Chef Lupita
Adobo para Pescado a la Talla de la Costa
Oaxaca's Costa Chica adobo of toasted chile costeño rojo, garlic, cumin, and vinegar, ground into a sharp red paste that coats whole snapper before it goes over charcoal.
Culinary Explorer
A cooking platform built around craft, culture, and the stories behind what we eat.
Adobo de Cecina Enchilada Oaxaqueña
Created by
The Oaxacan adobo that turns thin sheets of beef red and smoky over the coals. Toasted guajillo and ancho with chile pasilla oaxaqueño, cumin, oregano, and vinegar, brushed on palomilla and dried overnight before it ever sees fire.
Sauces & Condiments
Mexican
Make Ahead
BBQ
30 min
Active Time
20 min cook•50 min total
YieldAbout 2 cups adobo, enough for 3 pounds of cecina
This is from Oaxaca. Specifically from the smoke alley at Mercado 20 de Noviembre in the centro, where you walk past stalls of marchantas holding up sheets of red beef and yelling for you to pick yours so they can throw it on the coals while you stand there. The adobo is the difference between cecina and cecina enchilada. Without it, you have salted dried beef. With it, you have the dish that perfumes a city block.
The chile that makes it Oaxacan and not generic is the pasilla oaxaqueño from the Sierra Mixe, dried over wood smoke until the skin turns wrinkled and dark and the smoke goes into the chile permanently. This is not the pasilla you find in most US markets. The mixe pasilla is its own thing, smoky, sweet, with a heat that builds slow. If you cannot find it, the adobo will still be good. It will not be Oaxacan. Know what you are missing and why.
My mother did not cook Oaxacan food. She was from Jalisco. But the first time I ate cecina enchilada, in 2009, at a stall run by a woman named Doña Reyna who had been working that same comal for thirty-one years, I understood why every traveler I had ever met who had been to Oaxaca came back talking about it. Doña Reyna let me write down her adobo on the back of a flyer. She told me the secret was the manteca stirred into the paste at the end. Not for flavor, she said. For the way it carries the chile into the meat as it dries. She was right. No me vengas con atajos. Saber cocinar es saber vivir.
Cecina as a preservation method arrived in Mexico with the Spanish, who carried the tradition of salt-cured air-dried meats from Extremadura and Castilla. In Oaxaca, the technique met the indigenous practice of chile-coating meats and fish for both flavor and preservation, and the resulting cecina enchilada became codified as a regional specialty by the 19th century, particularly in the Valles Centrales. The chile pasilla oaxaqueño that gives Oaxacan adobos their distinctive smoke is grown almost exclusively in the Sierra Mixe and is smoke-dried in wood-fired chambers called tapancos, a process that bears no relationship to the chile pasilla (also called chile negro) of central Mexico despite the shared name.
The technique, the tradition, and the story behind every dish.
Discover Culinary ExplorerIngredients
dried chile guajillo
Quantity
10
stemmed and seeded
dried chile ancho
Quantity
6
stemmed and seeded
dried chile pasilla oaxaqueño (mixe)
Quantity
2
stemmed and seeded
head of garlic
Quantity
1
cloves separated and peeled
whole cumin seeds
Quantity
1 tablespoon
dried Mexican oregano (oregano oaxaqueño if available)
Quantity
2 tablespoons
whole black peppercorns
Quantity
6
whole cloves
Quantity
4
Mexican canela
Quantity
1 stick (about 2 inches)
broken
dried bay leaves
Quantity
3
apple cider vinegar or vinagre de piña casero
Quantity
1/3 cup
water
Quantity
1/2 cup, plus more as needed
manteca de cerdo
Quantity
2 tablespoons
melted
kosher salt
Quantity
1 tablespoon, plus more to taste
piloncillo, grated, or dark brown sugar
Quantity
1 teaspoon
beef top round (palomilla)
Quantity
3 pounds
butterflied into thin sheets about 1/4 inch thick
| Ingredient | Quantity |
|---|---|
| dried chile guajillostemmed and seeded | 10 |
| dried chile anchostemmed and seeded | 6 |
| dried chile pasilla oaxaqueño (mixe)stemmed and seeded | 2 |
| head of garliccloves separated and peeled | 1 |
| whole cumin seeds | 1 tablespoon |
| dried Mexican oregano (oregano oaxaqueño if available) | 2 tablespoons |
| whole black peppercorns | 6 |
| whole cloves | 4 |
| Mexican canelabroken | 1 stick (about 2 inches) |
| dried bay leaves | 3 |
| apple cider vinegar or vinagre de piña casero | 1/3 cup |
| water | 1/2 cup, plus more as needed |
| manteca de cerdomelted | 2 tablespoons |
| kosher salt | 1 tablespoon, plus more to taste |
| piloncillo, grated, or dark brown sugar | 1 teaspoon |
| beef top round (palomilla)butterflied into thin sheets about 1/4 inch thick | 3 pounds |
Equipment Needed
- •Cast iron comal or heavy skillet for toasting
- •High-powered blender
- •Fine-mesh strainer
- •Pastry brush or clean hands for coating
- •Sheet tray with parchment for stacking the coated cecina
Instructions
- 1
Toast the chiles
Heat a dry comal over medium. Toast the guajillo and ancho separately, about 20 to 30 seconds per side, pressing them flat with a spatula. The skin will puff and go fragrant. Pull them off the moment the kitchen smells like a chile vendor's stall. Toast the pasilla oaxaqueño last and watch it. It is thinner and smokier than the others and it burns in a blink. Burned chile is bitter chile and there is no fixing it later.
