I try to remember everything I can about the smokiness of the pepper in the salsa. I hunt out videos in which somebody’s great-aunt explains turning the dough with the flat of your hand just so. I ask my friends who should know how exactly to get that plump texture into the recipe. Disappointingly, they tell me, “oh but that’s a hangover dish…you just grab anything you like from the fridge and shove it in.”
That’s not the memory I have of my first chilaquiles. It was morning, I was hungry, and the world was lightly spinning. Somewhere in the distance children screamed from a pool. The blazing sun glinted off the ocean to blind me. And when the waiter asked, “¿Qué le gustaría?” I pointed to the menu item which listed salsa roja, cotija, and pollo as its main ingredients.
When the meal arrived, I stared into its gold-crimson heart for a few minutes. I took a tentative bite and fell in love. I’d never had a paradise of shredded meat, herby cheese, spicy sauce, and crunchy tortilla chips. I welcomed its enthusiastic embrace. “You’re all right,” the chilaquiles said to me, “I’m here.”
When I told my friends they chuckled slyly. “Yeah,” they muttered, “it does feel like that every time.” But, I wasn’t falling for their indifference. “No,” I insisted, “you have to believe me…this particular chilaquiles was unique…amazing…you’ve never tasted anything like it before.” They looked at me with pity. “Wait til you’ve had more,” they advised.
I’ve now had chilaquiles of all varieties: with salsa verde, with fried eggs on top, with refried beans, raw onions, avocados, and even shrimp. They’ve never matched the ferocity, the loving support, the command of that first one. So I’ve tried in my reproductions to be faithful to that initial, ‘perfect’ chilaquiles. I’ve handmade the corn tortilla. I’ve marinated the chicken for hours in stewed tomatoes, guajillo chilis, and garlic. I’ve experimented with onions, and shallots, and clotted cream. None of it has netted that singular medley of flavors I’m chasing.
My circumstantial ineptitude is one of the many problems inherent in translation. I’m pursuing a myth conceived in my mind. Interpretation destines shade and variation to vanish in the process. For the work to make sense to a new audience, unaccustomed or unaware of the incongruous nuances of a certain custom, the translator must descend into generalities, must leave the idiosyncratic nature of the original to enter into the peculiarities of the audience’s culture. Individual and regional subtleties are lost to those consuming the converted text.
Attempts at authenticity must also be given up. The vague idea of authenticity is itself troublesome. Genuineness can only be in the specificity of the making. Ideas do not germinate from nothing — their threads are always woven from a multiplicity of aesthetics. Without the tomato of indigenous America there is no archetypical Italian marinara. Without the color palette of Japanese wood block prints there is no quintessential impressionist Monet.
So I give up my pipe dream. My recreation of chilaquiles will contain only a ghost of the one I had that first time in Mexico. All I can do when preparing my version is labor in humility, respecting the dish and mourning all that will vanish in my rendering. But perhaps when I serve it to family or friends who’ve never experienced chilaquiles before, they too will have that sensation of discovering unknown territory. And they’ll journey towards learning to speak the language of chilaquiles for themselves.
BT’s CHILAQUILES RECIPE
Serves 4 persons Total Time: 40 minutes [Prep Time = 15 min. Cook Time = 25 minutes]
WHAT YOU NEED
For chips:
59 mL vegetable oil (for frying)
12 whole corn tortillas, cut into quarters
For salsa rojo*:
680 grams large red tomatoes, chopped
1 medium yellow onion, chopped
2 cloves fresh garlic
1 medium poblano pepper, sliced
250 mL vegetable broth
10 mL vegetable oil
salt (to taste)
For chilaquiles:
15 mL crema fresca
14 grams cotija cheese
4 eggs (optional)
WHAT TO DO
- Cut your corn tortillas into quarters. In a large skillet over medium high heat, pour ¼ cup (59 mL) of vegetable oil. Once the oil begins to shimmer, add a handful of the cut tortillas to the pan. Allow room for the quartered sections to cook. Flip them once they are golden brown and crisp.
- Fry the other side of the tortilla triangles until they are also golden brown and crisp. Take them out of the pan and set them on a rack or towel-lined platter to drain. Repeat this process for all tortilla pieces.
- In a blender process the chopped tomatoes, chopped onion, garlic cloves, sliced poblano pepper, and 1 cup (250 mL) of broth until a smooth sauce is created.
