Mayaland Cuisine: Campeche, Chiapas and Tabasco

CAMPECHE

 

Recados, sauces, and minor snacks and market foods in Campeche are generally the same as in Yucatan, so refer to recipes in the previous chapter.

 

 

SEAFOOD

 

Black Rice Soup (a “dry soup”)

 

1/2 lb. rice

1 oz. lard or vegetable oil

2 garlic cloves

1 onion

2 quarts stock from cooking black beans (one could use the liquid from a few cans of black beans)

2 serrano chiles or other good green chiles

4 epazote leaves or a small branch of epazote

Salt to taste

 

Soak the rice; drain; fry in the lard or oil.  Add the garlic, onion and chiles (chopped), the bean stock, the epazote and the salt.  Cook over a very low flame.

Alternative method (not traditional but good): fry the onion and garlic first, then add the rice.  This requires more lard or oil.

This can be made with seafood—crab meat, shrimp, squid—in which case one can leave out the black bean liquid.

Compare the similar recipe in the Yucatan chapter.

(modified from Conaculta Oceano 2001a:24)

 

 

Bricklayer’s Dogfish (cazón de albañil)

 

1 roast dogfish

3 sprigs epazote

Salt

4 tomatoes

1 onion

2 xkatik chiles

Oil for frying

 

Boil the dogfish with the epazote.  Bone and shred.  Fry up the shreds with the vegetables (chopped).  Add the stock in which the dogfish was cooked–enough to make a sauce rather than a soup.

I admit I included this dish only because the name is irresistible.  Still, it’s great if you use a more palatable fish.  Actually, it is a version of a common Caribbean dish using salt cod (presoaked and washed to remove the salt), and I recommend cod—salted or not—for it.

 

 

Campeche Caviare

 

Roes from one esmedregal, a large mackerel-like fish with very good, large roe sacs

1 tbsp. oregano

8 garlic cloves, mashed

1/2 tsp. ground pepper

Salt to taste

2 onions

1 head of garlic

4 large tomatoes

1/2 cup olive oil

 

Boil the roes with some oregano, garlic and salt.  Chill.  Peel the membrane off the roes.  Roast the onion, garlic head, and tomatoes, blend them, and fry them in the olive oil.  Season.  Add the roes and boil 15-20 minutes.

Fish roes are widely used in mixed seafood dishes in eastern Mexico.

 

 

Fried Flaked Dogfish

If you are not into the cult of cazón, try this with any firm white-fleshed fish, such as cod.  It is then really excellent.

 

2 lb. fresh dogfish, in pieces

1 tbsp. salt

1/2 green onion

Epazote

Lime

1 lb. tomatoes

1 chile habanero

1/2 regular onion

oil

 

Cook the dogfish in water to cover, with the salt, green onion and epazote.

Bone and skin the dogfish.  Rinse and break up into small pieces.  Season with the lime, and with more salt and epazote.

Roast the tomatoes, chile and onion.  Blend up.  Fry this salsa in oil.

Add the dogfish to the salsa and fry till this sauce thickens.

 

 

Dogfish Bread (pan de cazón)

This universal Campeche delicacy is even more an acquired taste than its main ingredient.  I present a recipe purely for ethnographic interest.

 

2 lb. roasted dogfish

1 tbsp. salt

Epazote to taste

½ -1 lb. lard

1/2 onion

2 lb. tomatoes

About 1 cup refried black beans (boil the beans; mash; fry in lard)

Tortillas

4 habaneros

½ c bitter orange or lime juice

 

Wash and cut up the dogfish.  Boil with salt for thirty minutes, adding some epazote.  Remove skin and bones and fry.

Stir-fry the onion and the rest of the epazote, chopped, in lard.  Add the tomatoes, cut up, and the pieces of dogfish.

Cover and cook for fifteen minutes.  Retire from the flame.  Break up the fish into flakes and mix all ingredients thoroughly.

Heat the tortillas and the beans.  Moisten the tortillas in the dogfish sauce.  Cover with a layer of beans.  Cover this with the dogfish mix.  Then add another layer (tortilla, beans, sauce).  Keep building, by layers, as much as desired.  (About six layers is typical.)  Serve with the salsa.

Make habanero salsa:  chop up the habaneros, preferably with some onion or garlic, and marinate in the citrus juice.

Variants abound, but the basic model above is pretty standard.

This is more or less the national dish of Campeche.  If it is made (as it usually is) with the dogfish that has been sitting in the marketplace for a while, outsiders may find it reminiscent of school-cafeteria tuna casserole.

 

 

Esmedregal in Orange Juice

Esmedregal is a term for various large fish with firm white flesh.  Anything from albacore to red snapper works well for this one.

 

2 lb. esmedregal fillets, or other firm, juicy, white-fleshed fish

Parsley, 1 bunch

Garlic, 2-3 cloves

Oregano, about 1 tsp dried

Cumin seeds

Black pepper

Salt

1 cup bitter orange juice

1 cup olive oil

1/2 white onion

1 sweet chile

1 lb. tomatoes, sliced

1 hot chile

Juice of two sweet oranges

 

Cut the fish in small pieces.  Wash in water with a bit of lime juice added.

Blend the herbs and spices into a paste with the bitter orange juice (see substitutions in introduction).  Marinate the fish in half of this, for an hour or so.

Fry lightly.

Separately fry the vegetables, cut up.  Add the fish.  Cook, adding the rest of the herb paste, and finally the sweet orange juice.

(modified from Conaculta Oceano 2001a:36)

 

 

Fish casserole

 

2 lb. white, firm-fleshed fish

Juice of 2 limes

1/2 cup oil

1 onion, in thin slices

3 garlic cloves, chopped

1/4 lb. bell pepper, chopped

1 lb. tomato, blended

2 peppercorns, crushed

1 tsp. cumin seeds

1/2 tbsp. fresh oregano (dried oregano can be substituted, in which case use less, about 1 tsp.)

1 tbsp. parsley, chopped

1 tsp. nutmeg

Salt and pepper to taste

 

Wash the fish, cut in medium-sized pieces, and marinate in the lime juice for 15 minutes.  Heat the oil.  Fry in it the onion and garlic.  Then add the bell pepper, blended tomato, pepper, cumin seeds, oregano, nutmeg, parsley and salt.  When this has cooked a short time, add the fish and cook till done.

 

 

Fish Makum

A classic favorite, also very popular in Yucatan.

Cherry Hamman explains:  “The words mak, ‘to close’ and kum ‘cooking pot,’ explain the title of this ancient hearthrite.”  (Hamman 1998:251; her recipe is for a meat makum, also an excellent dish).

 

6 garlic cloves

2 roasted onions

1/2 tbsp. cumin seeds

1/2 tsp. or more of oregano

1 tbsp. achiote paste

5 cloves

8 black peppercorns

1/2 cup vinegar

1/2 cup oil

Juice of 2 limes

Salt to taste

Oil for oiling the dish

1 banana leaf

2 lb. fish fillets (snapper, pompano or the like)

3 tomatoes, sliced

4 whole güero chiles (medium-sized, hot, yellow chiles) or comparable chiles

1 red bell pepper or 1-2 fresh red chiles, roasted, peeled and sliced

 

Blend the garlic, one of the onions, and the cumin seeds, oregano, achiotes, cloves, and peppercorns.  Mix with the vinegar, some oil, and the salt and lime juice.  Alternatively, you can just use a cube of red recado dissolved in lime or bitter orange juice.

Oil a casserole dish and line with the banana leaf.  Put on some of the sauce (above), then the fish, then the rest of the sauce, well rubbed onto all the fish.

Decorate with the tomatoes and the other onion, sliced; the whole chiles; and the strips of bell peppers or chiles.

Bend the banana leaf around to cover all.  Bake, or cook over slow fire, till done.

Parsley or cilantro for garnish is allowed.

Serve with white rice and black beans.

Variant: Nutmeg (pinch) and bay leaves are sometimes added.  More tomatoes can be used.

(modified from Conaculta Oceano 2001a:34 on the basis of a good deal of field experience)

 

 

Pampano in Escabeche

Pampano is a medium-sized, roundish fish with firm white flesh and a very delicate flavor.  Red snapper would work (but the real thing is better). I  can even imagine doing this dish with trout.

 

1 grilled or fried pampano

1 large onion

1 carrot

1 jalapeno pepper

2 bay leaves

1 tsp. cumin seeds

Few black peppercorns

1/2 cup vinegar

Salt and other spices to taste

Oil

 

Chop and fry the onion.  Add the other vegetables and spices.  Cook briefly (a few minutes).  Pour this sauce over the pampano.

 

 

Pampano in Green Sauce

The medieval Arab-Andalusian green sauce appears yet again.  This is a particularly good form of it.

 

2 lb. pampano fillets

Lime

1 bunch parsley

1 bunch cilantro

1 green chile (xkatik preferable)

Black pepper

Oregano to taste (about 1 tsp.)

1/2 tsp. cumin seeds

Salt

Vinegar to taste (a small amount)

6 cloves garlic

Lard for frying

1 small onion

2 tomatoes

2 mild yellow chiles

 

Wash the fish and rub with lime.

Blend the parsley, cilantro, green chile, oregano, pepper, cumin seeds, salt, vinegar and garlic.

Marinate the fish in this sauce.

Fry all in lard (or oil).  One way to do this is to put the fish in, then cover with the sauce.  Another way is to fry the sauce first, then put the fish in (this works only with quite thin fish, or fillets).

Then add the onion and tomatoes, chopped, and the chiles, chopped or whole.  When all has fried somewhat, add water and cook till sauce is thick.

Variants:  One can dispense with either the parsley or the cilantro, or even the green chile, and use instead hojasanta leaves, or tomatillos (green husk-tomatoes).  In fact, any combination of green, flavorful herbs is good.

 

 

Pampano Pohchuk

 

1 pampano, ca. 1 lb.

1 tbsp. achiote paste

1/2 tsp. black pepper

1/2 tsp. oregano

1/2 tsp. cumin seeds

24 garlic cloves

2 tbsp. olive oil

 

Stuffing:

Oil, for frying

1 lb. cooked small shrimp

1 lb. chopped octopus

3 garlic cloves

2 chopped tomatoes

2 laurel leaves

Salt and pepper

Banana leaves

 

Wash the fish and marinate for two hours in a marinade of the achiote, pepper, oregano, cumin seeds, garlic and olive oil (plus enough water to make a thin paste).

For the stuffing, stir-fry the onion, chopped.  Add the shrimp and octopus.  Then add the rest and boil briefly.

Stuff the fish with this.  Wrap all in banana leaves, put in a casserole dish and bake in a moderate oven for 25 minutes.

The stuffing can be varied according to what is available; stuffing without any seafood at all is not unknown.

(modified from Conaculta Oceano 2001a:33

 

 

Panuchos, Campeche style

 

2 lb. masa

4 oz. flour

Salt to taste

1 lb. cooked black beans

1 lb. fried dogfish (see above in introduction to section)

1 onion, quartered

2 bitter oranges

Habanero chile, to taste

 

Mix the masa, flour and salt with enough water to make a dough.  Make small tortillas (two for each panucho).  For a panucho, cover one tortilla with beans, one with shark meat, put them together (beans and fish inside), and seal around the edges.  Fry (either deep fat or in a bit of oil in skillet).

Chop the onion and habanero and mix into the juice of the bitter oranges.  Eat as topping for the panuchos.

 

 

Seafood Rice

 

1 onion

1 garlic clove

1 tomato

1 lb. rice

2 bay leaves

Sprig of thyme

Sprig of oregano

Mixed seafood: shrimps, clams or other shellfish, cut-up octopus, and bits of fish

Fish stock

2 oz. peas

Oil

Salt and pepper to taste

 

Chop the onion and garlic.  Fry in a bit of oil.  Add the tomato, chopped.  Add the rice and herbs.  Fry till rice begins to stick.  Add the seafood.  Then add enough fish stock to cover all to a depth of 1/2 to 3/4″.  Add peas and cook.

Chopped peppers can be added too.  In fact, almost anything can be added.  This dish naturally calls for improvisation and substitution.  You can use any odd bits of seafood available.  Important is to achieve a contrast of textures, such as that produced by fish, clams, and octopus bits.

 

 

Seafood Salad

 

Shrimp, conch, octopus, bits of fish, shredded carrot, chopped onion, cilantro, sliced cucumber, sliced tomato, sliced avocado, salt, and pepper, in lime juice.

 

Basically a glorified fish cocktail.  As with the foregoing, the critical thing is to achieve a contrast of textures as well as tastes.

 

 

Snook in Mole Sauce

The snook is a large silver fish of warm Caribbean and Atlantic waters.  It has white flesh and a unique, rich taste that can become addictive.  A snook cooked this way is truly unique and unsurpassed, but, lacking a snook, you can use any white-fleshed fish.  Relatively firm, oily ones work best.

 

1 snook, ca. 3 lb.

Salt

4 tbsp. lard

8 ancho chiles (dried)

2 cups water

1/2 lb. cooked potatoes, cut up

Sprig of epazote

 

Clean the fish.  Rub with lard.  Roast on a grill.

Soak the chiles to rehydrate them.  Then blend and fry in lard.  Add salt to taste.

Add in the water, the fish (cut in pieces), and the potatoes and epazote.  Cook till flavors blend.

(modified from Conaculta Oceano 2001a:37)

 

 

 

 

MEAT

 

 

Pork Loin with Black-eyed Peas

A rather striking recipe with a distinctly Cuban flavor.  I suspect Campeche’s long, close trade connections with Cuba are behind this dish somewhere.

 

2 garlic cloves

10 black peppercorns

1 onion

1 tbsp. achiote seeds

1/2 lb. tomato, chopped

10 sprigs epazote

1 1/2 lb. pork loin, cut in small pieces

1 quart water

Salt to taste

3/4 lb. black-eyed peas

2 lb. masa

1 habanero chile, green (unripe)

1/3 lb. lard, melted

1 banana leaf

 

Grind the spices.  Miix with the tomato, epazote and meat.  Make a soup with the water and salt, and cook till meat is done.  Cook the peas separately.

