A few years ago, I had a roommate who, on the occasions when we all got home from the bars at 2 am, would make us all quesadillas before we went to bed. He’d make two or three of them and we would all savagely attack them like the 24-year old drunk animals we were (never mind that we were all probably already full from the 1 am Mission burritos*). I’m not sure if there is any actual scientific basis, but I rarely woke up hungover after 2 am quesadillas. These days, I’m rarely out of my apartment after 11 pm but I still eat quesadillas, though usually at the more respectable hour of dinner o’clock.
*Let's all take a moment of silence for our 24-year-old metabolisms.
These quesadillas do a mighty fine job for dinner. They are bursting with all the flavors of queso fundido, that delicious, sinful dip of melted cheese, chorizo, and pobablos. And its fine to sit down in front of a hot skillet of oozing cheese armed only with tortilla chips and beer, say, if you have five friends joining you on Sunday to watch all the sports (I hear this sometimes happens?), but it’s maybe a little bit decadent for a Wednesday night while watching Jeopardy. So with these, you can show a bit more restraint on the cheese front, sending it to the background instead of oozing front and center, and instead highlighting the smoky roasted poblanos and caramelized onions, with a mere sprinkling of chorizo**. Even so, I suspect these would be perfectly appropriate for some game day snacking too.
**in a continuation of the Whole Foods chronicles…every time I go there I see endless variations on chorizo, be it veal, pork, organic, local etc., but the one time I went to actually buy it, they only had turkey chorizo, which I did not know was a thing, but it is, and I used it here, and it was both delicious and accidentally made my quesadillas an even lighter twist on queso fundido than I was intending.
Quesadillas Fundido Recipe
1/2 yellow onion, thinly sliced
8 oz. uncooked Mexican style chorizo
1 large poblano pepper
8 oz. shredded Oaxaca cheese (or whole milk mozzarella)
flour tortillas
1 scallion (for garnish)
1/4 cup cilantro (for garnish)
Roast poblano, either on top of a gas burner, or under a broiler, turning until all sides are charred and blackened. Place pepper in a ziploc bag and seal. Let sit until cooled, then peel, seed and slice into thin strips.
Cook onion until soft and slightly caramelized, set aside. Cook chorizo until any fat is rendered and chorizo is brown and crispy.
On one side of a tortilla, layer cheese, poblano, chorizo, onion, and cheese again. Fold over the rest of the tortilla and cook on a hot griddle or pan until both sides are crispy and quesadilla is hot through and cheese is melted. Slice into triangles and garnish with scallion and cilantro if desired. Serve hot.