chopped
• 1 – 2 jalapeño or serrano chiles, seeded and finely minced
• 1/2 cup (.7 oz/20g) cilantro leaves and tender stems, chopped
• 1/2 teaspoon salt, or to taste

Mix all ingredients. Adjust salt

Notes ~

~ For breakfast, serve molletes with a fried egg on the side. Russ wanted his with a scrambled egg on top (pictured below). And additional salsa verde, just because. I don’t know if Mexicans add eggs to molletes, but it worked for us.

~ On one of our trips to Mexico, before we made it our home, we came across a panedería with a wood-fired oven in the little town of Ciudad Fernández, in the state of San Luis Potosí. Such crusty bolillos, with a hint of wood smoke. Twenty-some years later, those bolillos remain a delicious memory.

~ The double “l” in mollete is pronounced as a “y” sound. Mo-YEH-tay. Bolillo is pronounced bo-LEE-yoh.

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© 2009-2021 COOKING IN MEXICO ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

 

 

Enfrijoladas

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Enfrijoladas are basically hot tortillas dipped in a bean sauce, and topped with garnishes of cotija cheese, cilantro and onion. That’s it, a simple, satisfying desayuno or almuerzo — breakfast or late morning meal. In southern Mexico, black beans are seasoned with chile cola de rata, rat tail chiles, so called because of their shape, and toasted avocado leaves. Since I have neighbors with avocado trees, their leaves are easy to come by, but if your Mexican grocery store doesn’t have dried avocado leaves in stock, they can be ordered online.

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Enfrijoladas are more common in Oaxaca and southern Mexico, and are made with black beans, frijole negro. I also use frijole perujuano, because they are the common bean here in Jalisco, but use what you have.

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Enfrijoladas

• 3 cups cooked beans, with their broth
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1/2 onion, thickly sliced
• 2 cola de rata chiles, broken in half and seeds shaken out if you prefer less heat
• 4 cloves garlic sliced in half
• 4 large avocado leaves, toasted and crushed, stems and veins removed
• 1 teaspoon Mexican oregano
• Salt to taste
• 10 -12 corn tortillas
• shredded, cooked chicken, optional
• Cotija cheese, cilantro and chopped onion for garnish

1. Heat olive oil in a skillet. Add onion, garlic and chiles. Cook until onion is translucent and starting to color.
2. . Puree onion mixture with oregano and crushed avocado leaves (don’t use stems and veins) in a blender with 1/2 cup water.
3. Add beans and blend until smooth, adding more water if necessary for a thick, cream-like consistency. Pour into a skillet and keep warm over a low heat. Adjust for salt.
4. Brush tortillas lightly with olive oil, and cook in a hot skillet for about 10 seconds per side, just long enough to soften. One at a time, dip each tortillas in the bean sauce, fold into quarters, and serve garnished with cotija cheese, chopped onion and cilantro.
5. As an option, enfrijoladas can be filled with shredded chicken and folded in half (below).

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Notes ~

~ Only Persea drymifolia, the native Mexican avocado, has the characteristic anise flavor. The leaf should release an anise aroma when toasted and crushed. Toast the leaves in a dry skillet or over a gas flame.

~ Cola de rata chiles are also known as chile de árbol or bird’s beak chile. Rating between 15,000 to 30,000 Scoville Units, they are considered very hot.

~ Traditionally, enfrijoladas are made with lard, but my tastes run more toward olive oil. If you don’t object to using animal products, by all means use it. Without getting into all the details, lard was greatly discredited to promote Crisco, but has regained favor. The culinary world values its high smoke point, high melting point and flavor.

~ Cotija cheese, hard, dry and salty, is used as a garnish on bean dishes, enchiladas, chilaquiles and much more. Well stocked supermarkets in the U.S. carry it (I don’t know if it’s common in Canada). Substitutions would be queso ańejo or feta cheese.