Mix the chile (cut up) and the lard into the masa.  Add the meat stew and the beans.  Cook till it forms a solid paste.  Grease a baking dish and line with banana leaf.  Add in the paste and bake at 350o till golden.

 

 

Tamales, Campeche feast style

 

4 lb. masa

4 quarts water

Salt to taste

3/4 lb. lard

3 sprigs of epazote

10 banana leaves

 

Filling:

1 lb. jowl of pork (or other relatively firm, meaty cut)

1 1/2 lb. pork loin

1 chicken

Salt to taste

8 cloves garlic, roasted

10 black peppercorns

1/4 tsp. cumin seeds

1 tsp. achiote seeds

1 quart broth

1 1/2 lb. tomato, chopped

6 leaves or sprigs of epazote, chopped

 

Mix the masa with water.  Add salt, lard and epazote (chopped).  Simmer, stirring constantly, till thick.  Turn off flame and let stand 15 minutes.

Cook the meats in the stock, cut into small pieces, and add salt and garlic.  Grind the peppercorns, cumin seeds and achiote seeds.  Add to the stock.  Mix in the chopped meat and boil again till reduced.  Add the tomato and epazote.  Retire from the flame when cooked fairly dry.

Toast lightly the banana leaves and cut in quarters.  (Of course, you can always use foil, kitchen paper, or corn husks.)  Cover with a layer of masa dough.  Put on a chunk of stuffing and roll up.  Steam for half an hour.

 

 

 

VEGETABLES
Black Rice Soup (a “dry soup”)

 

1/2 lb. rice

1 oz. lard or vegetable oil

2 garlic cloves

1 onion

2 quarts stock from cooking black beans (one could use the liquid from a few cans of black beans)

2 serrano chiles

4 epazote leaves

Salt to taste

 

Soak the rice; drain; fry in the lard or oil.  Add the garlic, onion and chiles (chopped), the bean stock, the epazote and the salt.  Cook over a very low flame.

Alternative method: fry the onion and garlic first, then add the rice.  This requires more lard or oil.

This can be made with seafood—crab meat, shrimp, squid—in which case one can leave out the black bean liquid.  Chopped tomatoes, various herbs, and other vegetation can all be used.

Compare the similar recipe in the Yucatan chapter.

 

 

Campeche Salad

 

1/2 lb. chickpeas, cooked

1/2 lb. green beans

3 carrots

2 turnips

3 potatoes

2 tomatoes, chopped

1/2 cup olive oil

1/2 cup vinegar

Salt and pepper to taste

 

Boil the carrots and turnips.  Boil the potatoes separately.  Do not overcook–they should be firm.  Cool.  Chop and mix with the tomato and seasonings.

A very standard restaurant dish, and thus subject to infinite variation.  It is possible to add cooked rice to this.  It is also possible to add almost anything else interesting; corn kernels are particularly welcome.  The creative cook will want to experiment with herbs, chiles, and even flaked fish (this salad often accompanies fish, and there seems no reason not to add some fish in).

 

 

Vegetables in Marinade

 

 

1 cauliflower

1/2 lb. green beans

4 summer squash

4 carrots

1 red onion

4 small potatoes

Jalapeno chile (optional)

2 tbsp. olive oil

Vinegar

Herbs

Oregano, salt, and pepper to taste

 

Cut up the vegetables.  Blanch them by putting in boiling water, turning it off and leaving for 15 minutes (i.e., till the vegetables soften a bit but do not actually cook).  Wash them and put in vinegar to cover.  Add in the other ingredients and marinate at least 12 hours.

The herbs would typically be powdered thyme, marjoram and perhaps others.  One can easily use fresh herbs instead.  Be creative.  The irrepressible will no doubt want to add a habanero.

Cooked sea foods, especially shellfish and octopus, can be added.

 

 

 

DESSERTS
Preserved ciricotes

The ciricote is the small fruit of a tree (Cordia sebestina) also noted for its incredibly beautiful wood.  The value of the wood leads to cutting many a ciricote tree, and the fruit is correspondingly rare.  Tough and even woody, like small quinces, ciricotes have to be cooked.

 

4 lb. ciricotes

Juice of 4 limes

1 lb. sugar

2 quarts water

3 fig leaves

 

Cook the ciricotes.  If tough, use some baking soda–or, to be really traditional, ashes–to tenderize and sweeten.

When the ciricotes are cool, peel and put in water and lime juice.  Wash, soak and drain.

Make a syrup with the sugar, water and a bit more lime juice. Add the ciricotes and fig leaves, and boil half an hour.  Bottle.

Campeche is famous for its fruit preserves and liqueurs.  This recipe will have to stand for all of them.  The recipe is standard, except for the fig leaves, which are used only when their tenderizing and thickening action is desirable, as with the tough ciricote.

Ciricote wood is yellow and brown, with a richly figured grain.  There is a great future for this tree.  If the better varieties were propagated, they could produce fruit until the tree was mature; the tree could then be harvested for its wood.

 

 

 

CHIAPAS

 

An important plant in Chiapas is chipilín (Crotalaria longirostrata), an alfalfa-like plant grown for its edible, mild-flavored leaves.  Alfalfa sprouts make a reasonable (though not terribly close) substitute.  One could even use pea tendrils (available at Asian markets).  These are similar in texture and flavor, though not looking much like chipilín, and are in fact often used in Chiapas.

Arrayán leaves are called for in several recipes; the arrayan is a bush endemic to the area.  The name means “myrtle” in Spanish, but the Chiapas arrayan is not much like a Spanish myrtle.  Bay leaves make a good substitute.  Another useful flavoring herb is avocado leaf.  I have seen a kettle of chile and beef simmering with a whole branch of avocado leaves thrust in. Mexican mountain avocado leaves have a wonderful spicy taste.  Closely related to bay leaves, they have a similar flavor and culinary use, but must be used fresh rather than dried–hence their absence from markets.  In the United States, most California avocados have spicy-flavored leaves, but Florida and Gulf Coast avocadoes are derived from Caribbean ancestry with virtually tasteless leaves.  If you don’t live near a Californian or Mexican avocado orchard, use bay leaves.  Conversely, if you do have access to such avocado leaves, try them in the following recipes.

 

 

 

TAMALES AND RELATIVES

 

Green Corn Tamales

 

20 ears of green corn

1 1/2 lb. sugar

1 lb. butter

2 tsp. ground cinnamon

1 tsp. baking powder

1 tsp. salt

 

Shuck the ears, but be careful not to damage the shucks.  Grind the corn.  Beat in the other ingredients.  Wash the corn shucks, trim off the tips, and make tamales–two tablespoons of mix per leaf of shuck.  Steam for 45 minutes.

The corn in question would be regular eating corn: firmer and less sweet than United States sweet corn.  If using sweet corn, cut down the sugar considerably, and the butter somewhat.

 

 

 

Green Corn Tamales, II

 

18 ears of sweet corn

1/2 lb. cream (get Mexican-style sour cream if you can find it)

8 eggs

1/2 lb. butter

Sugar to taste

Cinnamon

Mexican white cheese

Salt to taste

 

Make as above.

A common variant saves you from so much cholesterol: leave out the eggs and butter, cut down on the cinnamon, and use fairly soft cheese.  This produces, basically, a cheese tamale.

Both forms are common market fare, and excellent.

 

 

 

Rice Tamales

 

2 lb. rice

1 lb. butter

1 lb. sugar

1 quart water

2 tsp. baking powder

Corn leaves

 

Cook the rice.  Dry it out and grind it.  Beat the butter until creaemy.  Beat in the rice powder and baking powder.  When it is thoroughly beaten up, add a bit of warm water, and then beat in the sugar.  Meanwhile, soak the corn leaves to soften.

Put two or three tablespoonfuls of mixture on each corn leaf, wrap, and steam 3/4 hour.

 

 

Tamales with Saffron

 

4 lb. masa

2 lb. lard

2 lb. chicken meat, shredded

1 tsp. pepper

1/2 tsp. cinnamon

15 highland Chiapas chiles (or less, or even more, to taste)

2 pieces of French bread, toasted (optional)

6 garlic cloves, chopped

1 onion, chopped

2 lb. tomatoes, chopped very fine

20 saffron threads

1/2 tsp. ground clove

Almonds, plums and/or pimento strips (optional)

Salt to taste

Banana leaves

 

Grind all the spices (together with the toasted bread, if wanted).  Fry the onion and garlic in a few ounces of the lard; take out and discard if you want.  In the oil, fry the tomatoes, then add the spices and cook down to a sauce.  Add in the chicken.  Some sugar can be added if desired.

Mix the masa with the rest of the lard.  Add the salt.  Anoint the leaves with this.  If wanted, add to each tamale an almond, a plum, and/or a pimento strip.  Then add the sauce and cook as usual.

 

 

Tamales with Hojasanta (hojasanta is generally called “mumu” or “momo” in Chiapas)

 

2 lb. masa

1 lb. lard

1 lb. beans, cooked, mashed and fried

20 small highland chiles–seeded, fried and ground

2 tbsp. dried shrimps, ground

2 tbsp. ground squash seeds (sikil)

30 hojasanta leaves

6 bunches of maize leaves

Salt to taste

 

Mix the masa with the lard and salt.  Mix the beans, shrimp, squash seed meal and chiles.  Soak the corn leaves.  Make tamales on the hojasanta leaves, wrap up, and wrap these in turn in the corn leaves.  Steam half an hour.

A variant recipe uses far more squash seeds–two cups.  This makes a much richer tamale.  Suit yourself.

 

 

Vegetable Tamales

 

4 lb. masa

2 chicken breasts, shredded

3 carrots

3 summer squash

2 lb. tomatoes

1/2 cup chickpeas (cooked)

1 onion

2 garlic cloves

1 tsp. pepper

2 tsp. baking powder

2 lb. lard

Salt to taste

Corn leaves

 

Mix the lard, baking powder and salt with the masa.  Fr the garlic and onion, cut up, then add the other vegetables, all chopped finely.  Then add the meat and spices.  Then make and cook tamales in the usual way, steaming for an hour.

 

 

 

 

SOUPS

 

 

Bread Soup

A thoroughly Spanish recipe, but too popular in Chiapas to leave out.

 

6 sweet rolls (any kind of Chiapan-style sweet bread: rolls with a little sugar and shortening)

4 French rolls

2 carrots

Handful of green beans

6 baby summer squash

2 hard-boiled eggs

1/4 cup cooked chickpeas

1/2 onion

2 tomatoes

1 sprig thyme

sprig oregano

4 tbsp. lard

2 quarts chicken stock

2 plantains, sliced (and fried if you want)

3 oz. raisins

3 tbsp. sugar

A few threads of saffron, and/or a cinnamon stick

A few peppercorns

Salt to taste

 

Cut the breads into small slices and toast.  Cut up and cook the vegetables separately.  Grease a saucepan.  Alternate slices of bread with cooked vegetables; scatter in the herbs and raisins.  The last layer should be bread, with slices of egg on top to decorate.  Then pour on the stock and cook just enough to make the whole dish piping hot.

The stock should be just enough to cover the bread and be more or less absorbed by it.  This is one of those “soups” in which the spoon will often stand up by itself.  It is interesting in that it is the only soup I know from south Mexico that resembles the migas (crumbled bread) dry-soups so extremely common and important in southern Spain.  These migas are yet another class of dishes with a Moorish heritage; they are related to the tharid of Arabic cooking.

Variants exist with other spicing; with parsley, mint, or epazote; with wine; with different vegetable mixes; etc.  Creativity is the watchword.

 

 

Chipilín Soup

What would Chiapas do without chipilín?  It’s a vital source of vitamins and minerals in the diet.  A simpler form (without the dumplings) of this superb soup is particularly popular–more or less a daily food.

 

2 quarts water

1 green or maturing onion with stem

1 green chile such as xkatik

Grains from two ears of sweet corn

1 large bunch young, tender chipilín

1 lb. masa

3 oz. lard

1/2 lb. fresh Mexican white cheese, crumbled

2 avocadoes

2 limes

 

Cut up the vegetables and put in the water.

Mix the masa, lard, and salt.

Make dumplings of this, stuffed with the cheese.  Add to the soup.  Boil all, quickly.

Serve with slices of avocado, more cheese, and lime wedges.

 

 

Cream of Chipilín Soup

A basic soup in south Mexico.  Many great minds have expended noble energies in creating variants, some of which are listed below.

 

2 cups chipilín leaves

1 tbsp. butter

4 very young, tender summer squash

Grains from 4 ears of sweet corn

1/2 cup cream

1/2 quart boiled milk

1 small onion, cut in quarters

Salt and pepper to taste

 

Start the soup by cooking the leaves in water.

Meanwhile, fry in butter the onion (chopped).  Take out when golden.  Put the cut-up summer squash and fresh corn into the oil and fry quickly.

Add in the milk, pepper and salt.  Cook a minute or less.

Turn off the flame, and add the cream, stirring constantly.

The really traditional, indigenous form of this soup leaves out the butter and milk.  Fry the onion in oil or lard.  Use corn meal, or toasted corn meal (atole), instead of milk.  In this case, mix the corn meal into the water first. Then add the leaves, and proceed otherwise as above.  Add some white cheese, crumbled or in chunks.

Variant:  The fresh corn is left out when not in season.

Variant (upscale):  To the basic soup, add maize dumplings.  Cook.  Near the end, add white Mexican cheese squares.  Serve with a dollop of Mexican sour cream poured in.  Variant of the variant:  put the cheese in the dumplings—i.e., make a half-inch-thick ball of corn meal with a bit of cheese in the center.

Variant, or closely related soup (“squashvine soup”):  Add the tender tips of squash vines–butternut squash is a good pick for this.  The tendrils at the end, plus the very smallest leaves (under an inch wide), are used.  Reduce the chipilín accordingly, or eliminate it altogether and just use squashvine tips.  Good, garden-fresh, tender squashvine tips are among the most delightful of all vegetables.

 

 

Covered Rice

A “soup” although the rice absorbs all the liquid.  Such dishes are sopas secas, “dry soups,” in Spanish.  This is not oxymoronic; no one expects sopas to be soups in the English sense.

