Tostilocos

Built inside the opened bag and eaten out of it, because the bag is the bowl and the mixing vessel.

Pork. Not vegetarian — contains pork.

Ingredients

• 4 small bags of tortilla chips, as on their own page
• 1 cucumber, in small dice
• 300 g jicama, in small dice
• 200 g roasted peanuts
• 4 tablespoons chamoy, as on its own page
• 2 tablespoons ground chile piquin
• juice of 4 limes
• 4 tablespoons Japanese-style coated peanuts
• 200 g pork rind, in small pieces
• hot sauce, to taste

Method

1. IT IS BUILT INSIDE THE OPENED BAG AND EATEN OUT OF IT, because the bag is the bowl and the mixing vessel. That is not a shortcut, it is the form of the dish. The bag is cut open down one long side rather than across the top, which turns it into a trough, and everything is layered in on top of the chips and then turned over a couple of times with a fork inside the bag itself. The bag holds the juices -- lime, chamoy, hot sauce -- against the chips in a narrow space so they coat rather than drain away, and it is rigid enough to be held in one hand and eaten from with a fork. Tipped into a bowl, the liquid runs to the bottom and the top half stays dry.
2. IT IS CUT DOWN THE SIDE AND NOT ACROSS THE TOP. A long cut down one seam opens the bag out into a trough with the chips lying in it. Opened at the top, it is a deep narrow pocket nothing can be layered into or mixed in.
3. THE WET AND DRY GO IN IN ALTERNATE LAYERS AND IT IS TURNED ONLY TWICE. Chips, then the diced things, then the nuts and rind, then the chamoy and lime and chilli over the top, and two turns with a fork. Stirred properly, the chips break up into crumbs and the whole thing becomes a wet mash within a minute.
4. EVERYTHING DICED IS CUT SMALL AND PATTED DRY. Cucumber and jicama in half-centimetre dice, drained on a cloth. Jicama especially holds water, and wet dice sitting on chips in a closed bag soften them from underneath before the first mouthful.
5. IT IS ASSEMBLED ONE BAG AT A TIME AND HANDED STRAIGHT OVER. The clock starts the moment the chamoy goes in -- three or four minutes and the chips have gone. Four bags made in advance are four bags of mush, so each one is built and given to the person eating it.
6. The cucumber and jicama cut into a small 5 mm DICE and patted DRY on a cloth.
7. Everything else -- peanuts, coated peanuts, pork rind, chamoy, chilli, limes, hot sauce -- set out within reach first.
8. ONE BAG taken and CUT OPEN DOWN ONE LONG SIDE with scissors, so it opens into a trough. Not across the top.
9. The chips inside levelled out with a fork.
10. The diced cucumber and jicama scattered over them.
11. The peanuts, coated peanuts and pork rind added on top of that.
12. A tablespoon of chamoy drizzled over, then the ground chilli, then the juice of a lime and a few drops of hot sauce.
13. TURNED TWICE ONLY with a fork, inside the bag. Not stirred.
14. Handed over IMMEDIATELY with the fork in it.
15. The next bag built only when the first is being eaten.
16. Nothing is made ahead: it is gone in 4 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