© 2009-2020 COOKING IN MEXICO ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Black Bean Soup

These have been hard times, these last few weeks. Writing up a recipe has seemed so trivial, when others are crying out. There is a heaviness that seems heavier than COVID-19 ever did. Minneapolis and the tragic death of George Floyd brought injustice into sharp relief. Things are not going to be the same again, but they shouldn’t be. There seems to be progress happening. One can only hope that America gets it right this time.

Life carries on, and we still eat. Comfort food sounds appealing now, and something easy to prepare sounds good, too. This simple black bean soup is satisfying, and true to Mexican seasoning. Curiously, we never see bean soup on menus here. Beef vegetable soup, chicken vegetable soup, and tortilla soup, but not bean soup, even though Diana Kennedy includes a few in her books. This recipe can be made with any bean you have. Here in our part of Mexico, black beans, creamy peruano, and azafran beans are common. But you could use white beans, pinto beans, even kidney beans.

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I’m not on the recent sourdough bandwagon, but I have been making a whole wheat version of Jim Leahey’s no-knead bread, a good soup accompaniment. Its overnight rise gives depth to the flavor.

Black Bean Soup

• 2 cups/450 grams/1 lb. dry black beans
• 1/2 teaspoon plus 2 teaspoons salt
• 1 onion, coarsely chopped
• 4 cloves garlic
• 1 teaspoon dry Mexican oregano
• 1 teaspoon dry thyme
• 2 bay leaves
• 1-2 tablespoons sauce from canned chipotle chile en adobo

1. For a quick soak of dry beans, cover beans with water in sauce pan, add 1/2 teaspoon salt, and boil for one minutes. Cover and let sit for 1 hour.
2. Drain, cover with fresh water, add onion, garlic, oregano, thyme, bay leaves, and 2 teaspoons salt, and cook until tender, checking to maintain water level.
3. When beans are tender, puree with immersion blender or standard blender until roughly smooth, not pureed. Add more water if needed to thin to soup consistency.
4. Serve garnished with chopped cilantro and crema, Mexican sour cream.

Notes:

~ If cooking dry beans seems daunting, use 4 15-oz. cans of cooked beans.

~ After years of cooking beans in an olla de barro, a clay bean pot, I switched to a pressure cooker. Using a clay pot is muy mexicana, but takes so much longer. The bean pots are now used to hold kitchen utensils.

~ Chipotle chiles are large, dried smoked jalapeños. They are commonly canned in adobo, a sauce of onion, vinegar and tomato.

© 2009-2020 COOKING IN MEXICO ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Chile Chili con Carne

Chili con Carne with Black Beans and Poblano Chiles

I returned from the cold north land hungry for a warm bowl of chili con carne. It’s not Mexican cuisine, but sometimes we expats need familiar comfort food from home.

Chile, the picante vegetable that has its origins in the Americas, only has one correct spelling in Mexico. Aberrations like chilli and chilie occur north of the border, causing confusion to many and consternation to those like me who are sticklers for correct spelling. Chili con carne, the pot of well-seasoned beans and meat spelled with an “i”, further adds to the confusion. If we go back to the source of the word for the vegetable, to Nahuatl, the language spoken by the people of the Mexican Highlands when the Spanish arrived, we find chili. Confused? Don’t be. Just stick to the contemporary Spanish spelling for the vegetable: chile. And if it’s a pot of beans and meat: chili.

Now that the issue of spelling is out of the way, there are two more matters to discuss: whether to soak beans or not, and how to cook them. Mexican cooks don’t pre-soak beans. They just add beans to water and get on with the cooking. No soaking or draining for them. I pre-soak beans, but I’m not always organized enough to think of doing this the day before, so I use the quick-soak method, which means to bring beans and plenty of water to a boil, turn off the heat, cover the pot and leave the beans to soak for one hour. Then drain and cook with fresh water.

Pre-soaked beans are thought to be less musical and more digestible. And take less time to cook. I’m all for anything that takes less time and fuel. North of the border, kidney beans are preferred for chili con carne, but any bean will make a tasty chili. Today, I’m using a combination of organic black and flor de mayo beans.