This is a rather elaborate restaurant dish.

 

1/2 lb. rice

1 chicken breast, shredded

4 eggs: two raw, two hardboiled

2 large chorizos, sliced and fried

1 onion

1 tomato

3 large summer squash

33 carrots

1 can chickpeas

1 tbsp. flour

1/2 stick butter

3 oz. sugar

1 1/2 oz. capers

Almonds

Raisins

Saffron

Oil or lard

Salt and pepper to taste

 

Like Chinese fried rice, this dish is better with leftover rice–cook the rice well in advance.

Cook the rice with the saffron and, by preference, some of the raisins, almonds and capers.  Chop the vegetables and cook briefly with salt.  Take out and fry with the chicken.  Butter a casserole dish.  Layer rice with almonds, raisins, capers, slices of hard-boiled egg, and chorizo slices.  Then top with the vegetables and chicken, then a last layer of rice.

Separately, beat the whites of the other two eggs till they form peaks.  Add the yolks, flour and sugar.  Cover the casserole with this and bake till all is thoroughly heated.

Naturally, simpler variants or relatives exist, grading downward into rice refried with vegetables and whatever bits of meat are available.

 

 

Dried Shrimp Soup

In contrast to the preceding, this is a typical household recipe.

 

2 lb. large dried shrimp

4 chilpotle chiles

3 guijillo chiles

1 1/2 lb. tomatoes

onion

2 carrots (optional)

2 potatoes (optional)

2 garlic cloves

Salt to taste

Water

 

Soak the shrimps in hot water, shell, and clean.  Boil the shells for stock; strain.  Add the shrimp to this–a total of 1 1/2 quarts water–with the chiles (seeded), garlic and onions.

Roast the tomatoes and grind.  Add to the soup, along with vegetables as desired.

Variant:  add a small can of pimento strips and grind these with the tomatoes.

 

 

Flower and Shoot Soup

 

2/3 lb. squash flowers

1/3 lb. tender tips of squash vines

2 ears sweet corn

2 large summer squash

1 tomato

1 serrano chile

1 quart water

Oil or lard

Salt and pepper to taste

 

Cut the grains off the corn ears.  Separately, blend the tomato with the chile and fry the paste.  Add the water, then the squash (cut up in thin slices), then the rest of the ingredients.  Cook till vegetables just begin to soften.

It would be hard to imagine a more refreshing summer soup.  For an even lower-calorie variant, don’t fry the tomato.

Young pea tendrils are also popular in Chiapas, and are even better than squash vine-tips.  They should be stir-fried or steamed.

 

 

Green Rice (another and particularly good “dry soup”)

 

1 cup rice

4 poblano chiles

2 cooked eggs

1 piece (size according to taste) of onion

1 sprig of parsley, and/or any other green herbs, such as cilantro or chipilín

1/3 lb. lard or oil

2 cups milk

2 cups water

2 garlic cloves

Salt to taste

 

Wash the rice and dry in the sun.  Seed the chiles.  Toast them and wrap in plastic or towel, then peel them.  Grind them in the milk.  In the lard, fry the rice.  When it begins to color, add the onion and garlic, chopped.  When these are transparent, add water, parsley, and salt; cover and boil.  When it begins to boil, turn down flame to a very low simmer.  Add the milk-chile mix toward the end and simmer till it is absorbed.  Decorate with slices of cooked eggs.

A more folk variant leaves out the milk and eggs.

 

 

Juliana Soup

 

2 quarts chicken stock

1 chayote

3 summer squash

2 carrots

3 potatoes

Slice of cabbage, or few leaves of kale

1/2 cup cooked chickpeas

1 threads saffron (optional)

6 French rolls, sliced

Oil, if wanted

Salt to taste

 

Chop the vegetables finely and put to boil.  Fry or toast the bread slices and put in bowl.  Serve the soup over these.

A local version of standard French or Spanish vegetable soup.  Kale and mustard greens are at least as typical of Chiapas as cabbage; try it with them.  Naturally, this is another dish of a basically “open city” sort, and any seasonal vegetable can be used.

 

 

Shuti Soup

“Shuti” is an Indian name for large river snails, popular in Chiapas.  This soup is included mainly for ethnographic interest, but it would be good with more or less any seafood.

 

“Shuti

1/2 lb. tomato

2 quarts water

1 onion

1 hojasanta leaf

l/2 lb. toasted squash seeds

2 ancho chiles, seeded and soaked

 

Quickly cook and trim the snail.  Cook all for 15 minutes.”

(translated from Conaculta Oceano 2000a:17)

 

 

Soup to Raise the Dead (Caldo Levanta-muertos)

 

1 tongue (veal or beef; whole tongue, untrimmed)

1 brain (ditto)

1 oxtail

1 chicken

3 large tomatoes

1 large onion

1 head garlic

1 large sprig thyme

1 large sprig oregano

Achiote

Small highland chiles

Salt to taste

Water

 

Boil and skin the tongue.  Cook the brains briefly with salt.  Cut up the chicken and boil.  Separately, fry the achiote, then add in the tomato, onion, garlic, thyme and oregano (the vegetables being chopped).  Add these into the pot with the brains; then add the meat, cut up.  Cook till done.  Fry the chiles and blend; add at the last minute.

This may or may not raise the dead, but at the worst it will do as well as anything else for the purpose.  It is the sort of thing people love to recommend for a cold or a hangover; I think this is the source of the name.

 

 

Squash-flower Soup

 

1/2 cup cream

1/2 lb. squash flowers (trimmed of stems)

8 summer squash

4 poblano chiles

2 sweet corn ears

1 tbsp. chopped onion

1 tbsp. epazote, cut up

1 quart boiled bilk

1/2 stick butter

Salt to taste

 

Fry the onion in the butter.  Cut the flowers into 3-4 pieces each and add.  Seed, roast and peel the chiles; cut up and add.  Then add the grains from the corn ears; then the squash, cut up.  Stir-fry all.  Season and cover.  Boil for a few minutes, then add the milk and the epazote and simmer briefly.  Finally add the cream.

 

 

Sweet Corn Soup

 

8 cobs sweet corn

3 tomatoes

1 1/2 oz. butter

1 onion

1/2 tsp. pepper

Salt to taste

Water

 

Cut the corn off the cobs.  Blend up some of the grains and add to some water.  Blend up the tomato and fry in the butter with the rest of the corn, the pepper and the onion (chopped).  Combine all and cook very briefly.

 

 

Tapachula Soup

Tapachula, the market city of far southeast Chiapas, has its own cuisine.

 

1 lb. squash flowers

2 tbsp. lard

1 onion

Grains from 2 ears sweet corn

2 quarts milk

2 oz. butter

2 tbsp. flour

1/2 cup cream

2 summer squash

3 tbsp. flour

2 eggs

Salt and pepper to taste

 

Wash the flowers and remove stems.  Cut up and fry in lard.  Separately fry the onion (cut up).  Add the corn.  Add half the milk and combine all the above.

Blend all.  Add the rest of the milk.

Fry the flour in butter.  Mix in some milk (i.e., make a standard white sauce).  Season with salt and pepper.

Meanwhile, separately, cook the squash; cut up; fry quickly.  Then dip these slices in a flour-egg batter and deep-fry.

Put the cream in a soup tureen.  Pour in the soup.  Add the fried squash and serve immediately.

 

 

Tortilla Soup

A Chiapan variant of a universal Mexican staple.

 

1/2 cup cream

18 tortillas, toasted and cut into wedges

2 oz. grated Mexican white cheese

1 tomato

1 small chile (fresh, or, if dried, seeded and soaked)

3 cups chicken stock

Sprig of mint

2 garlic cloves

Pinch of black pepper

Salt to taste

 

Peel the tomato (after immersing in boiling water for a minute to make this possible) and blend up with the chile and garlic.  Combine this with the other ingredients and bring to boil.

Here, too, anything and everything goes.  Leaving out the cream; adding some of the chicken meat; using other herbs; adding more vegetables–No two soups need be alike.

 

 

MEAT

 

 

Asado

 

2 lb. meat (pork or lamb, preferably)

4 ancho chiles

2 garlic cloves

1/2 tsp. pepper

Sprig of thyme

Sprig of oregano

1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon

2 bay leaves

2 arrayán leaves (a local Chiapas plant, rather similar to bay, so just use more bay leaves if you are not near a Chiapas market)

1 tbsp. sugar

1 tsp. vinegar

1 oz. lard

Salt to taste

 

Seed the chiles and fry.  Blend up.  Separately, grind the garlic, thyme, and oregano.  Cut up the meat and fry it in the lard.  When it is half done, add the other ingredients and cook another 20 minutes.

Variants on this theme involve marinating beef or pork steaks in the recado and cooking them in a pan, etc.

 

 

Chanfaina

Chiapas version of a classic Iberian dish.

 

2 lb. sheep tripe and/or assorted variety meats of sheep or goat

Piece of sheep’s liver

2 tomatoes or 1/3 lb. tomatillos

1 ancho chile

1 small French roll, toasted

1 sprig parsley

1/2 tsp. achiote

1/2 tsp. pepper

1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon

Oil

Salt to taste

 

Wash the tripe and cool with salt.  Separately, blend the tomatoes, chile (soaked and seeded), toast, liver, pepper and cinamon.  Fry the achiote and then add in the blended vegetables.  Then add the tripes and parsley, all cut up.  Boil.

 

 

Chanfaina a la Chiapa de Corzo

Chiapa de Corzo is an old, tranquil market town in central Chiapas.

 

1 1/2 lb. beef variety meats: liver, heart, tripes, kidneys

1 tomato

1 onion

Sprig of thyme

2 cinnamon sticks

2 cloves

2 black peppercorns

1 tbsp. breadcrumbs

1/2 cup liver paste (homemade; cook and grind the liver)

2 tbsp. achiote

Lard

2 tbsp. vinegar

Salt to taste

 

Cook the beef parts in salted water.  Take out the meat; save the stock. Cut up the meat.

Chop the tomato and onion and fry in lard.  Add the cut-up meat and stir-fry.  Then add the stock from the meat.  Dissolve the ground liver and breadcrumbs in some of the stock.  Add the vinegar, achiote, and spices.   Combine all and cook ten minutes.

 

 

Chojen Salad

A common Highland Maya dish with a Maya name.

 

1/2 lb. cold roast beef

1 onion

2 tomatoes

3 bunches of radishes, cut up

Juice of 2 limes or bitter oranges

Green chiles

Salt to tasste

 

Cut up all ingredients finely.  Mix.

A standard variant uses a beef stomach, cooked, cooled, and cut up.  This may not be to the taste of all readers.  Like the Yucatan counterpart, this dish used to be made with deer meat.

 

 

Cocido

 

1 lb. beef, cooked and cut up

1 lb. pork ribs, ditto

1 lb. pork back meat, ditto

1 lb. beef brisket, ditto

2 tomatoes

1 onion

1 garlic clove

1 bunch cilantro

11 tsp. achiote

Longaniza, sliced

3 chayotes

Handful of green beans

6 small potatoes

4 carrots, cut up

1 small cabbage, cut up in chunks

2 corn ears in chunks

1 quince, cut up and cored

3 small sour apples, whole

6 peaches (fairly hard ones)

1 plantain

6 summer squash

Water

Salt to taste

 

Put in a large pot enough water.  Add salt, onion, garlic and tomato.  Separately, fry the achiote; throw out the seeds and add the oil to the pot.  Then add the meats and vegetables.  Simmer for about half and hour.

 

 

Cold Pork Leg

Another of the cold meat dishes so popular for lunch in Chiapas.

 

1 pork leg

Sprig of thyme

Sprig of oregano

2 bay leaves

2 arrayan leaves (or 2 more bay leaves)

2 limes

Water

Salt to taste

 

Spice mix:

2 ancho chiles

1 tomato

Sprig of thyme

Sprig of oregano

2 bay leaves

2 arrayan (or bay) leaves

2 garlic cloves

1 tbsp. sugar

1/2 tsp. pepper

Oil

Salt to taste

 

Marinate the leg in the lime juice with water and salt for 3 hours.  Then take out of this liquid and boil in water to which the herbs are added.

Meanwhile, seed and fry the chiles.  Blend with the other ingredients (except the leaves).  Fry the resulting mix quickly, adding the whole leaves.

Cover the leg with this, bake half an hour, chill, and serve sliced.

Variant: Make more recado, slash the leg, and rub the extra recado into the slashes.  This is less authentic but spicier.

 

 

Grilled Ham

 

1 smoked ham (Virginia ham will do)

5 onions

4 heads garlic

Sprig of thyme

Sprig of oregano

6 laurel leaves

5 arrayan leaves

1/2 lb. brown sugar

1 large piece of pineapple

1 stalk of fennel (finocchio)

7 quarts or more of water

 

Boil the ham for two hours or more with all the ingredients except the sugar.  Cool and skin it.  Slice.  Sprinkle the slices with sugar and grill them.

 

 

Fiambres

 

Fiambres just means “cold cuts” in Spanish.

 

1 veal tongue

1 chicken

8 pig’s feet (that is, 8 feet, not the feet of 8 pigs)

1 lettuce head

6 tomatoes

6 onions

3 avocados

8 radishes

2 oranges

3 tbsp. vinegar

1/2 cup oil

Salt to taste

 

Boil the meats.  Make a salad with the lettuce (cut up), tomatoes (in strips), onions, oil and vinegar.  Cut up the meats and mix into the salad.  Garnish with radishes, orange slices and wedges of avocado.

It is good to make this in two parts: first mix the meat and dressing, then leave it to marinate for a few hours, then add the vegetables just before serving.

As the name suggests, you can really use any cold boiled meat for this.

 

 

Mixed Meats with Beans

Variant of the pork-and-beans dish (probably of Celtic ancestry) known everywhere in the Hispanic/Iberian world.

 

2 lb. black beans

6 oz. salted meat

6 oz. chicharron (fried pork rinds)

6 oz. longaniza sausage

6 oz. pork short ribs

1 onion

1 head garlic

Pickled serrano chiles

Salt to taste

 

Wash and soak beans.  Cook with garlic and onion.  After half and hour, take them off the fire and add in the meats.  Cook another half hour.  Add the chiles and cook ten minutes.

