Enchiladas de Huevo con Frijol 1939 (Bean and Egg Enchiladas)
UTSA’s Sombrilla magazine’s spring 2011 issue features an article highlighting the Libraries’ extensive Mexican cookbook collection and this blog.
“Librarians in the Cocina” follows myself and Nathalie Burack, our student volunteer, as we prepare a 1939 recipe for “Enchiladas de Huevo con frijol”, and also touches on the cookbook collection’s research potential. Also included is a scrolling gallery of cookbook covers.
The recipe for these tasty and unusual enchiladas is printed below, with additional photos courtesy of UTSA photographer Mark McClendon.
Lavalle de Hernández M., Faustina. Exquisita cocina de Campeche : 400 recetas experimentadas. México : México : Imprenta “Londres”, 1939. [TX716.M4 L39 1939] Pp. 167.
Enchiladas de Huevo con frijol
Para 12 tortillas medianas, 6 huevos cocidos muy duros y desmenuzados con suficiente sal. El frijol negro se prepara conforme a la receta del mismo; se espesa bien disolviéndolo luego y pasándolo por un colador de aluminio. Para preparar la salsa, se pone a la lumbre una cazuela con 100 gramos de manteca y se fríen en ella: una cebolla, picada y 4 hojas de epazote; se le agrega un jitomate hervido, pelado, y disuelto en la misma agua donede se coció, que deberá ser como media taza. Se le agregan seis chilitos picantes verdes, enteros y se tapa dejándolo hervir por 15 minutos sazonándola de sal. Para hacer las enchiladas se mojan las tortillas en la salsa, se les pone luego un poco del huevo y se van colocando en un platón hondo procurando que queden apretaditas. Luego se les pone por encima el frijol colado espeso y por último la salsa. Se sirve caliente. Si se quiere se le agrega pepita de calabaza molida, de la que sirve para el pipián.
Step-by-Step in the kitchen:
First, Nathalie and I boiled 6 eggs for 10 minutes, peeled them, and mashed them with a fork, adding about 1/4 tsp. salt.
While the eggs were boiling, we heated and sieved the black beans. Due to time constraints, we used canned beans. Unfortunately, either canned beans have tougher skins than fresh ones, or we didn’t cook them quite long enough. It was very difficult to press the beans through the sieve to achieve a paste. A food-mill might have worked better.
We also ground the pumpkin seeds, using a mortor and pestle. A food processor or blender would probably work, too.
Next, we boiled 1 large tomato in water, skinned it, and tried to mix it with 1/2 cup of the cooking water. I initially thought the recipe meant just to blanche the tomato for a minute, but in fact, the tomato should be boiled for several minutes before skinning, or it will not dissolve well.
Then, we fried 1 chopped onion, added the tomato, and then 6 whole, green chiles. We were unable to add the 4 epazote leaves called for in the recipe, because the grocery store near my home happened to be out of epazote when I went shopping the just before our Sombrilla photo shoot.
The recipe does not call for heating the tortillas. However, since we were using store-bought, rather than fresh tortillas, we fried them for just a few seconds on each side to soften them up.
When all the component parts were ready, we prepared the enchiladas by dipping each tortilla in sauce, wrapping it around a spoon-full of egg, and tucking it into a casserole dish.
We poured the beans over the enchiladas, and then the sauce.
Finally, to top everything off, we sprinkled the enchiladas with ground pumpkin seeds.
