Quesadillas

Name: Quesadillas
Cook time: 43 min
Total time: 43 min
Yield: 4
Cuisine: Mexicana
Ingredients: 2 u Tomato; 1 u Onion; 2 cloves Garlic; Salt; 2 u Green Chilli; 1 tablespoon Vegetable Oil; 1 handful Coriander; 2 u Lime; 2 u Avocado; 300 g Mozzarella; 8 u Tortillas; 250 g Mushrooms

Easy

Incomplete allergen information: some ingredients have not been reviewed yet. Always check the labels before cooking.

Author: Equipo Cocinoa
Preparation time: 43 min
Servings: 4

Summary

Tortillas folded over melting cheese and mushrooms sautéed with garlic and chilli, toasted in a dry pan until golden and crisp. With guacamole and a fresh tomato salsa, a Mexican dinner in under an hour.

Ingredients

4 servings

Add to Bring!

2 u Tomato (ripe but firm)
1 u Onion (finely chopped, divided between the filling, the guacamole and the salsa)
2 cloves Garlic (chopped)
Salt (to taste)
2 u Green Chilli (jalapeño or serrano: 1 for the filling and 1 for the guacamole and salsa)
1 tablespoon Vegetable Oil (for the mushrooms)
1 handful Coriander (fresh, chopped)
2 u Lime (juiced: one for the guacamole and one for the salsa)
2 u Avocado (ripe)
300 g Mozzarella (low-moisture block, grated, or shredded Oaxaca cheese)
8 u Tortillas (flour tortillas, about 20 cm across, or corn)
250 g Mushrooms (button or other mushrooms, sliced)

Instructions

Make the guacamole: mash the avocado flesh with a fork, leaving a few chunks, and mix it with a third of the onion, half of one of the chillies, seeded and finely chopped, half the coriander, the juice of one lime and salt. Cover with cling film pressed onto the surface.
8 min
For the fresh salsa, cut the tomatoes into small dice and mix them with another third of the onion, the rest of the coriander, the juice of the other lime, salt and, if you want some heat, the rest of that chilli.
5 min
Heat the oil in a frying pan over medium-high heat and sauté the remaining onion with the garlic and the other chilli, chopped, for a couple of minutes. Add the mushrooms and cook them without stirring too much until they release their liquid, it evaporates and they start to brown. Season and tip onto a plate.
10 min
Wipe out the pan with kitchen paper, or use a comal, and heat it over medium heat with no fat at all. Lay in a tortilla, scatter a handful of cheese over one half, add a few spoonfuls of mushrooms and a little more cheese on top, which will act as glue as it melts.
Fold the tortilla in half, press it down gently with the spatula and cook until the underside is golden with toasted spots. Turn it over and cook the other side until the cheese has melted completely. Repeat with the rest, two at a time if they fit, and keep the cooked ones in the oven at 90 °C if you want to serve them all together.
20 min
Cut each quesadilla into three or four wedges and serve straight away with the guacamole and salsa.

Notes

Quesadilla comes from queso, cheese, but in Mexico City that logic doesn't hold: there people order them filled with courgette flowers, huitlacoche, tinga or chicharrón prensado, and if you want cheese you have to ask for it. In the north and across much of the country, where they are also made with flour tortillas, cheese is taken for granted, and the argument between the capital and everyone else flares up every so often. The ideal cheese is Oaxaca, which pulls apart in strings and melts without turning greasy; the closest thing in most shops is a block of low-moisture mozzarella, the pizza kind. Avoid fresh mozzarella balls, which release water and make the tortilla soggy. Other traditional fillings: strips of poblano chilli with onion, crumbled chorizo browned in the pan first, or courgette flowers sautéed with onion and a leaf of epazote. Cook them over medium heat: on high heat the tortilla burns before the cheese melts. Made with 100% corn tortillas they are suitable for coeliacs. Eat them straight away; the guacamole keeps for a day in the fridge with cling film pressed onto the surface so it doesn't darken.