- In a large skillet heat 2 teaspoons (10 mL) of oil over medium high. Add the salsa. Stir for 10 minutes or until slightly thickened. Season with salt to taste.
- Break the fried tortilla quarters into smaller pieces. Add the chips to the sauce and continue to cook for an additional 3 minutes.
- If desired fry four eggs, over easy, in a separate pan.
- Garnish chilaquiles with crema fresca and sprinkle with cotija cheese.
- Serve a portion of the chilaquiles with an optional fried egg on top. Share and enjoy!
* BT Tip: Chilaquiles derives from the Nahuatl word chīlāquilitl. It can be made with either salsa rojo or salsa verde. The version here uses salsa rojo. For added flavor, grill your whole tomatoes, onion, garlic, and poblano pepper before chopping them.
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Bespoke Traveler 
That illusive magic ingredient ….
Sometimes I wonder if it’s in the water, or in a local ingredient. Else how is it that food eaten while travelling never tastes the same recreated at home.
But memory is also a key ingredient … maybe that’s where the magic lies.
Thank you for sharing your recipe.
I know right? It’s definitely to do with experience and memory too, I think. Just as in how so many of us can never quite recreate the favorite dish of a parent or relative in the same way, either. Thank you for stopping by to read and chat. Wishing you a safe and healthy New Year.
A wonderful ode to a dish that grabbed your heart and tastebuds! I have a couple of those myself. When I thought back to them, I realized they have a common ingredient (potatoes) that I rarely care about or cook at home, so I’ve never even tried to recreate the tartiflette or huevos estrellados that caused me to swoon at the time and dream about ever since. I nevertheless applaud your efforts to bring back your chilaquiles and hope that your efforts evoke a tiny bit of your virgin experience with them! Happy New Year!
Thank you. It’s interesting that potatoes make you swoon while on your travels, but are not something you give much thought to at home. I often think about the various selves I am as I travel to different places. Wishing you a very healthy New Year.
Ah, memories can play so many tricks with our minds and tastebuds, Atreyee. It sounds like an amazing dish, but no matter how good, I’m sure it can never trump the first time you had it. So much of what we remember of taste also has to do with environment. And there is nothing like that first time one tastes something exceptional. Wishing you a beautiful 2021. I hope you find joy in memories until life gives us more freedom again.
Thank you! As you pointed out these meals I’ve had on my travels really are so much more than ingredients on a plate and I am thankful I’ve got so many wonderful experiences. These days, though the recreation doesn’t achieve the same feeling, it does evoke some lovely memories. Wishing you and yours a healthy new year.
Ahhhh chilaquiles! We have been living in Mexico since March but I only recently tasted and fell in love with this incredible dish. The surprising crunch paired with a sweet? Spicy? salsa cannot be beat. I’m also loving some versions of huevos rancheros which include pre frying the tortilla.
This post is beautifully written and I enjoyed every word of it!
Peta
Sigh. Oh to be having once more that wonderful mix of flavors and textures! Enjoy every minute of every chilaquiles and huevos rancheros you can get your hands on. I love it when they pre-fry the tortilla…it takes the rancheros on a whole other flavor road. Wishing you both a very healthy New Year and joyful times in Mexico.
I know someone who once felt the way you feel about your chilaquiles. He tried to replicate this one Indonesian dish he really loves, but he couldn’t quite get it. Until he cooked for someone who knows by heart how the original recipe tastes like. The nth attempt was almost right, he just needed to add a little bit more salt. And after that, his version was almost identical with the one he tried years earlier that had inspired him to recreate the dish. Good luck with your future attempts! But most importantly, enjoy every moment, and let those who try it for the first time be intrigued by it. Happy new year!
Haha, what a fantastic story! You’ve inspired me to keep trying and perhaps — when times change again — to have some of my friends from Mexico taste my attempts so I can get closer to that first time. In the meantime, as you suggest, I will enjoy my efforts! Thank you. Wishing you and yours a very healthy and joyous new year!
Food can help us remember things much more vividly because we’re adding another element – the sense of taste (and smell!) Your writing reminds me of that movie Chocolat https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0241303/ The obsession and the love of flavors and food!