Mexican cocineras use their trusty aluminum pots or clay pots for cooking beans. Earthenware clay pots absorb the odors of the foods for which they are used, so savvy mexicanas dedicate one clay pot to beans, another for chicken, one pot just for chocolate, and so on.

Lately, my love affair with the clay pot has waned, and I’ve been using the pressure cooker to make tender beans in thirty minutes. The beans are pre-soaked in a small pot that is then placed on a metal trivet or rack in the larger pressure cooker. Beans can also be cooked directly in the pressure cooker, but care must be taken that the pot does not cook dry and that the beans do not burn, as some pressure cookers have thin bottoms.

My pot of chili con carne contains chiles poblanos, one of my favorite chile peppers found throughout Mexico. Thick-walled, rich green in color, and not too hot, they are often used for making chiles rellenos, but can be a stand-in for bell peppers when making chili con carne. This is one of the few times they are not blistered and peeled.

Thanks to a recipe I came across in an issue of Consumer Reports years ago, I learned to add vinegar to a pot of chili con carne. This one addition makes all the difference. Maybe it does nothing more than provide a balance to the sweetness of the tomatoes, but it is an essential taste adjustment.

Chili con Carne

• 2 tablespoons (60 ml.) olive oil
• 1 lb. (1/2 kilo) range-fed lean ground beef
• 2 cloves garlic, peeled and minced
• 1 large onion, finely chopped
• 2 large poblano peppers ( or 1 large bell pepper) chopped
• 1 lb. (1/2 kilo) finely chopped tomatoes (or 1 16-oz. can)
• 4 cups (1 liter) cooked beans
• 1-2 tablespoon (30-60 ml.) chile powder, or to taste
• 1/4 teaspoon ground allspice
• 1/4 teaspoon ground coriander
• 2 teaspoon comino (cumin)
• 1 cup (8 oz/.25 liter) water
• 1 tablespoon (60 ml.) cider vinegar
• 1 teaspoon salt, or to taste
• crushed tortilla chips and chopped cilantro for garnish

1. Heat oil in a large skillet or pot over medium heat.
2. Cook meat, onion, garlic and poblano until tender and meat is no longer pink.
3. Add all remaining ingredients, except vinegar and salt. Simmer 30 minutes.
4. Add vinegar and simmer 15 minutes.
5. Salt to taste.
6. Serve garnished with crushed tortilla chips and cilantro.

Vegetarian version: omit meat and add two more cups of cooked beans. This beany chili con frijoles was a favorite during my vegetarian years.

Bean Notes:

Large Mexican grocery stores are stocking more and more organic foods. A common organic label in our part of Mexico is Aires de Campo. They are certified by BioAgriCert America, an organization based in Bologna, Italy, which controls and monitors organic foods in the Americas, Japan and Europe. Aires de Campo sells organic beans and brown rice, as well as other foodstuffs like preserves, agave syrup and honey. My packages of black beans and flor de mayo beans (a pink bean also known as mayflower bean and nightfall bean) include the information that they are from the state of Zacatecas and certified free of pesticides, synthetic fertilizers and toxic residues. It is so great to have organic beans and rice available, that even if they cost a little more, I’m more than happy to support this market.

Flor de mayo is a tender bean with a delicate flavor that is not well known north of the border. South of the border, it is a common bean that is greatly preferred in the central areas of Mexico. It can be purchased on the internet from native seed companies.

It is so easy to reach for the can opener and have beans or refritos on the table in minutes, but like so many other familiar foods, canned does not compare to freshly cooked. Yes, it takes more time, but once you make a few pots, you will see how easy it is and how much better they taste.

Related Articles

• Chili con Carne Recipe (Consumer Reports)
• How to Cook Black Beans (kathleeniscookinginmexico.wordpress.com)
• Black Bean Soup with Chipotle Chile (kathleeniscookinginmexico.wordpress.com)