Mesoamerica · Volume 01, The Highland Mole and Maize World
Chapulines
Zapotec and Mixtec milpa fields, Oaxaca
An illustration of the dish, not a photograph of it cooked.
- Time
- 24 hours
- Reviewed
- Not yet reviewed from inside the tradition
- Cooked
- Not yet cooked and reported
As tradition built it
Chapulines
Purged 24 hours, toasted 10 minutes
Ingredients
- 1kg chapulines (grasshoppers), live-caught
- 1 head garlic, crushed
- 250ml lime juice
- to taste pasilla chile, ground
- to taste salt
Method
- Purge the insects in water for 24 hours, then rinse.
- Toast on a clay comal with crushed garlic, lime juice, ground pasilla chile and salt for around ten minutes, until they turn reddish.
- Serve as a snack, folded into a taco, or scattered over guacamole and tlayudas.
What a modern chef changes
Dehydrated crispness, live-fire toast, finishing dust
Method
- Dehydrate the purged chapulines briefly before toasting, drawing off residual moisture for a crisper, more even result than a straight comal toast on damp insects gives.
- Finish the toast on a Big Green Egg's dry, very high, even heat rather than a stovetop comal, for a genuinely consistent ten-minute toast across a whole batch rather than the uneven hot spots a home hob produces.
- Grind a small portion of the finished chapulines with salt in the spice grinder into a seasoning dust, a concentrated version of the same flavour used to finish a cocktail rim or dust over a taco, rather than only ever served whole.