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FijiFlavors · Puebla
Poblano chile stuffed with a meat-and-fruit picadillo, topped with a white walnut sauce and sprinkled with pomegranate seeds and parsley, in the colors of the Mexican flag. A seasonal dish from late summer, associated with the city of Puebla.
Traditional dish from Puebla, Puebla
Also known as: chile en nogada
Illustrative images. The pictures in this guide are illustrations based on the real place, not photographs, and may differ from it.
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Chiles en nogada — Puebla, Mexico
Chiles en nogada are poblano chiles—large green peppers, roasted and peeled—stuffed with a picadillo of pork or mixed meat, cooked with fruits such as peach, pear and apple, plus almonds and raisins. On top goes the nogada, a creamy sauce made from fresh walnuts, and finally pomegranate seeds and parsley leaves. The green, white and red recall the Mexican flag.
The most told version says the dish was created in Puebla in August 1821 by nuns in a city convent to honor Agustín de Iturbide, who passed through after signing the agreements that led to independence. Historians such as Alberto Peralta and archaeologist Eduardo Merlo of INAH in Puebla consider this story a myth: there is no document that confirms it.
Sources show the dish’s elements existed earlier and gradually came together. Sweet picadillos and walnut sauces already existed in colonial cuisine, and recipes for stuffed chiles with nogada appear in 19th-century cookbooks.
Chiles en nogada are a seasonal dish: fresh walnuts, fruits and pomegranates in the Puebla region ripen between July and September. It is in those months, and especially near the independence celebrations in September, that the dish appears on tables and in the city’s restaurants.
Puebla , Puebla
A seasonal dish associated with the city of Puebla; the popular version links its creation to nuns in a city convent in 1821, which historians do not confirm.
Poblano chiles; ground pork or mixed meat; fruits such as peach, pear and apple; almonds and raisins; peeled fresh walnuts, milk or cream and fresh cheese for the nogada; pomegranate seeds; parsley.
Served at room temperature or slightly warm, with the nogada covering the chile and pomegranate and parsley on top. Some cooks dip the chile in beaten egg and fry it before topping; others serve it unbattered.
From July to September, during the season of fresh walnuts and pomegranates, and especially during the independence festivities in September.
Your questions
Generally from July to September, when fresh walnuts, fruits and pomegranates are available in the Puebla region. The dish is more common close to the independence celebrations in September.
It is the most told version, but researchers—including Eduardo Merlo—consider it a myth, with no document to prove it. The dish’s elements already existed in colonial cuisine and in the 19th century.
Generally at room temperature or warm, with the nogada served cold on top.
Flavors of Mexico
Layers of corn tortillas with black beans and shredded cazón, cooked with epazote, topped with tomato sauce and habanero chile. Despite the name, it does not contain wheat bread. It is considered a symbol of Campeche cuisine.
Salted, dried beef — tasajo — cooked in a thick sauce of ground pumpkin seeds, with tomato and rice. It is the celebratory dish of Chiapa de Corzo, served especially during the January Fiesta Grande, the Parachicos festival.
Tacos of pork seasoned with a chile adobo, roasted on a vertical spit (the trompo), and served in a corn tortilla with pineapple, onion and cilantro. They descend from the tacos árabes brought to Puebla by Middle Eastern immigrants and took their current form in Mexico City taquerías.
White fish taco coated in a light batter and fried until golden, served on a corn tortilla with cabbage, tomato-and-onion salsa, mayonnaise or cream, and lime. It originated around 1960 at the stalls of the Mercado Negro, the fish market at the port of Ensenada.
Sandwich made with birote bread, a hard-crusted loaf, filled with carnitas and drenched in tomato sauce, with a spicy chile de árbol sauce on the side. A symbol of Guadalajara’s cuisine, which dedicated a municipal day to it on September 10.
Corn tortillas dipped in a guajillo chile sauce and fried, filled with cheese and onion, served with boiled potato and carrot, lettuce and pickled chiles. A typical dish of the city of Guanajuato, which tradition links to the wives of the silver mine workers.
Broth of cacahuazintle corn and pork thickened with a green sauce made from pumpkin seeds, tomatillo and herbs, served with many accompaniments. Dish from Guerrero, where Thursdays are pozole day.
Thin, crispy batter cooked on a round griddle and rolled like a tube, filled with queso de bola, a cheese of the Edam type. A street sweet from Mérida, created by a family of ice-cream makers in the city and sold at night from carts in the plazas.
Whole fish butterflied open, seasoned with a chile sauce and grilled over coals secured in a double-wire grill, the zaranda, which gives it its name. An official publication places its origin on the island of Mexcaltitán, on the northern coast of Nayarit.
Milk-fed kid opened, salted and slowly roasted on an iron stake beside the embers, in the shepherds’ style. It is the best-known dish of Nuevo León, present on the state’s traditional gastronomy routes, from Monterrey to the northern municipalities.
The darkest of Oaxaca’s moles: a thick sauce of chiles toasted almost to the point of burning, including the chilhuacle negro, with chocolate, seeds and spices. A celebratory dish of the state, prepared mainly in the Valles Centrales.
Thick, dark sauce made from several dried chiles, spices, seeds and chocolate, traditionally served with turkey. Tradition links its creation to the kitchen of the old Convent of Santa Rosa in Puebla, the city that gives it its name.
Pork slowly cooked in its own lard in large pots until tender inside and golden outside, served in tacos. Quiroga, near Lake Pátzcuaro, is called the capital of carnitas: families in the town have been making them for more than a century.
Raw shrimp butterfly-cut and cured in lime with chiltepín chile, served with cucumber and red onion. It originated in the mountains of Sinaloa as a meat broth with water and chile and reached the coast, where shrimp took the place of meat. It is presented as the state’s most representative dish.
Freshwater fish with a long snout, grilled whole over coals and eaten with tortilla, lime, salt and chile amashito. It lives in the rivers and lagoons of Tabasco and is one of the state’s most representative dishes, with roots in pre-Hispanic cuisine of the southeast.
Distilled spirit from blue agave named after the city of Tequila, in Jalisco, surrounded by agave fields. It has a designation of origin since 1974, and the agave landscape and the region’s old industrial facilities are a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Salad of romaine lettuce leaves with a dressing of egg, lemon, garlic, olive oil and Parmesan cheese, served with croutons. It was created in Tijuana by the Italian cook Caesar Cardini on July 4, 1924, according to Tijuanan historian José Fernando Escobedo de la Torre.
Red snapper cooked in a tomato sauce with olives, capers, garlic, onion, herbs and pickled chiles güeros or jalapeños. A coastal Veracruz dish, from the Gulf of Mexico, considered one of the country's best-known fish recipes.
Pork marinated in achiote and bitter orange, wrapped in banana leaf and slowly cooked in an earth oven, the pib. A Sunday family dish from Yucatán that combines the pig brought by the Spaniards with a Mayan cooking technique.
