Romeritos

Romeritos is a Mexican herb that resembles rosemary. The Mexican dish of “romeritos” (“Romeritos en Revoltijo”) adds dried shrimp, nopales, and pototoes and is served in a mole sauce. Romeritos is served during Lent and Christmas in Mexico.
 
Romeritos is not “Tex-Mex” and is not part of traditional Texas cuisine, but is popular in the areas of Texas that border Mexico. 
   
 
Wikipedia: Romeritos
Romeritos are a Mexican dish, consisting of patties of dried shrimp, sprigs of a wild plant known as Romerito that resembles rosemary and potatoes served in a mole sauce. They are traditionally served at Christmastime and lent.
   
Practically Edible
Romeritos
Romeritos are leaves that can be used as an herb for flavour, or cooked as a pot-herb vegetable in their own right.
 
They are small leaves that resembles a soft, non-woody version of rosemary.
 
They have a pronounced tart taste. Non-Mexicans sometimes have a hard time trying to decide if they like the flavour.
     
Recipe Tips
Romeritos
A Mexican herb that resembles rosemary. It is used as a seasoning and has a strong flavor that goes well with fish, chicken and beef. There is also a traditional Mexican dish called romeritos, which generally consists of potatoes, dried shrimp, and romeritos, which are all cooked in a mole sauce. The mole sauce, which provides a rich and spicy flavor to the dish, consists of ingredients, such as chile peppers, onions, garlic, chocolate, oil, sugar, nuts, and toasted bread or crackers.
 
Mexico Connect
For Soups, Stews and Summer Salads:
Mexico’s Leafy Greens
© 2004 Karen Hursh Graber
(...)
Romeritos (Suaeda mexicana ) During Lent in Mexico, the indigenous romerito leaves are combined with chiles, and sometimes with mole paste, to flavor a broth for the egg and dried shrimp patties known as tortitas de camarón. They are also sautéed with onions and garlic, as well as being batter fried.
     
Culture of Mexico
At Christmas people eat romeritos, a plant similar to rosemary served with sauce and potatoes; bacalao, dried codfish cooked and served in a sauce of tomatoes, olives, and onions; and all sorts of stuffed turkey.
   
What Is Some Traditional Mexican Food for Christmas?
For Christmas Day, romeritos are not uncommon. Composed of such ingredients as dried shrimp and potatoes, romeritos provide a simple but effective example of traditional Mexican food for Christmas. Colorful red, yellow, and green bell peppers may be added to the mixture if desired. The ingredients are seasoned with a spice that is also called romerito, and is understood to be similar to rosemary. The mixture is cooked in what is known as mole sauce. Mole sauce is made with garlic, onions, chocolate, sugar, nuts, chili peppers, olive oil, and small amounts of toasted bread. Along with romeritos, such dishes as shrimp croquettes may also be served, with the mole sauce used as an accompaniment. Traditional Mexican food for Christmas tends to rely heavily on what is readily available, and often makes use of combinations that may seem unusual to persons from other culture.
   
Adelante (published by Columbia Missourian)
Christmas Recipes
Bring a bit of Latin American fare to the holiday table.
By Dahlia L. Falk
(...)
In Mexico, a dish called romeritos is rarely left off the holiday menu. Romeritos, which means rosemary in English, is a shrimp dish made with pounds of the fragrant herb (more than can be found in mid-Missouri in the winter), cactus, chiles and mole
 
Christmas Cooking in Mexico
ROMERITOS EN REVOLTIJO
Ingredients:
1 ½ cleaned romeritos
¼ kilo dry shrimp
100 grams breadcrumbs
6 fresh eggs
1 teaspoon baking powder
½ kilo small potatoes
10 cooked nopales cut in strips
3 spoons toasted sesame seeds
¼ cup toasted almonds
7 chiles anchos
3 chiles pasilla
3 chiles mulatos
one little piece of fried tortilla
one little piece of fried bread
pork lard or olive oil
one stick of cinnamon
salt as needed
 
