Sorry spinach, you’ve been booted for wild quintoniles

Last Sunday I stopped by my old neighborhood tianguis, where I found man and a woman with a particularly fresh batch of produce for sale.

Everyone else’s curly-leaf lettuce looked wilted that day, but theirs was bright green and perky. They had fresh huitlacoche and spinach. And, in one big basket, a mess of dark-green, heart-shaped leaves. Some had purple splotches. I’m a sucker for greens, so I went over and stared. Crayton stood nearby, probably thinking, “Can we go now?”

“Epazote?” I asked the vendor.

“Quintoniles,” he told me. He pronounced them keen-toh-NEE-less.

My heart leapt a little bit. Mind you, I didn’t entirely know what they were, but they sounded like quelites, a wild Mexican green with a spinachy flavor.

“How do you cook them?” I asked him.

His eyes lit up. “Well, first you boil them. Then drain them. Then in a pan, you put a little onion, a little garlic and some serrano chiles, sliced this way.” He picked up a serrano chile and held it lengthwise, demonstrating that I’d cut it in strips. “Add your quintoniles and mix it all together.”

“Oooh,” I said.

He nodded. “It’s riquísimo.”

I bought one kilo, about two-pounds worth, for 10 pesos, which is less than $1 USD. Then I came home and researched, googling around and consulting Ricardo Muñoz Zurita’s encyclopedic dictionary.

Turns out quintoniles are indeed a wild, native Mexican green. They’re part of the amaranthus genus — the same plant family that produces amaranth seeds, which I blogged about yesterday. The leaves, like the seeds, are highly nutritious. They’re loaded with iron and calcium. And quintoniles are plentiful during Mexico City’s rainy season, which explains why the vendor had so much for sale.

If you’ve guessed that these babies are pre-hispanic, you’d be right. According to Ricardo’s dictionary, the name comes from the Nahuatl word quintonilli, a combination of quílitl, meaning edible herb, and tonilli, meaning thing that’s warmed by the sun.

They have a slightly bitter taste when eaten raw — somewhere between arugula and kale. Once cooked, the flavor mellows out and even has a hint of sweetness. (Are you drooling yet? I was.)

Several recipes I found on the Internet called for combining them with mushrooms and making a soup. I haven’t been in a soup mood lately, so a few days ago I used the vendor’s recipe, adding some roasted chicken and tomatoes for a simple taco filling. Jesica came over and we shared. They were delicious.

Yesterday night, though, I officially added quintoniles to the “Produced I’m Obsessed With” list. Made some stellar enchiladas filled with quintoniles, rajas and corn. That recipe’s coming.

At this rate I don’t think I’ll be buying spinach for the rest of the summer. I’ve now made four meals — with leftovers to spare — using a base ingredient that cost me less than $1.