Amuse-bouche
In search of Santa Fe’s finest flan
The first time I ate flan was as a kid in Chicago’s Logan Square neighborhood. In the 1980s, Kedzie Avenue was populated by mom-and-pop Mexican restaurants selling fresh tamales, burritos as big as your head, and lovely cold custard baked in individual ramekins. The golden substance was simultaneously dense and light, sweet without being cloying — like pudding, but better. I would have eaten it daily if given the chance. In Santa Fe, the dish is ubiquitous, and as an adult with my own discretionary dessert budget, I have tried many versions, becoming, in my own estimation, something of a flan connoisseur.
Two things I have learned are 1. Everyone thinks their flan is the best in the city, and 2. Much like snowflakes and fingerprints, no two flans are exactly the same. Flan can be slightly gloppy, like the filling in a Boston cream doughnut, or it can be firm, the consistency of cheesecake. Some caramelized tops are light in color, while others are a rich brown, indicating a difference in aesthetics and also taste. Some restaurants use whipped cream and a cherry as garnishes, while others serve flan unadorned but for the iridescent caramel sauce in which it was baked. Flavors such as coconut, vanilla, or orange can be added to the basic recipe, which can be exciting. But I’ll eat any flan offered to me. It doesn’t need to be fancy.
The basic ingredients are eggs, sweetened condensed or evaporated milk, and regular milk, though some chefs use only milk and heavy cream. The caramel sauce is made from white sugar. A survey of a few flan-loving friends revealed a smooth texture as a key priority, though some called lumpy custard a dealbreaker, while others cannot stand graininess. Some people preferred alternatives to the basic recipe, such as chocolate flan, while others were staunch purists.
Michelle Chavez, owner of Coriander Catering and an instructor at Santa Fe School of Cooking, told me that differences in custard consistency and caramel color come down to cooking time and temperature. “When you get air pockets, it means the oven was too hot and the custard boiled, or there wasn’t enough water in the water bath. Then it’s overcooked and tastes eggy.” She prefers her caramel more golden than dark amber, because she doesn’t enjoy the bitterness of burnt caramel against the sweetness of custard. “That’s probably a personal preference, though,” she said.
In order to avoid that pitfall, Chavez caramelizes the sugar in a dry pan until it is 80 percent molten and 20 percent granulated. Then she lets the built-up heat melt the rest of the grains. The custard, baked in a deep water bath, is removed from the oven when it’s still slightly jiggly at the center. “It’s better to undercook than overcook,” she said. “You can take it out the last fifteen minutes or so and let it sit in the water bath.” Asked about what might have gone wrong the time I had to send back flavorless flan that was the consistency of an unrefrigerated Jell-O mold, Chavez guessed it was undercooked, underseasoned, and that the ratio of eggs to cream was off. “Or they might have actually tried to use gelatin,” she said.
Armed with a set of ideal flan standards, I embarked on a search for the finest flan in Santa Fe, knowing full well that I could probably eat the stuff weekly for a year before coming close to exhausting my options. Flan generally costs between $5 and $9. The reliably perfect red velvet flan at Plaza Café Southside (3466 Zafarano Drive), which is baked in a pie shape rather than in ramekins, falls in the middle range at $6.95 a slice. Southside owner Leonard Razatos once told me the recipe came about through a kitchen accident, when the chef poured custard over some leftover cake batter, expecting it to sink in during baking. But the two layers stayed separate, and the most visually arresting flan in town was born. The flan layer is smooth as butter and among the denser versions you will find; the red velvet cake is moist and chewy. Red velvet flan is available year-round, and coconut flan is on the menu for the fall. In November, I’m told, pumpkin flan makes its triumphant seasonal return to the Southside. All Southside flan is free of lumps and air bubbles, while its caramel color varies on a spectrum from lighter to darker.
Los Potrillos (1947 Cerrillos Road) serves traditional flan topped with whipped cream and a cherry. It is not overcooked, nor overly sweet, and is on the appealingly Boston-creamy end of the spectrum. I probably wouldn’t visit the restaurant specifically for flan, but I would not hesitate to order it after dinner there — a regular occurrence for me, especially as the weather gets colder and I crave their caldo de
albóndigas. The flan at seafood eatery Mariscos La Playa (537 Cordova Road) is dense, with a slightly burnt top. Though it was technically overcooked, somewhat off-color, and pocked with air bubbles, I loved it nonetheless — because, it turns out, none of these factors are deal-breakers for me. Variation might be the key to my flan love, and I can’t imagine Michelle Chavez, an instructor at Santa Fe School of Cooking, said that baked custard dates to ancient Rome, and that many cultures have a version.