Elaboration:
Clean and wash the romeritos with plenty of water to remove the soil from them.
Cook them in boiling water with salt and drain. Shell the shrimp and ground them with the bread until they are a fine powder.
Beat the egg whites and then add the yolks, ground shrimp and baking powder. Form a paste taking spoons of it and fry them in very hot oil on low heat so they don’t burn and they rise. Fry golden brown and drain.
Clean and cook the nopales in boiling water with salt and a piece of onion. Drain and let them cool.
Toast and seed the chilies and soak them in hot water.
Toast and ground the sesame seeds with cinnamon, tortilla, bread, almonds and salt.
When everything is ground, add a little cold water so it is not so thick and add the rest of the ingredients. Season with salt and let it boil on low heat for about half an hour until everything is incorporated and the broth has lightly consumed.
 
It is a very common dish in Mexico served with tortillas. In province houses tortillas are still made on comales and are served warm.
 
ROMERITOS: the plant grows wild, it is not cultivated. It has that name for the resemblance it has with rosemary and it is only eaten mixed with pipian and potatoes, nopales, shrimp and torta de aguahutle.
 
Saveur (issue #55)
Romeritos with Shrimp Cakes
(Romeritos con Tortas de Camarón)
SERVES 12
Romeritos are succulent, stringy-looking Mexican greens (Suaeda torreyana) that taste like spinach—which may be substituted.
 
24 small waxy potatoes
Salt
1 tsp. baking soda
10 prickly pear cactus paddles, thorns removed (see Thorn Trick), trimmed and cut into 1⁄2” cubes
1 lb. romeritos or spinach, trimmed and washed
4 oz. dried heads-on shrimp, peeled, shells and heads reserved
4 eggs, separated
9 tbsp. canola oil
1 1⁄2 cups red mole paste (...)
 
Google Books
The Children of Sanchez:
Autobiography of a Mexican Family
by Oscar Lewis
New York, NY: Random House
1961
Pg. 278:
On Holy Thursday, if my aunt had the ingredients, she made romeritos (a stew made of prickly pears), chorales (tiny fish) and potatoes in chile gravy or pipian (a cucumber-like squash).
   
Google Books
Terry’s Guide to Mexico
by Thomas Philip Terry
Garden City, NY: Doubleday
1965
Pg. 113:
...chopped nopal pads, rosemary, potatoes, dried ground shrimp, and beaten egg that is served with a mole romeritos;...
     
Google Books
Mexico
by Kal Muller, Guillermo Garcia-Oropeza, Sanford Zalburg
Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall
1983
Pg. 339:
Among the great dishes of Mexico City are the following: Caldo Tlapeno, a most respectable soup, prepared with pasilla chile, chicken and avocado; romeritos, akin to spinach, served during Christmas with dry shrimp and…
 
Google Books
The Tortilla Curtain
by T. Coraghessan Boyle
New York, NY: Viking Press
1995
Pg. 81:
She dreamed of food, of the romeritos stew her mother made on Holy Thursday,...
   
Google Groups: alt.food.mexican-cooking
Newsgroups: alt.food.mexican-cooking
From: .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) (Victor M. Martinez)
Date: 1998/12/17
Subject: Re: New Years and Christmas Meals

Turkey is common for both holidays, usually with a meat stuffing with fruits and nuts. Romeritos are a very traditional dish made with mole, shrimp cakes and the green that give the dish its name (I have no idea what they’re called in english and I’ve never seen them here).
   
Google Books
The Basin of Mexico:
Critical Environmental Issues and Sustainability
By Exequiel Ezcurra, et al.
new York, NY: United Nations University Press
1999
by
Pg. 69:
Traditional agriculture is still practised, though less intensively; it is mostly directed to the cultivation of traditional crops such as amaranth and romeritos (Suaeda mexicana), vegetables, and flowers for the markets of Mexico City.
 
Google Groups: alt.food.mexican-cooking
Newsgroups: alt.food.mexican-cooking
From: “Linda”