Esquites from the Tomb Raider Cookbook
The next recipe from Tomb Raider: The Official Cookbook and Travel Guide that I made was another North American dish, Esquites. This is a recipe from Mexico consisting of grilled corn with mayo, Cotija cheese, chili powder, lime juice and other spices. It’s either served on the cob (elotes) or cut off the cob, sauteed in butter and served with the same ingredients in a cup (esquites or elote en vaso - corn in a cup). Outside of Mexico, people usually call it “Mexican corn” or “Mexican style corn”.
Lara Croft has been to Mexico in the Tomb Raider series thrice. In Tomb Raider: Underworld, she visits Southern Mexico, which is so remote that the inhabitants speak Mayan and not Spanish, and enters the Mayan underworld of Xibalba to find Thor’s Belt (Megingjord/Megingjörð). In Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light, Lara ventures to Mexico for the Mirror of Smoke, only to have to put it back to seal away a dangerous god. Finally, in Shadow of the Tomb Raider, Lara visits Cozumel during Día de los Muertos and accidentally triggers the apocalypse. Damn it Lara!
Corn is an important part of the culture of Paititi, the hidden (Peruvian) city Lara explores in Shadow of the Tomb Raider. A minor character, Hedia, works in the corn fields, and one of the relics Lara can collect is an urpu, a ceremonial ceramic jar that stores chicha, or corn beer. Another relic, the metatl, has corn legs. One of the murals in the Porvenir Oil Fields pays tribute to Mama Zara, the Inca goddess of grain, whose name means “maize mother”. The mural text mentions that farmers would dress maize plants like a doll in her honor, and hang maize dolls from willow trees for her. Finally, multicolored ears of corn can be seen in baskets in the market, but alas, Lara can’t buy or eat them.
The preparation for Esquites is quite simple: cut the kernels off the cobs and cook them in a pan with salted butter until as much of them are charred as possible. Let them cool a bit, and then mix them with your other ingredients. This recipe includes a raw clove of garlic and a raw jalapeno pepper (deseeded, which I normally do anyway); I wasn’t sure about this at first, but they’re mellowed enough by the residual heat and other ingredients that they don’t need to be cooked with the corn. It was quite nice!
Traditionally, you use Cotija cheese with elote anything. I’ve made esquite-style corn (with alterations) many times before and was previously never able to find Cotija, so this time I really wanted to. On my last in-person grocery run, I didn’t find any, so I resorted to ordering a grocery delivery with it and some ingredients for other recipes. The night I cooked these Esquites, I served them with grilled flank steak and a cheddar zucchini bread. Cotija is a great choice, it reminds me a lot of Parmigiano and Pecorino, not quite as sharp, but still firm and flavorful. Definitely use it if you can find it. If not, Parmigiano or feta will suffice as substitutes.
If you want to make this recipe for Esquites yourself, you can find it in Tomb Raider: The Official Cookbook and Travel Guide. The recipes I used for the steak and bread were Simply Recipes’ Grilled Chili Lime Flank Steak (recipe here) and A Pretty Life in the Suburbs’ Zucchini, Cheddar Cheese & Chive Buttermilk Quick Bread (recipe here).
