Gusanos de Maguey

Fried in nothing but the fat that comes out of them, which is a surprising amount.

Not vegetarian — contains maguey worms.

Ingredients

• 250 g maguey worms
• 2 teaspoons salt
• juice of 2 limes
• 1 teaspoon ground chile piquin
• corn tortillas, as on their own page, to serve
• guacamole, as on its own page, to serve

Method

1. THEY ARE FRIED IN NOTHING BUT THE FAT THAT COMES OUT OF THEM, WHICH IS A SURPRISING AMOUNT. A maguey worm is a larva and is largely fat. Put into a dry pan over a medium heat they sit there for a minute looking wrong, and then they begin to render: within three or four minutes there is a visible pool of clear fat in the pan and they are frying in it. By eight minutes they are crisp and deep golden and the pan has perhaps two tablespoons of their own fat in it. Nothing is added at any point. Started in oil or lard, they swim in a mixture of two fats, come out greasy, and the clean nutty taste that is the whole point is buried.
2. THE PAN IS NOT CROWDED OR THEY STEAM. One layer, with gaps. Two hundred and fifty grams piled into a small pan releases its moisture faster than it can evaporate and the worms poach in it instead of rendering. A wide pan, or two batches.
3. THEY ARE LEFT ALONE FOR THE FIRST TWO MINUTES. Moving them before any fat has rendered drags them on dry metal and tears the skins, and a torn worm leaks its fat out in one go and then burns. Still until the pan looks wet, then shaken.
4. THE FAT IS KEPT AND IS WORTH KEEPING. Poured off at the end into a small jar: it is clear, nutty and strongly flavoured, and a spoonful of it goes into a salsa or over warm tortillas. Thrown away with the pan wash, which is what normally happens to it.
5. SOME ARE SET ASIDE AND GROUND WITH SALT, which is the other thing this ingredient does. A handful of the crisped worms ground in a mortar with coarse salt and a little dried chilli makes the orange-red seasoning salt that sits on the rim of a glass or beside a plate. It keeps for months, where the fried worms keep for about an hour.
6. The worms rinsed briefly, drained and patted dry.
7. A WIDE heavy pan set over a medium heat, COMPLETELY DRY. No oil or lard at any stage.
8. The worms tipped in in a SINGLE LAYER with gaps. Two batches if needed.
9. LEFT ALONE 2 MINUTES, untouched, until the pan begins to look wet with rendered fat.
10. The pan then SHAKEN every 30 seconds or so.
11. Fried 6 to 8 MINUTES in all, in their OWN fat, until deep golden and crisp.
12. The salt scattered over and tossed through.
13. Lifted out with a slotted spoon onto a rack. The RENDERED FAT poured off into a small jar and KEPT.
14. A handful set aside and ground in a mortar with coarse salt and the ground chilli, to make a seasoning salt.
15. The rest served at once in warm tortillas with guacamole and a squeeze of lime.
16. The seasoning salt keeps months; the fried worms keep about an hour.

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