Today I'd like to continue my What to Eat in Mexico series with a specialty dish that's only available during the rainy season. And boy, has it been rainy lately! Unlike most Mexican dishes, which are mainly just corn, chili, tomatoes, and meat rearranged in creative new combinations, this is not so much a dish but a plant which grows best when there is abundant rainfall, like right now. So it's the best time to introduce the Huanzontle in form of Huanzontle Cream Cheese Patties.
The Hairy Amaranth
Known to botanists as Chenopodium nuttalliae, the huanzontle is also known in English as goosefoot and lambsquarters (in spite of being completely vegan). Its Mexican name comes from the Nahuatl language, and literally translated it means hairy amaranth. A much better fitting name, as the plant is indeed related to the native grains amaranth and quinoa. It is also high in nutritional value, and has thus been important in precolombian times.
Huanzontle is usually sold on long branches of maybe 2-3 feet in length, but yesterday at the market I found them broken up into smaller chunks in a bag. I grabbed it happily, thinking that it would reduce my work of picking it off the stems, but the truth is, it still took me a good ten minutes to clean about a kilo.
Making Huanzontle Patties
As you would expect, there are many ways of preparing this plant. One example is to cook the branches whole, dip them in pancake batter and fry them, but that also means picking them apart while eating. Or pulling the long strands through your teeth, which I'm not a big fan of. So I decided to pull them apart before cooking, and then make patties out of the small pieces. Once all the stems were removed, I washed the Huanzontles and cooked them in salty water for about ten minutes. Then I drained them, and set them out to let the water drip off.
The next step was making the patties. To keep the huanzontles from coming apart I used a piece of cream cheese, covering it in huanzontle, squeezing it all in nicely.
This I rolled around in flour, then dipped into beaten eggs, and finally fried up in a pan with plenty of oil. Once I was done, I even mixed up the rest of the Hunazontle pieces that had fallen by the wayside with the rest of flour and the rest of eggs, and made a last patty.
For more on Mexican food, check out my series What to Eat in Mexico:
Tacos - As Basic As You Can Get
Tortillas and Other Incarnations of Maize
Making Salsa
Guacamole - With and Without Spirulina
Chilaquiles, for Stale Tortillas and a Hangover
Pozole - Not Just for Independence Day!
Nopales - a Vegetarian Delicacy
Huitlacoche - a Mold That Just Tastes so Good
Carnitas of Michoacan
Chapulines, Escamoles, and Maguey Worms
Tamales - the Best Way to Eat Corn
Tlayudas - the Oaxaca-Size Tortilla
Cochinita Pibil - the Buried Piglet from the Yucatan
Barbacoa - Pitt-Cooked Lamb from the Central Highlands
Chicharrón - the Best Snack to Munch on
Migas - Another Option for Stale Tortillas
Chiles en Nogada - A Dish of National Pride
Sope, Tlacoyo, Huarache, Gordita - When Tortillas Get Big, Fat, and Full of Stuff
Bacalao - X-mas Speciality
Mole - Way Beyond Nutella
Empanadas - Mexican Style
Romeritos - Another X-mas Speciality