Mesoamerica · Volume 02, Achiote, the Pib and the Lebanese Table
Marquesitas
Yucatán, Mexico
Illustration
- Time
- 30 minutes
- Researched
- Researched from 26 sources in the brief
As tradition built it
Marquesitas
Serves 10. About 30 minutes.
Ingredients
The batter
- 500g plain flour
- 325g sugar
- 1 tbsp vanilla extract
- ½ tin evaporated milk
- 500ml water
To cook and fill
- 45g butter
- ¼ queso de bola (Edam), grated, a quarter of a ball
- to taste second filling: jam, cajeta, Nutella, walnuts or almonds
Method
- Beat the flour, sugar, vanilla, evaporated milk and water together by hand. The butter and cheese stay out of the batter.
- Pour half a cup of batter onto the hot marquesita iron and close it, so it cooks into a thin, crisp sheet.
- Open it and fill it while it is hot: grated queso de bola first, then the second filling.
- Roll it into a tube and finish the end with a pinch more cheese.
Notes
The batter is Revista Yucatán's from Mérida, with information from El Souvenir; Directo al Paladar México gives exactly half of it for 10 people, which is the batch here. Directo al Paladar credits doña Carmen Muñoz, wife of Leopoldo Mena of Helados Polito, with the thin batter in 1937. A crepe iron works. Neither source says where the butter goes; it is kept out of the batter.
What a modern chef changes
Dehydrated cheese, sous vide condensed milk, direct-heat caramelisation
Method
- Dehydrate a portion of the shredded queso de bola briefly before folding it in, concentrating its savoury edge against the wafer's sweetness.
- Make a version of condensed milk in-house by reducing full-fat milk slowly and gently, sous vide at a controlled low temperature over several hours, for a cleaner, less cloying result than a tinned version.
- Finish the rolled wafer briefly under direct Big Green Egg heat rather than a domestic grill, for real, fast caramelisation on the exterior in the seconds before the cheese inside can overmelt.