We recommend that the salt meat be soaked and drained first, and the sausage fried to get rid of excess oil.

 

 

Mole Chiapas Style

A local variant of the Mexican staple.

 

1/2 lb. mulato chiles (dried)

1/2 lb. ancho chiles (dried)

Oil

Chicken or turkey boiled with an onion; save the stock

1 plantain

3 oz. raisins

5 oz. sesame seeds, toasted

3 pieces of sweet bread, toasted or fried

1 tortilla, toasted or fried

1/4 onion, cut up and fried

2 lb. tomatoes, cut up and fried

Salt and pepper to taste

 

Seed and fry the chiles.  Soak in the stock.

Fry the onion, then the tomato.

Blend the chiles and stock; separately, the onion and tomato; then the other ingredients, all in the stock.

Cook till the mix thickens.  Pour over the fowl.

Variants: cinnamon and garlic can be added to good advantage.  Other spices are possible but less traditional.  (Chocolate is not used in Chiapas moles.)

(modified from Conaculta Oceano 2000a:44)

 

 

Ninguijuti

Interesting for the indigenous name, from Zoque.

 

1 lb. pork chops

1 lb. pork loin meat

2 tbsp. lard

2 tomatoes

3 garlic cloves

Hot chile to taste

2 tbsp. achiote paste

Juice of 2 limes

3/4 cup masa

Salt to taste

 

Cut up the meat, removing bones.  Cook in a little water till getting done.  Then fry in lard.

Blend the tomato, garlic, chile and achiote.  Add to the meat.  Add the stock, beating in the masa and lime juice.  Cook briefly.

(modified from Conaculta Oceano 2000a:45

 

Picadillo

 

1/2 lb. beef

1/2 lb. pork leg

3 potatoes

1 tomato

1 chayote

2 carrots

2 ears of sweet corn

4 oz. string beans

1 quince

Large sprig of mint

1 lb. cabbage

1 tsp. achiote

3 garlic cloves

1 quart water

Oil

Salt to taste

 

Cut the meat up finely.  Chop the onion and garlic.  Fry in oil in the saucepan.  Add the tomato, finely chopped.  Then add the water, salt and achiote.  (If you use the grains, not the paste, fry separately and take the seds out.)  When it begins boiling, add the meat, then the quince, then the vegetables–the sweet corn last, toward the end.  Finally add the leaves from the mint, just before serving.

 

 

Pork and Sausage with Scarlet Runner Beans

Another variant on the pork-and-beans dish.  See above, Mixed Meats with Beans.

 

2 lb. scarlet runner beans (or any dried bean)

2 ancho chiles

1 slice of bread

1 tomato

2 chorizos

1/2 lb. short ribs of pork, cut up

1/2 lb. longaniza sausage

Sprig of thyme

Sprig of oregano

Salt to taste

 

Wash, soak and cook the beans till tender (if dry, they will take a couple of hours or more).  Seed and fry the chiles.  Grind the bread and fry it up with the cut-up sausages and meat.  Combine all and simmer.  Arrayán or bay leaves make a very good addition.

Pretty much the same thing is made with lentils, which take much less time to cook and thus can be cooked with the meat.

 

 

Pork Leg

 

1 bone-in pork leg (3 to 5 lb.)

1 onion

1 bunch parsley

2 chorizo sausages

2 garlic cloves

3 oz. ham

3 oz. butter

3 large tomatoes

Juice of 5 oranges

1 tsp. pepper

1 cup water

Salt to taste

 

Rub the leg with butter, salt and pepper, and the juice of the oranges.  Marinate in the orange juice overnight.

Bone the leg and stuff the resulting hollow:

Chop the ham, onion, parsley, chorizos and one tomato finely. Fry all.  Drain thoroughly and stuff into the pork leg.

Add the water and the other two tomatoes, blended up, to the marinade.  Bake the pork in this, basting occasionally.  Serve decorated with lettuce leaves and other garnishes.

 

 

 

Puchero with Chaya

 

2 lb. pork chops

1/4 lb. rice

Oil

6 peppercorns

Sprig of thyme

3 tomatoes

1 onion

3 garlic cloves

1 large bunch chaya leaves

 

Cook the chops in 2 quarts of water with the onion and one garlic clove.  Separately, roast and peel the tomatoes, and blend with another garlic clove.

Fry to color a strip on onion and the last garlic clove.  Add the rice, fry golden, and add in the tomatoes.  Add the spices.  Precook the chaya if it is tough.

Cook quickly, add 3/4 cup water, and then the pork and chaya.  Cook til rice is done.

(modified from Conaculta Oceano 2000a:28)

 

 

Siguamut

An indigenous dish, originally made with game.  Also known as “siguamonte.”  Any meat with bone in can be used.

 

2 lb. meat

1 tomato

1 onion

6 small potatoes

3 carrots

2 garlic cloves

1 tsp. achiote

1 sprig epazote

10 small highland chiles

2 tbsp. oil

Salt to taste

 

Cut up the meat and roast it.  Then cook in salted water for an hour if using  venison–otherwise, omit or reduce this step.  Fry the achiote; then, in the oil, the garlic, onion, and tomato, all chopped.  Add all to a baking dish with potatoes, carrots (cut up), chiles (toasted and ground), the epazote and the salt.  Cook 15-20 minutes.

Variants exist; any game can be used, and the vegetables can be adapted as you wish.

 

 

Stuffed Chiles

 

1 lb. pork

10 poblano chiles

2 small onions

5 tomatoes

1 carrot

2 summer squash

1 1/2 oz flour

Few raisins

4 eggs, separated

1 tsp. pepper

4 garlic cloves

Sprig of thyme

Sprig of oregano

Oil

Salt to taste

 

Seed the chiles, fry, leave in a towel for a while, and peel.

Cook the meat with the garlic, onion and tomato.  Cool and cut up.  Fry the onion and tomato.  Cut up the other vegetables and add in, along with the meat, raisins and seasoning.

Cut up the rest of the tomatoes, onion, garlic and herbs.  Fry and blend.

Stuff the chiles; powder with flour.   Beat the whites of the eggs to peaks.  Add in the yolks and a tablespoon of flour.  Cover the chiles with this and fry in hot oil, then add the sauce and simmer.

 

 

Stuffed Onions

 

6 oz. cooked pork leg

3 large onions

2 oz. flour

3 tomatoes

3 eggs, separated

Sprig of thyme

Sprig of oregano

1/2 tsp. pepper

2 garlic cloves

Oil

Salt to taste

 

Cook the onions with salt for 15 minutes (or less).  Take out and carefully remove centers.  Chop these.

Cook the pork and chop finely.  Fry with the onion centers, one garlic clove (mashed) and one tomato (chopped).

Beat the egg whites to peaks. Add in the yolks and flour.  Cap the onions with this and fry them in a good deal of oil.  Set on paper towels to blot up excess oil.

Meanwhile, roast, peel, chop and fry the other tomatoes, with the other garlic clove and the herbs.  Blend all.

Put the stuffed onions into this sauce and simmer 10-15 minutes.

 

 

Stuffed Pork Loin

One of the most popular dishes, existing in countless variants.

 

1 pork loin

1/2 lb. ground pork

1/2 lb. ground beef

2 eggs

4 summer squash

1 strip of pineapple

4 carrots

1 oz. lard

2 lb. tomato

3 oranges

1 head of lettuce

2 tbsp. chopped parsley

3 pickled jalapeno chiles

3 garlic cloves

1 tsp. pepper

Salt to taste

 

Open out and flatten the loin.

Mix the salt, pepper, garlic (crushed), ground meat, orange juice and beaten eggs.  Cover the flattened loin with the ground meat.  Put on this slices of the vegetables; then roll up the loin in such a manner that every slice of the final roll will be slightly different. Tie it into a log shape, with the stuffing in the center.

Fry it, adding the tomato (roasted and blended), pepper, parsley, juice of one orange, and salt.  Cover and simmer for an hour.

Chill.  Serve cold, adorned with its sauce and with lettuce leaves and jalapenos.

Variants are mostly in regard to the vegetables used in the stuffing and the manner of their display.  For instance, they can be cut into long thin strips, such that they go all the way through the loin, making each slice the same.  Of course, various herbs and seasonings are used to create other variations.

Also, one can oven-roast the loin instead of frying and then simmering.  This isn’t quite as good, but may be necessary if the loin is very large.

 

 

Tasajo

A Chiapa de Corzo dish, traditional in festivals.

 

2 lb. tasajo

2 heaping tbsp. rice, soaked

1/4 cup achiote

1/3 lb. squash seeds, toasted and ground (sikil)

2 tomatoes

1/4 onion

4 oz. lard

 

Cook the meat a long time in a lot of water.

Then grind the rice with the achiote, in water, for a thick sauce.

Blend the tomato and onion.  Fry in lard.  Add the rice and achiote.  Then stir in the sikil, dissolved in stock.  Cook, stirring.

Serve as sauce on the meat.  (Or—untraditional—cut up the meat and finish cooking in the sauce.)

 

Tzotzil Radish Salad

 

Radishes

Freshly made chicharrones (fried pork rinds) in 1″ squares

Cut up equal amounts of the above.

Season with chopped mint and parsley, and enough lime juice to thoroughly wet all.

 

 

 

POULTRY AND RABBIT

 

Chicken in the Pot

A relatively Spanish-style dish.

 

1 chicken

4 potatoes

4 chayotes

1/2 cup olives, optional (very Spanish, but I prefer without)

3 tomatoes, cut up

1 onion, cut up

1/2 tsp. ground thyme

1/2 tsp. ground oregano

3 cloves

3 peppercorns

2 bay leaves

2 arrayan leaves (or two more bay leaves)

1 tbsp. ground cinnamon

1 pinch saffron

Salt to taste

1 Spanish canned pimento, cut up, or some pimento strips (optional)

1 cup cooked chickpeas (optional)

1 cup vinegar

1 cup white wine

 

Cut up the chicken.  Peel and slice the vegetables.  Combine all except the pimento and chickpeas.  Cover the pot and cook in the oven.  Adorn with the pimento and chickpeas at the end.

(Conaculta Oceano 2000a:40)

 

 

Chicken with Chorizo

 

1 chicken

4 chorizos

1 onion

2 garlic cloves

1/2 lb. potatoes

1 quart chicken stock

Oil

Salt to taste

 

Chop and fry the garlic and onion.  Add the chorizo meat (taken out of the skins).  Drain.  Fry well, then add the stock.

Cut the chicken into pieces.  Add to the stock with the potatoes and cook all.

 

 

Pressed Turkey

Otherwise known as “stuffed turkey.”  Another passionate favorite.

 

1 turkey (8-10 lb.)

3 lb. ground pork

1/2 tsp. nutmeg

1/2 tsp. pepper

1 small can of chopped pimento

3-4 oz. almonds, finely chopped

1/4 cup vinegar

1 cup sweet wine

1 green onion with stem, cut up

Sprig of thyme

Sprig of oregano

1 head of garlic

Salt to taste

 

Cook and bone the turkey.  Wash and rub with salt and pepper.

To the ground meat, add the other ingredients, except the herbs.  Mix well.  Stuff the turkey and sew it up.  Cook in a large pot with the herbs and salt.  Take out and press by wrapping it in a towel and leaving a heavy object on it; leave all night in the refrigerator to chill, thus weighted down.  Serve cold, sliced, with lettuce leaves and radish for garnish, and red sauce.

 

 

Rabbit a la Zihuamonte

 

1 rabbit

2 potatoes

5 cloves

2 green chiles

3 tbsp. oil

2 garlic cloves

1 onion

2 tomatoes

1 ancho chile

1/4 cup masa

Sprig of epazote

6 peppercorns

 

Cut up the rabbit.  Bake till golden.  Then put in a pot with water.  Add the potatoes, cloves and green chiles.

Cut up and fry the garlic and onion.  When colored, add the tomato and the rabbit.  Fry separately the dried chiles (seeded and ground).  Add some of the stock, thickened with the masa.  Stir.  Add the epazote and peppercorns.  Then add to the rabbit.

This dish is perfectly good made with chicken.

(modified from Conaculta Oceano 2000a:38)

 

 

 

Charcuterie

 

If you are totally compulsive, here’s how to smoke meat Chiapas style: Build a box about 5′ square with a grill at the bottom.  Suspend hams and sausages within.  Put hot charcoal on the grill and cover with damp sawdust of pine and/or oak.  Leave till the meats take on the color of old gold.  This is a minimalist description.  I haven’t tried it.  Only someone who knows the tricks of the trade should make the attempt.  Naturally, the charcutiers have more elaborate equipment.

 

 

Chorizo

 

4 lb. pork leg

6 ancho chiles

Sprig of thyme

Sprig of oregano

2 tsp. pepper

1 head of garlic, peeled and mashed

Small cup vinegar

Salt to taste (a good deal is necessary)

Sausage skins

 

Grind the meat fine.  Seed and soak the chiles; blend and add.   Add the herbs and garlic, all ground, and the salt and vinegar.  Stuff the sausage skins thoroughly, making sure there are no air pockets or loosely filled places.  Dry or smoke the sausages.

As usual, you can just fry up the mix instead of making sausages with it.

 

 

Longaniza

 

4 lb. pork

3 heads garlic

2 tbsp. pepper

2 large tomatoes

Salt to taste (a good deal is necessary)

Sausage skins

 

Separate lean and fat pieces of pork.  Chop up.  Peel and mash the garlic; chop the tomatoes fine.  Mix all and stuff the sausage skins, making sure they are thoroughly stuffed (no air pockets or loose places).  Dry or smoke.

 

 

Moronga

 

2 quarts blood

1 large onion

2 tomatoes

1 piece of pork fat, ground

1/2 cut cooked rice

Fresh chile, to taste

Mint leaves

Salt to taste (a good deal is necessary)

Sausage skins

 

Heat the blood.  When thoroughly hot, add the other ingredients, all chopped fine or ground.  Stuff the sausage skins.  Boil the sausages half an hour.  Dry (best done in slow oven).  Even without drying, they will keep, refrigerated, for a long time.  Do not store unrefrigerated (even if dried).