The chile pasilla oaxaqueño is not the pasilla you find in most US markets. The mixe pasilla is dried over wood smoke in the Sierra Mixe and that smoke is the soul of this adobo. If your supplier sells you a smooth, unsmoked pasilla, it is the wrong chile. Substituting smoked morita gets you closer than substituting regular pasilla. - 2
Soak the chiles
Place all the toasted chiles in a heatproof bowl. Cover with hot tap water, not boiling. Boiling water cooks the skin and turns the adobo bitter. Hot water softens the flesh and lets the flavor come through clean. Weigh the chiles down with a small plate so they stay submerged. Soak for 20 minutes.
- 3
Toast the dry spices
On the same comal over medium-low, toast the cumin, peppercorns, cloves, and canela together for about a minute, shaking the pan, until the cumin smells nutty. Add the oregano for the last 15 seconds, just to wake it up. Tip the spices onto a plate to stop the toasting. Crush the canela stick with the back of a knife so the blender can handle it.
If you have a metate, grind the spices on it after toasting. The texture is different from a blender. The oils release in a way that perfumes the whole adobo. La cocina no es decoracion, es trabajo. - 4
Blend the adobo
Drain the chiles and transfer them to a blender. Add the garlic, the toasted spices, bay leaves, vinegar, water, salt, and piloncillo. Blend on high for two to three minutes, stopping to scrape down the sides, until you have a smooth, thick paste the color of dark brick. If the blender struggles, add water one tablespoon at a time. The adobo should coat the back of a spoon and slowly drip off, not run.
- 5
Strain and finish with lard
Push the adobo through a fine-mesh sieve set over a bowl, working it with the back of a ladle. Discard the skins and seeds left behind. Stir the melted manteca de cerdo into the strained paste. La manteca es el sabor and it is also what carries the chile into the meat as the cecina dries. Taste for salt. The adobo should taste aggressive on its own. Once it is on the meat, half of that punch disappears.
- 6
Coat the cecina
Lay the butterflied beef sheets flat on a work surface. Brush a generous coat of adobo on both sides of each sheet, working it into the meat with your hands. Every centimeter of beef should be stained dark red. Stack the coated sheets on a tray, separated by squares of parchment so they do not stick to each other.
Ask your carnicero for palomilla cut for cecina. A good Mexican butcher knows the cut. The sheet should be thin enough to see light through, almost. If it is thick, the adobo only flavors the surface and the inside stays bland. - 7
Dry overnight
Cover the tray loosely with a clean kitchen towel and refrigerate for at least 12 hours, ideally 24. The vinegar and salt cure the meat and the chile color sets into a deep mahogany. The surface should turn from wet red to a darker, drier red with a slight tack. This is what makes it cecina enchilada and not just marinated beef. Asi se hace y punto.
- 8
Cook over fire
Cook the cecina the way they do at Mercado 20 de Noviembre on the smoke alley: directly over hot wood or charcoal coals, two to three minutes per side, until the edges char and the surface glistens. On a home stovetop, a screaming-hot cast iron comal works. Do not crowd the pan. The meat should sizzle the second it lands. Serve with hand-pressed corn tortillas, salsa de chile pasilla oaxaqueño, guacamole, and fresh-squeezed lime.
Chef Tips
- •The pasilla oaxaqueño (mixe) is not the pasilla sold in most US markets. The mixe version is smoke-dried in the Sierra Mixe and has a deep wood-fire flavor that no other chile delivers. If your vendor cannot tell you which sierra the pasilla came from, it is probably the wrong chile. A better substitute than central-Mexican pasilla is morita, which at least has smoke.
- •The vinegar matters. Apple cider vinegar works. Vinagre de piña casero, made by fermenting pineapple peels for ten days, works better and tastes the way the adobo tastes in Oaxaca. White distilled vinegar is too aggressive and flattens the chile.
- •Do not skip the manteca. The lard is what carries the chile into the meat during the overnight cure. Vegetable oil sits on the surface. Lard penetrates. La manteca es el sabor.
- •If you cannot find palomilla cut thin for cecina, ask your butcher to butterfly top round into 1/4-inch sheets. A standard 1-inch steak will not cure properly and the inside will stay bland.
Advance Preparation
- •The adobo paste keeps refrigerated in a clean glass jar for two weeks. The flavor deepens after the first 48 hours as the spices integrate.
- •The adobo also freezes well for up to three months. Portion it into ice cube trays first, then bag the cubes.
- •Coated cecina can be dried in the refrigerator for up to 48 hours before cooking. Past that, the salt starts to overpower the chile.
Frequently Asked Questions
Nutrition Information
1 serving (about 140g)
Calories
310 calories
Total Fat
10 g
Saturated Fat
4 g
Trans Fat
0 g
Unsaturated Fat
5 g
Cholesterol
100 mg
Sodium
400 mg
Total Carbohydrates
8 g
Dietary Fiber
3 g
Sugars
1 g
Protein
41 g
Where cooking meets culture.
Culinary guides, cultural storytelling, and the editorial depth that makes cooking meaningful.
Discover Culinary ExplorerMore from Oaxacan Sauces & Condiments
Browse the full collection
Chef Lupita
Cebollas en Escabeche con Chile de Agua
Oaxaca's pickled red onions cut with chile de agua and pineapple vinegar, the bright acidic crunch that finishes tlayudas, tortas, and any plate of grilled meat from the Valles Centrales.
Chef Lupita
Chileajo Mixteco
The Mixteca's foundational garlic-chile paste from Huajuapan de Leon, built on toasted guajillo and ancho, comal-charred garlic, and the spice rack of colonial Oaxaca, ground thick with vinegar to coat meats, vegetables, and tortillas for weeks.
Chef Lupita
Chiles de Agua en Escabeche
The chile de agua of Oaxaca's Valles Centrales pickled whole with cauliflower, carrots, and onion in vinagre de piña, set with lard and oregano de Oaxaca. The jar that sits next to the cecina and the tasajo.