La Alaskeña

It is no secret that I freaking love Mexico. It is a beautiful country with amazing food, great music, and friendly, generous people. I am so lucky to have been able to travel throughout much of Mexico and have all kinds of crazy adventures there. I have spent the day listening to Luis Miguel and feeling nostalgic.

Today is Cinco de Mayo. Long story short: in 1861, France decided to take over Mexico. The Mexicans weren’t very happy about this, obviously, and on May 5, 1862, the outnumbered Mexicans kicked some French trasero at the Battle of Puebla.

So here’s the funny part: nobody cares about it in Mexico. When I lived there, I was excited about experiencing Cinco de Mayo in the land of its origin, but I didn’t even get the day off work! In a place where people will use any excuse to party, Cinco de Mayo is largely ignored.

Of course, here in the United States, we like to use Cinco de Mayo as an excuse to drink copious amounts of tequila on a weeknight. While I won’t be doing that this evening, I decided to spend Cinco de Mayo making and eating one of my favorite Mexican dishes: chilaquiles.

After a bit of research and experimentation, I have created the world’s best chilaquiles. Seriously. These are the best chilaquiles ever. I know my opinion is biased, but I have eaten a lot of chilaquiles and these are los mejores.  And because I love you, my loyal readers, I am sharing the recipe. You will need:

An onion

Several cloves of garlic

Oregano

Salt and pepper

12 ounce can of diced tomatoes

Tortilla chips

A can of chipotle chiles in adobo sauce

Queso fresco

First, dice the onion and saute in olive oil until caramelized.

Depending on how much you like garlic, add 1-3 minced cloves and saute until the garlic is translucent. I am completely paranoid about overcooking garlic, so I never let it get brown. Set onions and garlic aside.

Open the tomatoes and drain off the excess liquid. Put the tomatoes in the blender, and blend with oregano, salt and pepper until it tastes right. Now you add the chipotle. BE CAREFUL. Though chipotles are relatively mild, they can still pack quite a punch. Cut open the chile and scrape out the ribs and seeds with a spoon. Add the chile, blend and taste. Keep adding until it has the amount of heat you like. I usually go for about 1 and a 1/2 chiles. Add just a bit at a time, because some harvests are hotter than others. The last thing you want to do is get overzealous, add too much, and end up with sauce that is better suited for stripping paint than eating.

I like to mix a bit of queso fresco in the sauce as well. It is a crumbly Mexican cheese similar to feta. Now add the onions and garlic mixture.

In a mixing bowl, mix the sauce with chips until the chips are covered. If you want to be a purist, you could buy your own corn tortillas, wait for them to go stale and then fry them, or you could just buy chips, like I do. Totally your call.

Only make as much as you’re going to eat, because it doesn’t keep well! You can freeze the extra sauce for later. Put the sauce/chip mix in a casserole dish and cover with more queso fresco.

Bake at 350° for 10-15 minutes, until it’s heated through and the cheese has melted. Serve warm with sour cream, avocado, beans, etc. This is traditionally a breakfast food, but we had it for dinner. Kurt liked it so much he had 3 helpings. I should seriously win an award for these chilaquiles. Somebody give me an award.

You’ll probably have a bit of extra sauce, cheese, and chiles. All of these can be frozen and used later. And now, if you’ll excuse me, I think I’ll go have seconds. ¡Viva México!