Ha, brilliant – and thank you for the compliment. I very much enjoyed watching Chocolat. When you’re not eating simply to survive, food takes on so many more meanings. Now that you’ve mentioned it, I think I might rewatch that movie…
😛
They sound divine! But a recipe in my hands is never going to work. I’ll have to pop round 🙂 🙂 A very healthy, happy 2021 to you!
You’re welcome to drop by any time. 😉 Happy and healthy new year to you as well!
What a wonderful memory to hold. Your post reminds me that we must cherish these unexpected moments granted by serendipity.
I’m so very grateful for all the experiences I’ve had while exploring. Now in quieter times I reflect back and think about new ways to carry those memories into the future. Wishing you a healthy new year.
I think I’d call the restaurant and ask the chef for the recipe! (S)he may or may not give it out, but it’s worth a try. Or, maybe it is best to just have these as a memory that keeps you always trying to get better at this dish.
There’s always the desire to recreate something much loved…but I don’t know that even the best recreations can ever replicate the memory of it. Instead, I try to make a version that pleases me and in some small way keeps the remembrance of that first time alive. Thanks for stopping by to read the post and chat! Wishing you a healthy New Year.
I know what you mean. There was a lobster dish I had at a restaurant a couple of times, and the restaurant closed before I could chat up the chef. I’ve tried to recreate it many times, but decided I will have to leave that one as a memory as well! Happy New Year!
I’ve been there…many times. There is one dish in particular, a favourite German recipe my mom used to make that, despite following exact instructions, doesn’t turn out like her version. I look forward to trying your recipe. Happy New Year!
Happy New Year Caroline! Yes, there is definitely something that has to do with the person’s touch on a given recipe which makes it their own…there’s more to food preparation than a simple checklist of ingredients and instructions. Wishing you lots of enjoyment attempting to recreate your mom’s recipe.
I would love to try it one day! Happy New Year BT!
Happy New Year to you as well! May it be filled with goof health for you and yours.
Happy new year.
I love your persistence and think it’s great you’re trying to reproduce that first taste.
That’s the way new recipes are created, I’ll bet. 😉
Happy new year eden. I think of cooking as science and art and care and exploration and an archive of our pasts, so in recreating these dishes I’ve come in contact with on my travels I am hoping to combine all of that into another lived experience I can carry with me. Wishing you the best. 🙂
And the best to you too, BT. Thanks for stopping by my blog to leave a comment too. Though I see it in the backend, it’s not showing up in the frontend. So weird. Seems like a glitch, as the # of comments does not equal what is visible to the eye. Hopefully it corrects itself, but letting you know in case. Technology can be so odd!
Oh, thanks for letting me know eden! As you say, tech can be so quirky…glad at least you were able to see my comment.
I think I fixed it! You now appear on the front-end even though your avatar does not. The link is live, and will bring readers to your site should they click on it.
Glad it’s resolved! Have a great week,
e
Yay! Thank you for tinkering with this and solving the issue! Have a wonderful week yourself. BT
In my experience, you can’t replicate a taste experience like that. You can approximate it, which can be outstanding, as well; however, that experience was tied to the ingredients of the place, the atmosphere, the aromas and smells, the humidity, the people, the feel of the table and chair, and everything you had taken in up to that moment. To pull that off would be difficult, to say the least, especially because it would always be a second, third or fourth time, but to reproduce it in another country would be near impossible. Not that you couldn’t have an extraordinary great meal and wonderful memories, and maybe you’d even create a new memory of your personal best chilaquiles.
I so agree Karen! Eating a particular dish is so much more than what’s set in front of me on the plate, and a recreation can only achieve some sort of approximation…I’ve come to realize that…and instead of searching for some perfect past memory, I am instead embracing that remembrance and creating new ones. Wishing you a healthy new year.
What a lovely piece of writing, as yours always are. I was reminded of a savoury roquefort pie I had for a whole year in Montpellier, but then never managed to find elsewhere in France. I don’t even know what it was called exactly, maybe it was just a speciality of that one specific baker??
Thank you so very much for your lovely compliment. Ah…so many times I’ve had similar experiences while traveling…later I wonder if it was all in my imagination…but the memory of this or that astonishing dish or meal persists after so much else about the trip fades away. I’m so grateful to you for sharing your own experience. Wishing you a healthy new year.
Know the feeling, but don’t give up. One day you might even stumble on a better version that you’ve created yourself.
Thank you for your encouragement. 😊 Wishing you a safe and healthy new year.