Recipe: Calabacitas Rellenas con Molito de Jitomate Asado

Maru’s maternal grandma, abuelita Chela, came up with this recipe while she was raising seven kids. She’s full of great vegetarian recipes, since meat would have been costly for her large family. This recipe is simple, but it will be a bit time consuming as many of these older Mexican recipes are. I would not consider this dish an everyday, after work type thing for your average working family. Chela often did it that way and wouldn’t consider it anything fancy, but those were different times with pretty obnoxious expectations placed on housewives. You have got to respect the amount of work that women would put into daily meals and make it look like any old day.

You’ll see in this dish what has become a regular practice in the Mexican kitchen, dredging things in beaten egg whites and frying them. Someone figured this technique out at some point, realized it was delicious, and now it’s the go-to method for all sorts of things. Usually, it’s how you do chiles rellenos. When you get to the part where you have to dredge the zucchini through the egg whites, don’t worry about it being perfect. It kind of just works out.

I had never actually made this before, but a series of facts led me down this road tonight; Maru had just purchased a big bunch of epazote, I found a 2 lb bag of bruised tomatoes at the store for $1, and I found this beautiful fresh cheese that is targeted at an Eastern European audience, which was obvious from the Slavic on the label and the poorly translated ingredient list. (We have an incredible amount of Eastern European goods available in our neighborhood. Lots of Poles and Ukrainians.)

I took creative license with Chela’s recipe by roasting the tomatoes, but I think she would approve. The sauce was one of the most delicious things I’ve made in a while. Normally, you would use Mexican calabacitas for this recipe, but you can’t always find them. They are basically a small variety of zucchini with a very thin, light-colored skin, and they are less watery than the regular dark-skinned zucchinis we’re used to. I just bought small regular zucchinis and peeled strips of their skin off to avoid some of the toughness. They came out perfectly.

So, if you are feeling up to it, I highly recommend these. You will not be disappointed!

Calabacitas rellenas con molito de jitomate asado

2 small zucchinis (or 4 Mexican calabacitas)

¼ lb. or so queso fresco (Basically, you want a fresh cheese that is a little harder than fresh mozzarella, although that would work well too. You should be able to find queso fresco in round wheels in most stores that carry Mexican products.)

½ cup white flour with ¼ teaspoon salt mixed in

3 egg whites

Oil for frying

For the sauce:

2 lbs fresh tomatoes

½ cup thinly sliced onion

1 dried chipotle diced into small pieces (another dried chile would also work, but I like the smoky chipotle)

2 sprigs fresh epazote

½ teaspoon salt

2 Tablespoons veggie oil

1. Heat your oven’s broiler. Wash the tomatoes and put them into a 9x13 glass baking dish. Place them under the broiler. Check them and rotate them every few minutes. They should roast until they are starting to blacken all over, about 10-15 minutes. Remove them from the oven and let them cool slightly. Once cool enough to touch, remove and discard the blackened skins.

2. While the tomatoes are cooking, make the calabacitas. Slice the zucchini in ¼ inch thick rounds. Slice the cheese in ¼ inch thick squares. Make little sandwiches with a slice of cheese between two slices of zucchini.

3. In a frying pan, heat a ½ inch of oil over medium-high heat.

4. Put the egg whites in a large bowl. Beat the egg whites with an electric beater until soft peaks form. (You can do it by hand, but it’s a workout!)

5. Working in batches, roll each zucchini “sandwich” in the salted flour (this helps the egg stick and seasons it), and then dredge it through the beaten egg white. You can do this with your fingers. The coating won’t be even, but that’s ok. As you remove the zucchinis from the egg, gently place them in the oil. Fry for about 1-2 minutes on each side or until golden brown. Remove to a paper towel-lined plate or cookie sheet.

6. In a large sauce pan, heat the 2 Tablespoons of veggie oil over medium heat. Throw in the onions with a pinch of salt. Cook until starting to soften, about 3 minutes.

7. Add the chipotle and cook for another 3-4 minutes until the onions are just starting to brown and the chile becomes very fragrant.

8. Dump in the tomatoes. You can toss them in whole, and they will break down quickly. Make sure that you pour in all of the juices that will have collected at the bottom of your baking dish.

9. Add another ½ teaspoon of salt and the epazote sprigs. Bring the mixture to a boil, and then simmer for 15-20 minutes.

10. Remove the sauce from the heat. Using a potato masher, crush any remaining chunks of tomato and blend the ingredients together. You could also blend everything with a blender, but I liked how this came out by hand.

11. Strain the sauce. The easiest way to do this is to dump it into a large bowl, then place a medium mesh strainer over the pan you cooked it in and pour the sauce through the strainer. Using a rubber spatula, scrape the sauce down and around the strainer until you’re left with nothing but almost dry pieces of tomato, seeds, herb, and onion. Now you should have a beautiful, silky smooth, smoky-sweet sauce.

12. To serve, place a few zucchinis on a plate, spoon the sauce over the top, and if you want, add a dollop of yogurt or sour cream. Black beans go really well with this dish, and if you have fresh tortillas, even better.