 

 

Simple Paté

 

1/2 lb. liver

1/2 lb. pork

1/2 lb. beef

2 chicken breasts

1/2 cup milk

2 eggs

1 bread roll

4 oz. lard

Salt and pepper to taste

 

Cook and grind the meats.  Fry the bread in the butter and soak in the milk; grind up.  Beat the eggs.  Mix all the ingredients and put into a greased mold that can be fitted into a bain-marie arrangement (easily jury-rigged with a couple of nesting saucepans).  Cover and simmer till cooked solid.  Chill, unmold, and serve sliced.

 

 

 

VEGETABLES
 

Baked Chayote

 

Scoop out the meat of a cooked chayote.  Mash with sugar, cinnamon, allspice and raisins.  Return to own shell.

 

 

Chiles in Escabeche

The same basic recipe is wonderful for wild mushrooms and other vegetables.  For these others (and even for the chiles, if you prefer), leave out the ginger and perhaps the cloves and cinnamon, and add more aromatic herbs and leaves.

 

2 lb. serrano chiles

1 quart vinegar

1 onion, cut up

1 oz. salt

10 cloves

1 stick cinnamon

10 peppercorns

Sprig of thyme

Sprig of oregano

Small piece of ginger

5 garlic cloves

4 bay leaves

5 tbsp. olive oil, preferably extra virgin (though that is rare indeed in Chiapas)

 

Wash the chiles and pierce them with a fork.  Boil the vinegar with the spices, adding the chiles when the liquid begins to boil.  Cook till they are olive-colored.

Fry the onion, garlic and bay leaves in the oil.

Put this in a jar and add the chiles and vinegar.

If this is to be sealed and stored, sterilize as with any canned vegetables; but it’s a great deal easier to leave it in the refrigerator.  Covered, it keeps indefinitely.

 

 

Scarlet Runner Beans

“Botil” to the Tzotzil Maya, for whom these beans are an important food.  These are large, mottled beans with a distinctive flavor.  Ordinary beans or dried limas can be substituted.  Use large beans that cook up soft but not mushy.

 

1 lb. scarlet runner beans

1 onion, chopped

2 garlic cloves

2 tbsp. flour

10 highland Chiapas chiles

5 tbsp. oil

Salt to taste

 

Wash the beans and soak overnight.  Cook for an hour.  Separately, fry the garlic and onion.  Separately (again), fry the chiles, adding the flour slowly.  Then combine all with the beans and simmer 15 minutes.

Any good dried chile will do.  The highland ones are small and hot, so adjust quantities (one really big New Mexico chile can equal to ten highland ones) and hotness.

 

 

Vegetables in Escabeche

 

1/2 lb. fresh chiles

1/2 lb. carrots

1/2 lb. summer squash

1/2 lb. onions

1 cauliflower

Sprig of thyme

Sprig oregano

4 bay leaves (or 2 bay leaves and 2 arrayan leaves)

1 quart vinegar

1 cup water

1 tbsp. sugar

5 tbsp. olive oil

15 black peppercorns

5 cloves garlic

Salt to taste

 

Cut the garlic and onion into strips and fry.  Cut up the other vegetables.  When the garlic and onion are fried golden, add the vinegar and herbs.  When this begins to boil, add the other vegetables.  Cook briefly; stop when vegetables are still firm.

This dish can be eaten as is, or kept to marinate.

Any mix of vegetables can be used.  Wild mushrooms are marinated the same way, and it is perfectly good for cultivated mushrooms as well.

 

 

White Beans

A nice vegetarian dish.

 

1 lb. white beans

1 ancho chile

1 small French bread roll

2 tomatoes

1 onion

3-5 serrano chiles, canned or fresh

1 small head of garlic

12 tsp. pepper

1/2 tsp. ground oregano

1/2 tsp. ground thyme

Oil and salt as needed

 

Wash beans and soak overnight.  Cook with the garlic and onion for 45 minutes.  Break up the bread and fry it with the chile (seeded and soaked), the onion and the tomato.  Add these to the beans, then add the spices.  Cook 15 minutes more.

 

 

Wild Mushrooms

 

2 lb. wild mushrooms

1/2 onion

2 lb. tomato

2 bell peppers

1 jalapeno chile, seeded

1 plantain, peeled and cut up

Lard

2 hojasanta leaves

Salt to taste

 

Wash the mushrooms and take off tough or spoiled parts.  Chop the ingredients.  Mix with lard and salt.

Lightly toast a banana leaf and lay the other ingredients on it.  Wrap all in a sheet of aluminum foil and steam 45 minutes.

The original recipe specified the local cusuche mushroom, but any flavorful mushroom does fine.  One can also leave out the plantain.

(based on Conaculta Oceano 2000a:49)

 

 

DESSERTS

 

Fruit Cheese

Peaches, apples, quinces, guavas and other fruit are preserved thus.  See Guava Paste recipe in Yucatan section.

 

Cut up, peel, core or seed and bring to boil.

Put in a colander and leave overnight.

Weigh the pulp.  Mix in sugar, equal to 2/3 of the weight.  (Use the remaining juice, strained out, for making jelly–or just drink it.)

Cook down, stirring constantly, till it begins to separate from the sides of the pot.  (Do this is a Teflon pot with a wooden spoon, unless you want  a fearful mess.)  Turn out into a pan, plate or dish, and cool till solid.

 

 

Sandy Cookies a la Chiapas

 

1 lb. flour

3/4 lb. sugar

3/4 lb. butter

6 eggs

1/4 cup lime juice

1 tbsp. lime zest

11/4 cup milk

1/2 tbsp. baking soda

 

Cream the butter, mixing in the sugar and then the flour.  Beat in the eggs, one by one.  After this, add the lime juice and zest, and, finally, the baking soda dissolved in the milk.

Butter a cookie dish or a mold and bake till golden.  This recipe is for little cakes made in molds, but is fine for cookies.

 

 

 

DRINKS

 

The favorite local drink is raw rum, known as aguardiente (“burning water”) in Spanish, and in Highland Maya as pox, which means “medicine.”  (As in Yucatec, x is pronounced sh.)  It has the color and taste of water and the kick of a team of Chiapas mules.  Alcoholism is a problem, so some of the Maya communities have been shifting from pox to cola drinks for ceremonial occasions.  A myth has been duly elaborated that cola has magic powers.  This has led to a new political tension: competition between suppliers of rival cola brands.

One of the great delights of San Cristobal is the punch, locally pronounced bonche, sold piping hot around the cathedral in the evening.  It dispels the mountain cold.  It consists of fruit cooked in water with spices, with pox added to taste.   Bonche may be basically hot pox with a bit of fruit, or a whole lavish fruit cocktail with just a splash of hot pox, or anything in between.

A mescal is made around Comitan from the local agaves; it is something of an acquired taste, being reminiscent of soap.

 

 

Anisette

 

1 quart aguardiente (vodka will do)

1 lb. sugar

1 oz. anise seeds

Heaping tbsp. fennel seeds

Ten drops of anise essence

1 tsp. nutmeg

 

Mix and leave three days (more if you want it stronger, but it gets bitter).  Strain and rebottle.

This makes a traditionally sweet, syrupy product.  There is no reason not to cut the sugar way down, to make it bearable to those with a less sweet tooth.

 

All of Chiapas’ many wonderful fruits are made into liqueurs by similar methods.  Take any fruit, macerate a bit if necessary, and steep in rum or vodka for a few days with a lot of sugar.

 

 

Bonche de Piña

 

1 pineapple

1/2 lb. sugar

1 stick cinnamon

1 piece ginger

10 allspice berries

2 1/2 quarts water

 

Mash the pineapple with water.  Add the other ingredients and cook.

Lace well with pox (or equivalent–any sort of rum is great).  Serve hot.

It is traditional to crumble up panque–pound-cake–into this, but the result is possibly a bit much for most non-Chiapans.

 

 

Bonche de Frutas

This is the fitting end of a Chiapan meal!  There is nothing like warming up with bonche on a cold, drizzly night in front of the Cathedral in San Cristobal.

 

As above, but instead of pineapple, use finely cut up fresh apple, guava, pear, and perhaps a peach; also prunes, raisins, and bits of sugarcane.

The fruits and spices vary a lot.  A cinnamon stick and some apple, guava and prunes are basic.

 

 

Chocolate with Egg

 

2 lb. cacao beans

2 lb. sugar

2 egg yolks

1 tbsp. ground cinnamon

 

Toast the beans on a comal till golden.  Take off the skins.  Grind in a metate with the sugar and cinnamon.  When finely ground, add the yolks, mix well, form into cakes and store.

If you aren’t cooking with a comal over an open fire, oven-roast the beans and grind them fine in a food processor (blenders don’t work for this).

Many people add finely ground almonds along with, or instead of, the yolks.

 

 

Sour atole

A Maya ritual drink.

 

2 lb. maize

1/2 lb. sugar

8 cloves

Cinnamon to taste

Water

 

Soak maize in water for three days, enough to produce some souring.  Then drain, grind, and mix with 3 quarts water.  Add the spices and cook, stirring constantly, till the atole thickens.

 

 

Tascalate

 

This is the traditional chocolate drink of south Mexico.  It is my personal favorite way to absorb chocolate.

 

Mix toasted corn meal, chocolate, achiote paste, and chile powder or cinnamon, to taste, in water.  Drink hot or cold.

This can be sweetened with honey or sugar, but traditionalists (among whom I number myself) prefer it with only the sweetness of the toasted corn meal.  Usually, the chile is used in the unsweetened version, the cinnamon in the sweetened.

 

Local pozole (maize drink) is made with chocolate and is similar.  (Pozole in the southeast is usually just cornmeal and water–not a rich stew as it is in north and west Mexico.)

 

 

TABASCO

 

 

BASICS

 

Pozol or “Chorote”

The staple food of much of Tabasco.  This recipe is given here for ethnographic interest, since few readers will be likely to prepare it.

 

2 lb. dried corn kernels

1/2 lb. cacao seeds, toasted and peeled

 

Cook the corn with lime (calcium oxide, not the citrus fruit) for a few minutes.  Try a grain to see if it peels easily by rubbing in the hands.  If not, continue cooking.  If so, take the corn and wash it several times, then return to flame and simmer.  This corn is known in most of Mexico as “nixtamal” (a Nahuatl word) but in Tabasco as “chegua.”

Grind the chegua.  Grind the chocolate very fine.  Add both to water.  Strain, using the strainer to beat the mix at the same time to make it foam up.  Cook, stirring constantly.  This can be flavored with achiote, vanilla, and the like.  Various tree flowers are used in Tabasco and neighboring regions.  In Tabasco and Chiapas there are flowers that create a marvelous foam when beaten with the chocolate.

 

 

Tostones de Platano

 

Boil plantains, mash, add some flour to hold together.  Let stand 20 minutes.  Flatten into potato-chip-thin cakes and deep-fry.

This makes a great appetizer, used like tortilla chips to spoon up dips.

 

 

Totopos

 

A large corn cake.  Shape masa into a cake a foot across and a finger thick, and grill.  This is a staple food.

 

 

 

TAMALES AND RELATIVES

 

Chaya Dumpling Soup

 

1/2 lb. chaya leaves

2 oz. bacon

1 small onion

1 egg (or 2 egg whites, if watching cholesterol)

1 small bread rolls or 2 slices bread, soaked in milk or water

Grated cheese

1 tbsp tomato paste

Oil

Parsley, and other herbs as desired (thyme and oregano recommended)

Stock (chicken or meat)

Salt and pepper to taste

1 1/2 cups cooked rice

 

Chop the chaya and the onion.  Save some of the onion.  Fry the rest, with the chaya, till soft.

Grind up the bacon, bread, herbs, and the rest of the onion.  Mix with the egg, cheese, tomato paste and chaya-onion mix.  Season and form into balls.

Set the soup stock to boil.  Add the rice and chaya balls.  Warm up.  Or, even better to my taste, you can serve the soup over the rice.

Simpler, commoner variant:  just mix the chaya-onion mix with nixtamal or bread crumbs to make the dumplings.

 

 

Chipilín Tamales (simple folk form)

 

2 lb. masa

1 bunch chipilín

1/2 lb. lard

Salt

Banana leaves

 

Prepare the masa as in the other recipes.  Wash, chop and mix in the chipilín leaves.  Proceed as in other recipes, cooking the masa-chipilín mix first (stirring constantly), then making tamales and steaming them for an hour.

 

 

Chipilín Tamales (festive form)

 

1 lb. masa

1/2 lb. chipilín leaves

1/4 lb. lard

Banana leaves (or functional equivalent)

1 lb. pork

2 tomatoes

1 bunch chives

1 small onion

 

Cook the pork in a little water, chop, and fry with the tomato, chives and onions, finely chopped.

Take the pork stock, stir in the masa, chipilín leaves and lard, with salt to taste.  Cook over low heat.  When thick, stir in the fried ingredients.

Wrap pieces of this mixture in banana leaves.  Steam ca. 20 min.

Serve with tomato sauce.

 

 

Garfish Tacos

 

1 roast garfish (or 1-2 lb. cod, baked till not quite done)

1/2 lb. tomatoes

1/2 lb. onions

Lime or bitter orange, cilantro and tabasco chile to taste.

Tortillas

 

Flake the fish and fry with the chopped tomato and onion.  Frying here means stir-frying or sautéing, not battering and deep-frying as for the Baja California fish tacos that have recently become popular in the United States.

Make tacos, adding the other ingredients to taste.  (The above are the Tabasco traditional add-ins, but of course you can add whatever you find necessary in a fish taco.)

 

 

Garfish Tamales, I

 

1 small roast garfish (2 lb.; or substitute 2 pounds of cod or similar fish)

1 onion

Vinegar

1/2 lb. tomatoes

1 chile güero (a hot yellow fresh chile), or other hot chile, chopped

1 large sprig of epazote

Salt to taste

4 1/2 lb. masa

2 lb. lard

3 bunches of banana leaves (or substitute)

Oil for frying

 

To roast a gar in the true Tabasco manner, pass a stick through the mouth and out the cleaning slit, and roast over a fire.  Failing that, grill or bake.

