Mexican gorditas: chicharrón prensado, flour, nata and La Villa styles

What a gordita is

A gordita is, literally, a "chubby" tortilla: a piece of corn masa thicker than an ordinary tortilla, cooked on the comal or fried, split open along one side like a pocket and filled with a stew. Salsa, cheese, onion, coriander and sometimes lettuce or nopales go on top or inside. It is eaten by hand, hot, and is one of the commonest snacks in markets, fondas and street stalls across much of the country.

Outside Mexico the word is known, if at all, from American fast-food chains, which use it for products that have little to do with the Mexican gordita. The real thing is neither a taco nor an arepa, though it looks a little like the latter: it is its own thing, and it also varies enormously by region. There are savoury and sweet gorditas, corn and wheat-flour gorditas, gorditas cooked on the comal, fried or baked.

How a corn gordita is made

The commonest corn gordita is made with nixtamalised corn masa, sometimes enriched with a little lard and salt. A ball is formed, flattened by hand or in a press to a thickness of just under a centimetre and cooked on the comal. With the heat, the dough puffs up slightly and separates inside; it is then slit open along the edge with a knife and filled.

There are two main methods:

• Comal-cooked. Cooked dry, with barely any oil. This is the lightest.
• Fried. After the comal, or straight away, it is fried in oil or lard until crisp outside and tender within. It is then split and filled, often with lime and salsa added inside.

There is also the gordita with the filling worked into the dough itself. The most familiar has ground chicharrón or chicharrón crumbs mixed into the masa before cooking; you will find a version in our gorditas de migajas recipe.

Queen of the centre: the chicharrón prensado gordita

If there is one traditional gordita filling, it is chicharrón. Not the crunchy crackling eaten as a snack, but chicharrón prensado: scraps of pork meat and fat cooked and pressed into a block, which is then stewed in red or green salsa until soft and deeply savoury. It is the filling you will find at almost any gordita stall in central Mexico, and the one usually recommended for beginners.

Try our gorditas de chicharrón prensado recipe. If you would rather go meat-free, there are gorditas filled with beans, potato with or without chorizo, rajas with cheese or requesón, one of the mildest and best-loved fillings.

In central Mexico gorditas tend to be small and thick, the size of a fist or an ordinary tortilla. In the north, by contrast, they are usually larger and flatter.

The north and Durango: flour gorditas

In northern Mexico, where the wheat-flour tortilla is part of the daily table, there are flour gorditas too. Those from Durango have a reputation of their own: they are made with wheat flour and cooked so that they puff up with steam, like a small pitta bread. They are then opened and filled with stews. Among the fillings people order most in Durango is, once again, chicharrón prensado in salsa, along with meat stews, beans with cheese or rajas. Local sources note that there the flour gorditas are associated above all with chicharrón prensado, whereas the corn ones are paired with asientos de chicharrón, the fatty residue left at the bottom of the pan after frying pork crackling.

Try our northern flour gorditas to get to know this version. In Durango and elsewhere there are also so-called gorditas de horno, oval and oven-baked, filled with beans or rajas.

Gorditas from other regions

The gordita is so common that almost every region has its own version. Some worth knowing:

• Querétaro. Gorditas de maíz quebrado, made with coarse-textured masa, fried and filled with, for example, chicharrón or cheese.
• The Bajío and north-central Mexico. In cities such as León, gorditas de horno are baked in clay ovens and can also be filled with chicharrón prensado.
• Aguascalientes. Our recipe for Aguascalientes-style stuffed gorditas shows the stall version, with several stews to choose from.

Sweet gorditas: nata, sugar and La Villa

The word "gordita" is also used for several small sweet breads that have nothing to do with the savoury snacks.

Gorditas de nata

These are small, thick, fluffy griddle cakes made with nata (the skin of fat that forms when milk is boiled), sugar, cinnamon and flour, cooked on the comal. They are eaten mainly in the centre and east of the country, often at breakfast or as an afternoon snack, with coffee or hot chocolate. Some local accounts link them to the patron-saint festivities of Pachuca, in Hidalgo. Here is our recipe for gorditas de nata.

Gorditas de azúcar

A similar dough is used for gorditas de azúcar, thinner and crisper, almost like a flat biscuit.

Gorditas de La Villa

Gorditas de La Villa are small sweet tortillas made from cacahuazintle corn with sugar, sold in the streets around the Basilica of Guadalupe, in the north of Mexico City. They are cooked on large comales and sold in packets wrapped in coloured tissue paper, a sight pilgrims recognise at once. They have also been called gorditas de atrio ("churchyard gorditas"), because they were sold at church entrances, and gorditas de saliva, because, so the story goes, the cooks moistened their fingers on their tongues to turn them on the comal without burning themselves. Nobody knows who invented them. Some families have been making them for several generations, and demand soars in December, around the feast of the Virgin of Guadalupe on 12 December.

How to make gorditas at home

1. The masa. Use fresh nixtamalised corn masa or nixtamalised corn flour. Add a tablespoon of lard or oil and a pinch of salt for every half kilo, and knead until smooth and free of cracks.
2. The thickness. Flatten golf-ball-sized pieces to half a centimetre thick. Too thin and they will not open; too thick and they will be raw inside.
3. The comal. Cook them over a medium heat, a few minutes on each side, until golden-spotted and slightly puffed.
4. Open them while hot. With a small knife, cut along the edge to form the pocket. If you like, fry them for a minute in hot oil first.
5. Fill straight away with the piping-hot stew, add salsa, cheese and onion, and serve at once.

Frequently asked questions

What is the difference between a gordita and a sope?

A sope is a thick masa base with a pinched rim, with the ingredients placed on top. A gordita is split open and filled like a pocket.

Are gorditas the same as arepas?

They look alike, but the gordita is made with nixtamalised corn masa, whereas the Venezuelan or Colombian arepa is usually made with precooked corn flour that has not been nixtamalised. The flavour and texture are different.

What is chicharrón prensado?

Scraps of pork meat and fat cooked and pressed into a compact block. It is stewed in salsa and is the traditional gordita filling.

Do gorditas de La Villa have a filling?

No. They are small sweet tortillas eaten on their own, like a treat.

Sources

• Wikipedia, «Gordita» (definition, cooking methods, differences between the centre and the north, Durango flour gorditas, gorditas de nata and de azúcar, traditional fillings).
• Posta, «Los 3 guisos de gorditas que debes comer al visitar Durango» and «En estas presentaciones se venden las gorditas en Durango» (chicharrón prensado, asientos, gorditas de horno).
• Líder Empresarial, «Gorditas de horno, pruébalas» (gorditas de horno from the León area).
• El Diario NY, «Lo que tienes que saber sobre las tradicionales gorditas de nata mexicanas» (link with the patron-saint festivities of Pachuca).
• The Mija Chronicles, «Gorditas de maíz quebrado in Querétaro» (gorditas de maíz quebrado).
• México Desconocido, «Gorditas de la Villa, dulce tradición centenaria»; Mexico City Government, guide to Gustavo A. Madero; El Universal, «Las gorditas de la Villa, herencia familiar»; Vice, «Eating and praying on the day of Our Lady of Guadalupe» (cacahuazintle corn, tissue paper, old names, family tradition and December demand).