How to clean huauzontles, and prepare them for cooking

I’m glad y’all are excited about my Week of Huauzontles. Well, except for Don Cuevas, who compared them to “bottle brushes.” But that’s okay. I still heart you, Don.

My first post is about how to clean the vegetable. As I mentioned yesterday, it’s an involved process. You might want to have a radio or iPod jamming out some of your favorite hits as you pluck and de-stem, just to help the time pass more quickly.

Also: make sure your huauz is a deep green color. If you see any yellow buds, don’t add them to your pile, because they’ll impart a bitter flavor in the end.

More fun huauzontle cleaning tips below.

How to Clean and Prepare Huauzontles

These steps are useful if you’re preparing huauzontles for tortitas (small croquettes or patties, dipped in egg batter and fried), or for use in sauces, poultry, etc. There’s another typical Mexican dish, also called a tortita, in which the stalks are kept on and the leaves are battered and fried, and eaten kind of like corn-on-the-cob. Obviously if you’re preparing your huauzontles that way, you’ll want to keep the stalks, and rinse everything several times in water to remove the grit and dirt. I’ve never made huauzontles that way because I’m too scared of the bitter stems. (Scarred, still, by the butternut squash incident of 2009.)

Step 1: Gather your huauzontle on a kitchen table or work area, and begin removing the leaves and large stems from the thick center stalk. This photo from Flickr user Melisub shows what to do:

Alternately, you could also snip the stems off the central stalk with kitchen shears. You want to keep any fluffy, flower-pod-like sections. The rest can go into your discard pile.

Step 2: At this point, you should have a bunch of mostly bare stalks in your trash pile, and a pile of fluffy buds, some perhaps with tough stems. Pick up one of the latter and using your fingers, gently scrape down on the stem to remove the soft buds. (Alice demonstrates below.) You should have a pile of these soft seeds when you’re done. Note: some folks like to keep the smaller stems on, but I find them too bitter. I also weed out any small leaves that might’ve sneaked into the pile.

Step 3: Rinse your newly stemmed huauzontle buds at least three times, to remove the dirt and grit. (These suckers can get dirty — don’t be scared if you notice that the water is black.) Strain in a fine mesh strainer, because they’ll slip through a regular colander. Congratulate yourself with getting this work done. Woo-hoo!

Step 4: Boil for about 5 to 10 minutes, until tender but still bright green.

At this point, drain the huauzontle again in a fine-mesh strainer, and refrigerate for later use.

Coming tomorrow: Huauzontle queso with chorizo verde