Flake the fish.

Chop the onion; marinate in the vinegar.  Add the tomato, flaked fish, chile, and epazote sprig.  Season with salt and leave to marinate.

Mix the lard (melted) into the masa.  Add enough water to make a rather thin paste.

Cook this, stirring constantly, until a drop of it put on a banana leaf holds together and flows down the leaf.

Make small tamales: spread a tablespoon of masa on a leaf, add a tablespoon of the fish mix, roll up, tie or fold to seal.  (If lazy, make bigger tamales.)

Steam the tamales for an hour.

 

 

Garfish Tamales, II

 

1 medium-sized garfish

1 lb. tomatoes

2 bell peppers

2 green onions or bunches of chives

1/2 tsp. oregano

2 lb. masa

1/2 lb. lard

2 tbsp. achiote paste

Salt and pepper to taste

Leaves for wrapping

Tabasco chiles (if you can stand them; mild chiles if you can’t)

 

Roast the garfish over charcoal or wood fire.  Skin and bone it.  Chop up a tomato, a bell pepper, and some of the green onion or chives.  Mix the salt, pepper, 1 tbsp. achiote and oregano with this.  Fry all, then add the fish and fry till all is integrated.

Mix the masa with lard and the rest of the achiote, and some salt and soup stock, till it makes a soft, smooth paste.

Carefully add in the fish mixture.  Wrap.

Steam for about two hours.

Make a salsa by chopping together the rest of the tomato, onion, bell pepper, and green onion and the Tabasco chiles.

 

 

Pork mone

Mone is a type of steamed meatball.  This one is traditional in wakes for the dead in the area of Torno Largo.

 

1 lb. ground or well-chopped pork

1 large tomato

1 small onion

1 mild chile

2 hojasanta leaves

Banana leaf

Salt to taste

Lard and water for cooking

 

Cut up the vegetables and one hojasanta leaf.  Mix with the meat and a little lard.

Lay out the other hojasanta leaf on the banana leaf.  Spread the mixture on it, roll up, and tie.

Put in water and simmer for an hour and a half.

Serve with roasted plantains.

Variants can be made using beef, variety meats, etc.

(Several other mone recipes are in Conaculta Oceano 2001c:18.)

 

 

Tamales in the Pot

 

1 lb. pork chops

1 chicken

1 tortilla

3 chiles

3 cloves garlic

4 tomatoes

1 onion

8 or 9 leaves epazote

Oregano, cumin seeds and achiote to taste

3 lb. masa

1 lb. lard

1 bell pepper

6 Tabasco peppers

1/2 lb. pepitas (pumpkin seeds)

Salt

 

Cut the meat into 10 portions.  Boil, putting in the pork first, later the chicken, till almost done.

Brown the tortilla.  Seed and roast the chiles and soak in hot water.  Cut up the garlic, two tomatoes, and half an onion and fry them with the seasonings.  Add the tortilla and chiles and blend, using some of the broth.

Cook the meats a bit more in this soup.

Mix the masa with the rest of the broth, the lard, and some salt.  Cook, stirring constantly.

Roast and peel the bell pepper, roast the rest of the onion, toast the Tabasco peppers, and blend with the rest of the tomatoes, for a salsa.

Toast and grind the pepitas, i.e. make sikil.

Take ten small pots.  Put in each a banana leaf.  Add a bit of the masa.  Put on this the meat mixture.

Bake for 20 minutes.

To serve, turn out on a plate, remove the leaf, and cover with the sauce and ground seeds.

 

 

 

SOUPS

 

Cowboys’ Stew

This uses the dried and salted beef of Tabasco, which cowboys carry for rations while riding the range.  The hot, humid climate depletes the body’s salt in short order, hence the need for extremely salty food.

 

2 lb. tasajo (dried salt beef, like jerky but saltier and a bit moister)

2 plantains

1/4 small winter squash

10 chaya leaves

1 mild green chile

1/4 onion

1 tomato

Parsley, chives, salt to taste

 

Boil the meat till tender.

Add the plantain (peeled and cut up), the squash (in pieces) and the chaya leaves (separately, and in that order, letting them cook a bit before adding the next item).

Roast the chile, onion and tomato.  Peel.

When all is cooked, add the chile, onion, tomato, parsley and chives.  Cook very briefly.

Those not riding the Tabasco range will want to soak the salt out of the meat first–or just substitute fresh meat.

 

 

Fish Soup with Hojasanta, I

 

In rich fish stock, cook a chunk of snook belly meat with one hojasanta leaf.

Tomatoes and Tabasco parsley make good additions.

 

 

Fish Soup with Hojasanta, II

“Mojarra” can be used for this, but it’s better with belly meat or steak of snook.  Any good firm white-fleshed fish will do.

 

1 tomato

1 bell pepper

1 xkatik chile

3 lb. white fish (whole, or fillet with bone and skin)

4 tender hojasanta leaves

6 black peppercorns

Oregano, salt and oil to taste (the oil is optional)

 

Chop very fine, or blend, the tomato and peppers.  Fry for sofrito.  Add water, the fish and hojasanta leaves and the other ingredients.  Boil till fish is just done.

 

 

Fish Soup with Hojasanta, III

Ingredients as above, plus one more tomato and an onion

 

Chop and fry the tomatoes, onion and peppers.  Put with fish in 3 cups water.  Add the spices.  Cut up the leaves and add.

 

This is especially recommended as a truly incomparable and extremely simple dish.  Almost any fish will do; a mixture of seafood is wonderful.  This is a recipe in which hojasanta can be readily replaced by finocchio, in which case you have something similar to Italo-Californian cioppino.

 

 

Fish Stew

 

2 lb. whole fish

3 cloves garlic

1 laurel leaf

3 carrots

3 small summer squash, preferably Mexican gray sq uash

1 tomato

6 small potatoes

1 chayote

1 small head cabbage

1 medium-sized onion

1 bunch cilantro

4 or more chaya leaves

2 small ears sweet corn

Salt to taste

Oil

 

Fillet the fish.  Make a stock by cooking the heads and bones for 20 minutes in water, with salt to taste.  Strain.

Chop the garlic and fry in 2 tablespoons oil.  Mash the tomato (in a blender or the like) and add.

Add in the vegetables, cut into chunks except for the potatoes, which should be whole and unskinned.  Cook till getting soft.

Add the fish fillets; cook for ten more minutes.  Mix in the mashed garlic and tomato.

Serve with white rice.  On the side, serve chopped green chiles, cilantro and onion.

(modified from Conaculta Oceano 2001c:22)

 

 

Garfish soup

 

l large garfish

1 bitter orange

2 plantains

1 tomato

1 onion

1 bell pepper

2 garlic cloves

Oregano, cilantro, achiote, salt and oil to taste

 

Scrub the fish with the bitter orange, squeezing the juice out as you do so.

Set the plantains (peeled and chunked) to boil.  When almost done, add the fish, the tomato (cut up and fried in the oil), and the other ingredients.  Simmer till fish is done.

 

 

Plantain Soup

 

3 plantains

1 tbsp. vinegar

1 tomato

1 bell pepper

2 green onions (scallions)

10 peppercorns

Lard or oil

Salt

Chicken stock

1 small ranch cheese (a fresh, white, rather dry and salty cheese.  Look for queso ranchero at a Hispanic market, or substitute feta)

 

Boil the plantains and mash.

Blend the vinegar, tomato, bell pepper, and onions, and fry.  Grind the peppercorns and add in.

Mix in the plantain and salt.  Fry the paste again.

Mix in a bit of chicken stock to make a thick creamy texture.

Cut up the cheese and top the soup with it.

Variant: By using a vegetable stock, this becomes one of the few really good vegetarian dishes in the Tabasco file.

 

 

Seafood Soup

 

1/2 lb. tomatoes

1 onion

1/2 head garlic

1/2 lb. snook

1/2 lb. crabs in shell

1/2 lb. raw shrimp

1/2 lb. clams

1 tsp. oregano

1 1/2 quarts water

2 bay leaves (or more)

5 tbsp. olive oil

5 white peppercorns

Few capers and green olives

 

Blend the tomato, onion and garlic. Fry in the oil.

Add the water and boil.

Add the sea food and seasonings.  Cook till done.

When cooked, add in the capers and olives.

Serve hot with quartered limes on the side.

(It would be possible to shell the shrimp and crab first and make a stock with the shells.)

 

 

Shrimp Soup

 

In stock made by boiling many shrimps and shrimp shells, etc., cook shrimp, bits of chile, summer squash, and herbs (parsley, Tabasco parsley, cilantro, others to taste).

 

 

Snook Stew

 

4 large steaks of snook

4 garlic cloves

Oil or lard as necessary

1 small onion

1 bell pepper

1 tomato

2 hardboiled eggs (optional)

2 leaves of Tabasco parsley

1 tbsp. vinegar

Croutons (made from 8 slices of bread, cut up, toasted; optional)

Salt and pepper to taste

 

Boil a quart and a half of water.  Add the fish; cook for five minutes, take it out, remove bones and skin.

Cut up, and fry, the garlic, onion, bell pepper, and tomato.

Add these to the water and boil.  Return the fish and seasonings to same and cook five more minutes.  Slice the eggs, add, cook five more minutes.  Serve with the croutons.

 

 

Soup for the Bridegroom

 

The Moors brought pilaf to Spain.  In Spanish it became known as a “sopa seca,” literally “dry soup.”  This is a Mexican development of the recipe.  The Moorish flavor–chicken with clove, cinnamon, pepper and so on–has been supplemented by characteristic Tabasco ingredients.

 

1 lb. rice

Breast meat, and (if you want) liver and gizzard, from 1 chicken

1 large tomato, cut up

1 bell pepper, cut up

3 garlic cloves, crushed

1 tbsp. cilantro, cut up

1 tbsp. Tabasco parsley, cut up fine

1 clove

10 peppercorns

1 stick cinnamon

1 sprig oregano (or 1 tsp.)

1 tbsp. achiote paste

1 tbsp. vinegar

Stock

Lard or oil

Salt to taste

 

Wash and soak the rice.

Boil the other ingredients and chop fine.

Fry all with the soaked (but uncooked) rice.  Add stock, to 1″ above the level of the rice mix.  Simmer till rice is done.

 

 

 

SEAFOOD

 

 

Bobo

“Choco” dialect for “catfish.”

 

1 large catfish

1 lime

2 leaves of hojasanta

4 leaves chaya

3 shallots

1 tomato

3 Tabasco chiles

1 garlic clove

Salt

Leaves of banana or the like, to wrap

 

Clean the catfish.  Rub with salt and lime.  Put on the hojasanta leaves.  Chop finely the chaya.  Blend the garlic, shallots, tomato and chiles.  Wrap all in the hojasanta leaves, rub with some lard, and wrap in the banana leaves.  Bake in moderate oven (350-375o) for half an hour.

 

 

Ceviche

 

2 lb. freshly caught fish (raw)

4 limes

1 tbsp salt

2 tomatoes

1 onion

1/4 cup cilantro

1 Serrano chile

1 tbsp olive oil

10 olives

2 avocados, sliced

 

Cut up the fish.  Cover with the lime juice and salt and let stand in a cool place for 4 or 5 hours.  Chop the vegetables finely.  Mix them and the other ingredients.

Ceviche is, of course, a universal Mexican delicacy; this is a Tabasco variant.  Any fresh sea food can be used (the more the better–a contrast in textures is desirable).  However, be absolutely certain the sea food is really fresh and from uncontaminated water.  Pollution has rendered Mexican seafood very dangerous when raw.  Sadly, Tabasco is one of the worst-polluted areas.

 

 

Drunken Fish

 

1 tomato

2 Serrano chiles (remove seeds and membrane)

4 allspice berries, powdered

Oregano to taste

2 or more bay leaves

1 glass of sherry

3 tablespoons vinegar

1/2 stick butter

1 onion

3 garlic cloves

Salt to taste

1 large snook or other fish (whole or in steaks)

 

Blend the vegetables.  Add the wine, vinegar, bay leaves and spices, and a little butter.  Marinate the fish in this for half an hour.  Then add the rest of the butter, and the fish, and simmer (or bake) in a covered dish till sauce is mostly absorbed.

 

 

Fish in Adobo

Any firm but delicate white-fleshed fish is good for this.

“Adobo” is cognate with French “daube.”  It refers to a cooking process in which pieces of meat or fish are highly spiced and then simmered, or cooked in a casserole.

 

1 bream or similar fish, ca. 2-3 lb.

3 limes

1 onion

6 garlic cloves

10 cumin seeds

1 piece achiote (cube of paste or small bag of powder)

2 cloves

1/2 tsp oregano

8 peppercorns

2 oz. vinegar

1/2 cup oil

 

Clean the fish.  Slash diagonally.  Marinate for an hour in water with juice of one lime.  Then scrub the fish.  Blend the onion and garlic; add the achiote, and the spices, powdered.  Mix these with the oil and juice of the other 2 limes, and enough vinegar to make a paste.  Rub this over the fish.  Let stand one hour, then bake at 350o, basting with the sauce occasionally.

 

 

Fish in Hojasanta Leaves

 

2 lb. seabass or similar fish

1 tomato

2 (or more) laurel leaves

1 onion

1 bell pepper

2 tsp. oil

Parsley leaves

Cilantro leaves

Tabasco parsley leaves

Chipilín leaves

Hojasanta leaves

Pepper, oregano and salt to taste

 

Rub the fish with the pepper, oregano and salt.  Add the tomato, bell pepper, and onion, all cut into strips.  Add the chipilín, chopped, and the oil.

Wrap in the hojasanta leaves.  Wrap the whole bundle in foil.   Bake at 350o till done (20-30 min.).

 

 

Fish in Paper (a simpler variant of the above)

 

For six persons:

6 pieces fish

6 cloves garlic

6 leaves of hojasanta

Salt and pepper to taste

10 green chiles

1 further clove garlic

1 slice of onion

 

Crush the garlic and spread it on the fish.

