Chicharrón Preparado

Nothing is cooked at all — a whole sheet is loaded flat and handed over before it has time to soften.

Egg. Not vegetarian — contains cheese whose rennet the source does not name.

Ingredients

• 4 large flat chicharrón sheets, or wheat chicharrón (duros)
• 4 tablespoons mayonnaise
• 4 tablespoons soured cream
• ¼ white cabbage, shredded very fine
• 2 tomatoes, diced
• 1 cucumber, diced
• 150 g crumbly white cheese
• 4 tablespoons chamoy, as on its own page
• 2 teaspoons ground chile piquin
• 2 limes, in wedges
• hot sauce, to taste

Method

1. NOTHING IS COOKED AT ALL -- A WHOLE SHEET IS LOADED FLAT AND HANDED OVER BEFORE IT HAS TIME TO SOFTEN. This is the third chicharrón page and the only one with no heat in it anywhere. A single large flat sheet is held in one hand like a plate, smeared, piled and dressed, and eaten standing up. The whole thing is a race: the moment mayonnaise touches it the sheet begins to soften from underneath, and at four or five minutes it has gone completely limp and folds under its own weight. So every component is prepared and laid out first, and then one sheet is built at a time and given straight to the person eating it.
2. IT IS BUILT ON A FLAT SHEET AND NOT A CURVED PIECE. The large flat wheat chicharrón -- duros -- is what this is normally made on, because it comes as a rigid flat disc that works as a plate. A curved piece of pork chicharrón will not hold a load and everything slides off one side.
3. THE MAYONNAISE GOES ON FIRST AND IS THE MORTAR. A thin layer right across the sheet. It holds the cabbage down, and the cabbage then holds everything else; without it the whole load slides off at the first tilt. Thin, though -- it is also the thing that starts the softening.
4. THE CABBAGE IS SHREDDED AS FINELY AS POSSIBLE AND GOES ON DRY. It is the structural layer, and coarse shreds sit in a loose pile that nothing above it can rest on. Shredded to threads and patted dry, it mats together into a bed.
5. THE WET THINGS GO ON LAST AND IN THE MIDDLE. Cream, chamoy, hot sauce, lime -- all of them in the centre of the sheet, not out to the rim. The rim is what the hand is holding, and anything liquid that reaches it runs down the wrist and softens the edge where the grip is.
6. The cabbage shredded as FINELY as possible and patted DRY. The tomato and cucumber diced small and drained on a cloth.
7. EVERYTHING laid out within reach before any sheet is touched: mayonnaise, cream, cabbage, tomato, cucumber, cheese, chamoy, chilli, limes, hot sauce.
8. ONE SHEET taken and held flat.
9. A THIN layer of mayonnaise smeared right across it.
10. The shredded cabbage pressed on in a bed, covering the mayonnaise.
11. The tomato and cucumber scattered over the cabbage.
12. The cheese crumbled on.
13. The soured cream drizzled over the MIDDLE only, not out to the rim.
14. The chamoy drizzled over, then the ground chilli, then a squeeze of lime and a few drops of hot sauce -- all in the CENTRE.
15. HANDED OVER IMMEDIATELY, to be eaten standing up, held by the rim.
16. The next sheet built only once the first is being eaten. Nothing is made ahead: it is limp in 5 minutes.

Our own recipe. This one was written for this site rather than taken from anywhere, so there is no source to point you at. The quantities and the order of the steps are choices, not the only way to do it.

Filed under Mexico · All recipes