Roast the chiles and blend with the garlic clove and onion slice.  Briefly fry the mix in a little oil.  Spread this too on the fish.

Wrap each fillet in an hojasanta leaf, wrap the result in aluminum foil (or cooking paper), and bake at 350o.

 

Fish with Tabasco Parsley

 

1 fish or fillet, ca. 2 lb.

1 lime

Oil

1 large bunch of Tabasco parsley

3 peppercorns

1 garlic clove

1 cinnamon stick

1 slice of breaad

Salt and pepper to taste

Water to cook

 

Wash the fish and rub with lime, salt and pepper.  Cook in moderate oven, covering with the Tabasco parsley, pepper, garlic, cinnamon and moistened bread, blended, and fried in a little oil.

This dish is perfectly good with ordinary parsley.  Indeed, it is similar to dishes of Spain and other parts of Mexico that use ordinary parsley.

(Conaculta Oceano 2001c:31

 

Garfish in Chirmol

If you can’t get a garfish–or maybe even if you can–you might try this with any other firm-fleshed fish, whole or filleted.

 

1 garfish of ca. 3 lb.

3 thin tortillas

4 garlic cloves

1 large tomato

5 shallots

3 dried chiles

1 piece achiote (small cake or cube, or a small bag of achiote powder)

5 allspice berries

1/2 lb. masa

1/4 cup lard or oil

1 bunch epazote

A little oregano

Salt

 

Wash and clean the fish.

Toast the chiles; remove seeds and membranes.  Toast and crush the tortillas.  Roast the tomato, onion and garlic.  Fry and mash these together.  Grind the chiles and spices, and mix in.  Simmer to thicken.  Add the fish and enough water to cover.  Thicken the soup with the masa, add the lard, epazote, and oregano, and cook.

(Conaculta Oceano 2001c:32)

 

Fish with Tabasco Parsley

 

1 fish or fillet, ca. 2 lb.

1 lime

Oil

1 large bunch of Tabasco parsley

3 peppercorns

1 garlic clove

1 cinnamon stick

1 slice bread, moistened

Salt and pepper to taste

Water to cook

 

Wash the fish and rub with lime, salt and pepper.  Cook in moderate oven, covering with the Tabasco parsley, pepper, garlic, cinnamon and moistened bread, blended, and fried in a little oil.

This dish is perfectly good with ordinary parsley.  Indeed, it is similar to dishes of Spain and other parts of Mexico that use ordinary parsley.

(modified from Conaculta Oceano 2001c:31

 

Garfish in Chirmol

If you can’t get a garfish–or maybe even if you can–you might try this with any other firm-fleshed fish, whole or filleted.

 

1 garfish of ca. 3 lb.

3 thin tortillas

4 garlic cloves

1 large tomato

5 shallots

3 dried chiles

1 small cube achiote, or achiote powder made up into paste

1 tsp allspice

1/2 lb. masa

1/4 cup lard or oil

1 bunch epazote

A little oregano

Salt

 

Wash and clean the fish.

Toast the chiles; remove seeds and membranes.  Toast and crush the tortillas.  Roast the tomato, onion and garlic.  Fry and mash these together.  Grind the chiles and spices, and mix in.  Simmer to thicken.  Add the fish and enough water to cover.  Thicken the soup with the masa, add the lard, epazote, and oregano, and cook.

 

 

Garfish in green sauce

 

1 garfish, ca. 3 lb.–or any other fish; this will work for anything, and almost any firm white-fleshed fish is better than a garfish unless you are a loyal Tabasqueño.

This recipe is a much-transformed descendent of a medieval Hispano-Moorish delicacy (see Introduction).  One wonders what the refined gourmets of old Grenada or Cordova would have made of a garfish—a living fossil biologically, and looks and tastes like it.

 

4 oz. chipilín leaves

4 oz. chaya leaves

2 oz. Tabasco chile leaves

1 chile xkatik

1 onion

5 cloves garlic

4 tsp. lard or oil

water

1/2 lb. masa

 

Wash the gar and cut in pieces.

Blanch and blend the leaves.  Take a slice off the onion and one from the chile; reserve for a minute.  Blend the remainder of these two items with the leaves.  Put the blended vegetables in pot with the gar, add salt (and water if necessary), and cook over a fairly low fire.

Fry the slice of onion and the slice of bell pepper.  Add to the rest.

Stir in the masa.  Cook till the whole turns from green to yellow; this should indicate doneness.

Tabasco chile leaves are widely but uncommonly used as a vegetable in Mexico.  (I have also seen them as a vegetable in parts of East Asia.)

 

 

Garfish Roasted

Possibly not the world’s most sophisticated recipe, but one of the very commonest in use in Tabasco.

 

1 garfish

5 shallots or onions

20 Tabasco chiles

Salt

2 limes

 

Roast the gar over coals.  Make a salsa of the other ingredients.

 

 

Piguas roasted

Recall that piguas are giant crayfish-like prawns.

 

2 lb. piguas, peeled

Juice of bitter orange

Salt, tabasco chiles, garlic, pepper.

 

Blend the condiments.  Paint the piguas with it; leave half an hour.  Cook in a covered pan or casserole dish till they become dry and golden.

 

 

Piguas with Garlic

See note on piguas, above.

 

4 large piguas

10 garlic cloves

10 ground peppercorns

2 limes

Salt to taste

 

Shell the piguas.  Mix the other ingredients and marinate the piguas half an hour.  Proceed as in previous recipe.  Cook very quickly.

This should be intensely garlicky.

Any large prawn or langostino will do as substitute.

 

 

Shrimp in Escabeche

 

2 lb. fresh shrimp

1/2 cup olive oil

4 tomatillos or tomatoes

6 yellow chiles, chopped

1 large onion

10 black peppercorns

6 laurel leaves

6 allspice leaves (if you can’t find any, use some ground allspice)

1/2 tbsp oregano

1 cup vinegar

10 garlic cloves

 

Peel the shrimp.  Fry in a bit of oil.  Add the other ingredients (except the vinegar), the spices ground, the leaves and vegetables chopped fine or less so according to taste.  Fry a bit more, then add the vinegar and boil till seasoned (a very brief time).

 

 

Shrimp in Green Sauce

That medieval green sauce again.

 

2 lb. shrimps

30 chaya leaves

4 garlic cloves

1 small onion

1 lb. masa

1/2 lb. lard

Leaves of chipilín

Salt to taste

 

Shell and clean the shrimp.

Blend the vegetables and cook with the shrimp.

Meanwhile, mix the masa with water to make a paste.  Mix into the shrimp.  Then mix in the lard and salt.  Cook.

 

 

Snook Casserole

 

Large snook (6 lb.)

1 laurel leaves

1 lime

Salt

2 onions

10 allspice berries

2 cloves

2 tomatoes

6 tbsp olive oil

Parsley, 1 bunch, chopped

1 jalapeno chile, cut up

2 tbsp lard

 

Boil the fish briefly with one laurel leaf, half a lime, salt, onion, allspice and cloves.  Pour off and save the water.  Fry the fish in a little oil in the same dish.  In a separate pan, take 4 tsbp oil, a chopped onion, then add the tomato, roasted and mashed.  When fried, add chopped parsley and 2 tbsp of the fish broth.  Add the fish and chile.  Put in a pan greased with butter.  Breadcrumbs can be added on top.  Bake for 10 minutes.

 

 

Snook steaks

 

2 lb. snook steaks

2 limes

1 1/2 tomatoes

2 sweet red peppers or, better, mild and flavorful red chiles

1 onion

Butter

Olive oil

Bottled chile pepper sauce (Mexican or Caribbean) if you can stand it

Allspice

Oil for frying

 

Season the steaks with lemon and salt.  Fry briefly in a little oil.

Slice the vegetables.  Fry in oil with chile sauce and ground allspice to taste.

Cover the steaks with this, wrap in aluminum foil and bake for 7 minutes.

 

 

Snook Stew

 

2 onions, sliced

3 garlic cloves, chopped

2 cups tomato, blended

1 bunch parsley, chopped

1 bunch oregano

1 bunch marjoram

Salt and pepper

2 cups water

2 lb. snook

 

Blend the vegetables and herbs, and fry.  Add to the water.  When they have boiled five minutes, add the snook, cut in pieces.  Cover and simmer 15 minutes.

 

 

Sole

 

1 sole, ca. 1 lb

3 tomatoes

1 onion

Cilantro

2 habanero chiles

Juice of 2 bitter oranges

Salt

 

Clean the sole, rub with salt and pepper, and grill.  Make the other ingredients into a sauce by chopping finely and adding the salt and orange juice.

 

 

Stuffed Snook Fillet

Wrap a thin snook fillet around shrimp, octopus bits, parsley.  Cover with local white cheese, crumbled.  Mask with a sauce of onion, tomato and chile, chopped and fried.

 

 

 

MEAT

 

 

Barbecued Ribs a la Tabasco

 

2 lb. pork rib slab

2 bitter oranges

Salt to taste

4 oz. black pepper

1 head garlic

1 onion

1 clove (or more)

1 pinch oregano (or more)

 

Marinate the slab in the juice of the oranges, and salt, for 8 hours.

Then mix in the other ingredients and marinate overnight.

Bake in oven till done.

Traditionally a dish of Jalapa, Tabasco, served with thick corn cakes of green corn.

(modified from Conaculta Oceano 2001c:40)

 

 

Chanchac

Tabasco variant of a traditional Maya dish (Ts’anchak; see Yucatan section) made with deer when available.

 

2 lb. stewing beef or venison

2 oz. chives

2 oz. cilantro

2 oz. Tabasco parsley (or ordinary parsley)

1 small onion

1 bell pepper or mild chile

2 garlic cloves

3-5 whole allspice berries (or more to taste)

 

Cut the meat into cubes, for soup, and boil till meat is tender.  Chop the vegetables.  Add these and the seasonings to the soup and cook till just done.  Eat with relish of chopped cilantro, onion and hot chile marinated in lime juice.

 

 

Chile pepper stuffed with meat

 

1 lb. lean pork

2 garlic cloves

6 cloves

2 onions

2 oz. oil

15 black peppercorns, ground

1 stick cinnamon

3 tbsp vinegar

1/2 tsp sugar

2 oz. raisins

5 egg whites, beaten to meringue

Ca. 5 bell peppers to stuff

1 bell pepper or mild large chile

1 large tomato

1/2 tsp oregano

Small bit of achiote

 

Boil the meat with one of the garlic cloves and the 6 cloves.  Take out, saving the water.  Mince the meat fine.  Chop the other garlic clove, and one onion, very fine and fry.  Add in the meat.  Grind the spices and add, along with the vinegar and sugar.  Mix these and the raisins into the meat.

Roast, peel and seed the stuffing peppers.  Stuff them, roll in the egg white and a bit of flour, and fry.

Meanwhile, make a soup of the water by blending up some onion, bell pepper, tomato and oregano, frying, adding to the water, and seasoning to taste with achiote or the like.  If desired, add masa to thicken.

Pour this sauce over the peppers and finish cooking (very briefly; just warm them up together).

If you don’t want to fry these, you can treat these as they would be treated in the Near East: leave off the egg whites and bake these in a casserole dish.

(In this case, they are baked in the sauce.)  This is healthier and, to our taste, better.

This is originally a Near Eastern dish, made with Mediterranean vegetables.  The Spanish brought it to Mexico and adapted it to local ingredients.  Variants of it are found all over Mexico.

 

 

Chirmol

 

Meat (beef, pork, deer…), marinated in bitter orange juice, garlic and salt 2 hours

5 dried ancho chiles

2 tomatoes

1 onion

1 piece achiote

8 allspice kernels

10 black peppercorns

1 pinch oregano

5 toasted tortillas

6 tbsp lard

1 spring epazote

8 roasted garlic cloves

 

Briefly roast the meat over charcoal or flame.  Then add to water and boil.

Vein and seed the chiles.  Roast these, the tomato and the onion; peel.  Blend.  Fry these in the lard.  Grind up the other ingredients.  Add these and the boiling stock from the meat.  Add the epazote.  Simmer till somewhat thick.  Add the meat and serve.

The Tabasco version of a Maya classic.  No doubt some form of it—without the black pepper and garlic—was central to feasts in Palenque and Yaxchilan in their glory days.

(modified from Conaculta Oceano 2001c:43)

 

 

Chocolomo

“Choco lomo” is a “mestiza-Maya” name: choko means “hot” in Maya, while “lomo” is the Spanish for “loin roast.”  This is basically a Yucatan dish (see Yucatan section), but has spread all over southeast Mexico.

 

2 lb. beef, cut up

1 beef heart, cut up

1 beef brain

1 beef kidney, prepared (see below)

2 garlic cloves

1 purple onion

1 bell pepper

20 black peppercorns

1 tsp. oregano

2 tsp. vinegar

1 tomato

 

For salsa:

1 bunch radishes

Cilantro

White onion

Bitter orange juice (or lime juice or vinegar)

 

Prepare the kidney: soak overnight in refrigerator; discard water; cut up the kidney, trimming off and discarding all membranes and white fibrous parts.

Boil the meats with the garlic, onion (quartered), bell pepper, tomato, and peppercorns.  When meat is close to done, add the oregano and vinegar.

Add the brains toward the very end of the cooking process, and simmer a while.  (If cooked too long or on too hot a fire, they fall apart.)

For the salsa: cut the ingredients fine.  Add the juice.

Kidneys are hard to get and rarely prepared now, in Mexico or the United States.  This is a pity; they are very good if prepared correctly.

 

 

Green Sauce (for use on any boiled meat)

 

Cilantro

Chipilín (or alfalfa sprouts or pea tendrils)

Chile leaves

Tender hojasanta leaves

1 onion

2 tomatillos

1 bell pepper

2 garlic cloves

Meat

Masa to thicken

 

Use equal quantities of all the leaves–weight of each about equal to the weight of the onion.  Blend all the ingredients.  Add to the broth of whatever meat is being used.  Cook, stirring to prevent sticking and burning.  Cut up the meat and add, allowing it to boil once more.  Serve immediately, or it may lose the green color.

Tabasco or regular parsley can be added, or other green leaves that work well.

It is desirable to blanch the chipilin before blending up.

 

 

Meatballs

 

2 lb. beef

1 lb. pork

1 tomato

1 onion

l bell pepper

2 garlic cloves

2 eggs

4 leaves of Tabasco parsley

1 ball of masa (i.e. about half a cup)

1 piece of achiote (cube of paste, or small bag of powder)

1 tbsp viinegar

Salt and pepper to taste

 

Grind the meats (or just use ground meat from the store) and mix with the garlic, pepper, salt and vinegar.  Leave a while.  Meanwhile, blend the tomato, onion, bell pepper, garlic and salt.  Fry this in lard or oil.  Add a pint of water to form a broth.  Add the achiote and masa.  When boiling, mix two raw eggs with the meat mixture and forming the meatballs.  Add these to the broth, with the parsley leaves (whole, separate).  Boil about half an hour.

 

 

Planked Pork Leg

 

1 pork leg (fresh ham), ca. 6 lb.

1/2 lb. Spanish-style ham

1/4 lb. prunes, soaked and mashed

1/4 glass vinegar

1 pint red wine

1 tomato

1 onion

1 bell pepper

1/2 head garlic

10 black peppercorns

1 spring thyme (or a good deal of powdered thyme)

1 bay leaf

8 allspice berries, or 1 tsp allspice powder

Marjoram, salt, and cinnamon to taste

 

Remove fat from the leg.  Chop or blend up the other ingredients and rub into the leg, sticking it with a fork to allow the spices to penetrate.  Bake.  Then sprinkle with sugar and roast in a hot fire.

The original recipe called for sodium nitrate to preserve the pork in Tabasco’s tropical climate.  No need for that now.

 

 

 

Tabasco Stew

 

1 lb. stewing beef

1 lb. beef ribs

1 lb. soup bones

1/2 head of garlic

1 bunch fresh oregano

1 tomato

1 bell pepper

1 onion

1 bunch cilantro

2 ears of sweet corn

2 chayotes

2 macal tubers

1 manioc tuber

1 summer squash

2 plantains

6 chaya leaves

Salt

 

Cut the meat in pieces.  Put in plenty of water and boil.  Add salt and garlic.  Skim the broth.  When the meat is tender, chop and fry up the garlic, oregano, tomato, bell pepper and onion; peel and cut up the other vegetables; add all to the soup.  Cook till nearly done, then add the cilantro and simmer a bit longer.  Serve with white rice.

Macal is a Maya root crop similar to taro.  Potatoes are perfectly good in this in place of macal and manioc.

 

 

Tasajo with Chaya and Plantains

 

1 lb. tasajo (dried salted meat)

4 oz. chaya

2 plantains, peeled and chunked

3 tomatoes

1 bell pepper

1 small onion

1 bitter orange

Oil for frying

Water

 

Soak the meat in several changes of water.  Then boil it till it softens.

Separately boil the chaya and plantains.

Cut the meat finely, as for hash, and fry till browning.  Add the tomato, pepper and onion, all finely cut up, and then the chaya and plantain, also finely cut up.

Add the juice of the bitter orange.  Cook a little longer.  (The earlier in the process you add the orange juice, the less orange flavor it retains but the more it adds sourness to the whole.  Thus, you can vary the final product to taste.)

 

 

 

POULTRY

 

 

Black-bellied Whistling-duck

 

2 ducks

2 garlic cloves, mashed

1 tomato

1 onion

1 Tabasco chile

10 peppercorns

1 cloves

Oregano

Salt to taste

1 cube achiote

Juice of 1 bitter orange

3 tbsp lard

 

Boil the ducks with salt and garlic till they become slightly tender.

Chop the vegetables and grind the spices.  In a casserole dish, heat the achiote till it softens, then add the orange juice.  Add the lard, fry the other ingredients.  Add the ducks; cover and simmer till they are golden.

As noted above, use ordinary duckling for this.

 

 

Polish chicken

A festival dish in Tabasco.  The connection with Poland seems pure fantasy, though a tenuous connection via the cabbage and tomato sauce may be implied.

 

2 chicken breasts

A quarter of a cabbage head, chopped fine

1 garlic clove, chopped

Oil

3 tomatoes

2 peppercorns

2 cloves

1 (or more) laurel leaf

1 sprig of thyme, or 1 tsp ground or crushed thyme

1 small can of chipotle chiles

1/2 onion, sliced

Salt to taste

Tomato sauce–just blend up a tomato and spice it

 

Fry the chicken, cabbage and garlic until lightly browned.

Blend the tomato, spices, and chipotle.  Add to the chicken.  Add the onion, and salt to taste.  Cook dry, then add the tomato puree and cook till done.  Serve with tortilla chips.

 

 

 

VEGETABLES

 

 

Chaya Salad

 

2 lb. chaya

1/4 onion, sliced

Salt, pepper and lime to taste.

 

Boil and cut up the chaya.  Mix with the other ingredients.

One can add other vegetables, and/or herbs.

 

 

Chaya with Squash

Special recognition for a superior vegetarian dish.

 

1 lb. chaya

1 lb. Mexican summer squash

1 chopped onion

3 chopped tomatoes

1 cup sweet corn kernels

Salt, pepper and chile to taste

 

Cook the chaya and chop.  Cut up the squash.  Fry the chaya, squash, onion, tomato and corn for about 20 minutes or till well cooked.

(modified from Conaculta Oceano 2001c:48)

 

 

Chayote Stew

 

3 chayotes

1/2 onion

1 garlic clove

1 tomato

1 chile

Bunch of cilantro

Oil

 

Wash and peel the chayotes.  Cut in quarters.

Heat oil in a pan.  Add the onion, garlic and tomato.  Fry a while, then add the chayote.

Cover and cook till the chayote is done, then add the chopped chile and cilantro.

 

 

Chaya with Plantain

 

1 lb. pork rib roast or other cut, for boiling

Chaya to taste (1/2 to 1 lb.)

4 plantains

3 tomatoes

1/2 onion

Achiote to taste (1-2 tbsp. recommended)

 

Cook the pork.  When tender, add the chaya and plantain (cut up).

Cut up the onion and tomato and fry, adding in the achiote.  Then add to the meat and boil.

A rib slab is good for this dish in south Mexico, where pork is meaty and not always tender.  Americans will probably want to save the rib slab for barbecue and use a tougher, more boiling-oriented cut here.

 

 

Chayote Torta

 

10 chayotes

5 eggs

2 oz. raisins

2 tbsp. butter

1 cup lard (this can be cut down, or even left out, for a low-fat version)

2 cups sugar

Salt to taste

 

Boil, peel and mash the chayotes.

Mix the other ingredients into this paste.

Bake in a greased mold at 350o for about 20 minutes (until browning on top).

“Torta” is cognate with French “torte,” but the Spanish word means several quite different things: sandwiches, omelets, and baked egg dishes like the following.  These egg dishes are of Moorish origin (compare the Persian kuku dishes).

 

 

Guacamole a la Tabasco

 

2 avocados

4 hot chiles

Juice of 1 bitter orange or 2 limes

2 tbsp olive oil (optional)

1 onion, chopped fine

6 peppercorns, ground

 

Peel and slice the avocados.  Roast, peel, seed and mash the chiles.  Mix these with the bitter orange juice, and then mix in all the other ingredients.  Serve, garnished with raw onion rings and the like.

 

 

 

DESSERTS

 

Atole

A version of the standard Mexican corn drink.  Various atoles and pozoles are the staple food of much of Tabasco.

 

1 lb. masa

3 pints milk, scalded

3 pints water

Pinch of cinnamon or anise

Sugar to taste

 

Dissolve the masa in the water.  Strain through a colander.  Add the milk and spices.  Simmer, stirring constantly, for 10 minutes.  If too thick, add water to dilute.

This can be made with chocolate also: dissolve one tablet of Tabasco chocolate in the atole as it cooks.

Variants can be made with cooked corn meal or sweet corn.

 

 

Champurrado

 

1/2 lb. masa

3 pints water

1/2 lb. brown sugar

4 oz. chocolate

 

Make as for atole.

 

 

Chaya and Plantain Upside-Down Cake

 

1 1/2 cups butter

2 1/2 cups sugar

2 plantains

8 pitted prunes

5 eggs

2 cups flour

3 tsp. baking powder

1 can evaporated milk

Vanilla

3 cups cooked and chopped chaya

 

In a cake mold, put 1/2 cup butter, 1 cup sugar, slices of plantain, and prunes.

Beat a cup of butter with the rest of the sugar, mixing in the eggs one by one.

Mix the flour and baking powder.  Mix this into the above.  While mixing it in, add slowly the milk (mix the vanilla into the milk) and the chaya.

Turn the mix into the mold.

Bake at 325o for 1 hour.  Let stand till cool.  Turn out onto a plate.

If worried about cholesterol, you can use half as much butter, and 7-8 egg whites (discarding the yolks).  Do not, however, use margarine or oil instead of butter.  It won’t work.

 

 

Chocolate Made at Home

This recipe is offered for interest.  It’s too much work for a result that is inevitably inferior to good commercial chocolate (unless you have industrial equipment).  It would almost be easier, and certainly more fun, to go to Tabasco and get chocolate there.  It is sold there in many forms, from raw seeds to pure bitter chocolate to the elaborate, spiced chocolate tablets described here.  I prefer the straight bitter chocolate.

This recipe is a standard way to make the chocolate tablets typical of Tabasco.  However, for real chocolate tablets, you have to ferment the beans, and that is an expert technical job out of the reach of the ordinary cook.  You can get raw beans in Central American markets and try this yourself, roasting the beans like almonds in an oven, till they are just brown.  Raw beans are hard to work with–the line between too raw and too burnt is a fine one, and only an expert can roast them properly.  Also, they have a different taste from processed chocolate.

 

2 lb. cacao beans (seeds of the cacao tree)

1 lb. English-style biscuits (similar to nonsalty crackers or not-very-sweet cookies)

4 oz. almonds

1 1/2 lb. sugar

4 oz. cinnamon sticks

5 egg yolks

 

Heat a griddle.  On this, heat the cinnamon and then pulverize it.  Then toast the cacao beans until browned.  Peel and grind up.  Soak the almonds in hot water, peel, and toast till golden.

Blend the yolks, almonds, sugar and biscuits.

Mix all the above and pass through mill again.

Form into the characteristic Mexican chocolate tablets: flat disks 2″ to 3″ across and about 1/8″ to 1/4″ thick.

Break up one of these and mix with hot water, for cocoa.

 

 

Cocoyol fruits

The hard, sour fruits of a local palm tree.  They are only marginally edible even after this treatment, but they were often the only fruit around; they crop in the worst droughts, and were a famine staple in the old days.  They remain popular.  This product is thus of solely local appeal, but is added for ethnographic interest.

 

50 cocoyoles

4 cones of raw sugar (i.e. about 2 lb.)

 

Wash the cocoyoles a long time.  Cook in water.  Add the sugar and cook down to a thick syrup.

 

 

Grapefruit Conserve

 

6 lb. grapefruit

3 or more lb. sugar

 

Grate the peel, separating the white inner part.  Remove, but save, the membranes, seeds, etc., saving the pulp and juice.  Mix these latter with the sugar.

Boil these.  Put the white peel, membranes and seeds in a cheesecloth bag and cook with the rest until the syrup starts to thicken.  Then take out this bag and squeeze the juice out of it, back into the pot.

Add the peel and cook 10 minutes.

Put into jars, seal and label.

If properly canned (check that the seal is tight) this will last three months.  Of course, you can store it in the refrigerator for quite a long time without an airtight seal.

 

 

Guava ears

 

2 lb. lemon guavas (guayavas)

2 lb. sugar

Juice of 3 limes

1-3 fig leaves

 

Cut the guavas in half and remove the seeds.  As this is done, put each guava half in the lime juice, to prevent browning and add flavor.

Meanwhile, prepare a syrup: boil a quart of water with the fig leaves.  (These make the syrup thicker and stickier, but can be dispensed with.)  Then add the sugar.

When this syrup thickens, add the guava halves.  Cook down till syrup is thick, stirring frequently.

(cf. Conaculta Oceano 2001c:52, which adds 4 cinnamon sticks)

 

 

Monkey Ears

 

Same recipe as above, but using small wild papayas instead of guavas, and panela (Mexican brown sugar) instead of white sugar.  The fig leaves provide an enzyme that tenderizes the papayas.  The cinnamon can be omitted.  This is a very characteristic Tabasco sweet.  The wild papayas are sharp and sour, counteracting the sweetness of the syrup.

 

 

Orange Cake

 

1 lb. cake flour

Grated peel (zest) from 1 orange

Zest of 1 lime

2 tsp baking powder

10 oz. butter

6 oz. sugar

4 eggs + 4 egg whites

1/4 tsp salt

6 oz orange juice

Orange marmelade

1 packet of confectioners powdered sugar

 

Mix the flour, zests and baking powder.

Separately, beat the butter and sugar until creamy.  Add in the whole eggs one by one.

Beat in the flour, salt, and orange juice, adding alternately, little by little.

Grease two cake molds and pour in the batter.  Bake 45 minutes at 350o.

Use the orange marmelade between the two layers.

Top with meringue of the beaten egg whites and powdered sugar (or any other frosting desired).

 

 

Tascalate

 

3 large tortillas, without salt

2 tablets of Tabasco chocolate

Cinamon stick

Water

Small amount of achiote powder or dissolved paste (optional, but usual)

Sugar or chile powder to taste

 

Toast the tortillas in low heat until very crisp but not brown.  (Beware–they go from moist to burned with almost no intermediate stage.  Watch them like a hawk.  In South Mexico they are often just sun-dried.)  Then crush them with the chocolate and cinnamon.  Add to water and sweeten to taste.  This can be drunk as is, but is better cooked a minute and cooled.

An easier variant, universal in Chiapas and southwest Mexico, uses toasted corn meal.

The combination of chocolate and chile is traditional, and I much prefer chile powder to sugar in this recipe.  Tascalate is a very refreshing drink, and making it too sweet ruins it.

 

 

 

 

Leave a Reply