Chef Lupita
Afro-Veracruz Peanut Salsa (Salsa de Cacahuate Jarocha)
Veracruz's jarocho peanut salsa, built from toasted cacahuate, chile chipotle, garlic, and water, is the Gulf coast's African line made visible on the plate.
Culinary Explorer
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Adobo Huasteco Veracruzano para Zacahuil
Created by
From the Huasteca Veracruzana, a chile ancho and chipotle seco paste fried in manteca, sharpened with vinegar, and built to stain the masa martajada and meat of zacahuil.
Sauces & Condiments
Mexican
Holiday
Celebration
Make Ahead
30 min
Active Time
25 min cook•55 min total
Yieldabout 3 1/2 cups, enough for one home-scale zacahuil or 6 pounds of meat
Veracruz, the Huasteca Veracruzana, from Tantoyuca through Chicontepec and Tempoal, is where this adobo has to begin. Zacahuil belongs to the whole Huasteca, yes, San Luis Potosi and Hidalgo will argue, and they have a right to. But this version is Veracruz: chile ancho for the brick-red body, chipotle seco for smoke, vinagre de pina for bite, ajonjoli for thickness, and manteca de cerdo because La manteca es el sabor.
At the Sunday market in Tantoyuca I watched women smear this paste over pork and into masa martajada, not fine tamal masa, before the zacahuil went into banana leaves and a hot brick oven. The adobo is not a table salsa. It is a working paste. It has to survive hours inside a giant tamal and still taste like chile after the corn and meat have taken their share.
The chiles are toasted, soaked, blended with garlic and comino, then fried in lard until the paste darkens and releases its fat. That frying is not decoration. It is the recipe. Cada estado, su propia cocina, and in the Veracruz Huasteca, this is how the zacahuil gets its color, its smell, and its authority.
Zacahuil is one of the great communal tamales of the Huasteca, a cultural region that crosses northern Veracruz, San Luis Potosi, Hidalgo, southern Tamaulipas, northern Puebla, and eastern Queretaro, with Teenek, Nahua, Otomi, and Totonac communities shaping its kitchens. The format of coarse nixtamalized corn wrapped in large leaves and cooked for a crowd is pre-Columbian; pork and manteca de cerdo entered the dish after Spanish pigs arrived in the 16th century. Veracruz versions commonly lean on banana leaf or papatla leaf, chile ancho, chipotle seco, and vinegar, while Huasteca Potosina cooks season their paste differently, which is why saying only 'Mexican tamal' tells you almost nothing.
The technique, the tradition, and the story behind every dish.
Discover Culinary ExplorerIngredients
dried chile ancho
Quantity
12
stemmed, seeded, and wiped clean
dried chile chipotle seco
Quantity
5
stemmed and seeded if you want less heat
ajonjoli blanco (white sesame seeds)
Quantity
1/3 cup
whole cumin seeds
Quantity
1 teaspoon
black peppercorns
Quantity
8
whole cloves
Quantity
2
garlic cloves
Quantity
10
unpeeled
white onion
Quantity
1/2 medium
cut into thick slices
dried Mexican oregano
Quantity
1 teaspoon
vinagre de pina (pineapple vinegar)
Quantity
1/2 cup
warm pork broth or chile soaking liquid
Quantity
1 cup, plus more as needed
manteca de cerdo
Quantity
1/2 cup
sal de grano or kosher salt
Quantity
2 teaspoons
| Ingredient | Quantity |
|---|---|
| dried chile anchostemmed, seeded, and wiped clean | 12 |
| dried chile chipotle secostemmed and seeded if you want less heat | 5 |
| ajonjoli blanco (white sesame seeds) | 1/3 cup |
| whole cumin seeds | 1 teaspoon |
| black peppercorns | 8 |
| whole cloves | 2 |
| garlic clovesunpeeled | 10 |
| white onioncut into thick slices | 1/2 medium |
| dried Mexican oregano | 1 teaspoon |
| vinagre de pina (pineapple vinegar) | 1/2 cup |
| warm pork broth or chile soaking liquid | 1 cup, plus more as needed |
| manteca de cerdo | 1/2 cup |
| sal de grano or kosher salt | 2 teaspoons |
Equipment Needed
- •Dry cast iron comal or heavy skillet for toasting chiles
- •Heatproof bowl and small plate for soaking chiles
- •High-powered blender or metate
- •Wide clay cazuela or heavy skillet for frying the adobo
- •Wooden spoon or pala for stirring
Instructions
- 1
Clean the chiles
Open the chile ancho and chipotle seco with your fingers or kitchen scissors. Remove stems and seeds. Wipe the skins with a dry cloth if they look dusty. Do not rinse them. Water steals fragrance before the comal has done its work.
- 2
Toast the chiles
Heat a dry comal over medium. Toast the chile ancho in batches, about 20 to 30 seconds per side, just until the skins soften, darken slightly, and smell like raisins and warm tobacco. Toast the chipotle seco separately for about 15 seconds per side. It is already smoked, so do not punish it. Burned chile turns the whole zacahuil bitter.
If a chile turns black or smells sharp and ashy, throw it out. No me vengas con atajos. One burned chile can ruin a whole adobo. - 3
Soak until pliable
Put the toasted chiles in a heatproof bowl and cover with hot water, not boiling. Weigh them down with a small plate and let them soak for 20 minutes, until the flesh bends easily between your fingers. Save 1 cup of the soaking liquid if it tastes clean. If it tastes bitter, use warm pork broth instead.
- 4
Toast the seeds
On the same comal, toast the ajonjoli, stirring constantly, until pale gold and nutty, about 2 minutes. Remove it immediately. Toast the cumin seeds, peppercorns, and cloves for 30 seconds, just until fragrant. Spices are small and they burn fast. Watch them like a señora is watching you.
- 5
Char the aromatics
Place the unpeeled garlic cloves and onion slices on the comal. Turn them until the garlic skins spot black and the onion edges brown, 6 to 8 minutes. Peel the garlic. This gives the adobo depth without making it taste like raw garlic paste.
- 6
Blend the paste
Drain the chiles and put them in a blender with the toasted ajonjoli, toasted spices, peeled garlic, onion, Mexican oregano, vinagre de pina, salt, and 1/2 cup of warm pork broth or chile soaking liquid. Blend until thick and very smooth, adding the remaining liquid little by little only as needed. The paste should move in the blender, but it should not become soup.
- 7
Fry in lard
Melt the manteca de cerdo in a wide clay cazuela or heavy skillet over medium heat. Add the chile paste carefully. It will sputter. Stir with a wooden spoon for 10 to 12 minutes, until the color deepens to brick red, the raw vinegar smell calms down, and orange-red fat begins to show at the edges. La manteca es el sabor. This is where chile paste becomes adobo.
- 8
Use for zacahuil
Let the adobo cool before rubbing it into pork, chicken, or turkey for zacahuil. For a home-scale zacahuil, use about two thirds of this paste to season 6 pounds of meat and the rest to stain the masa martajada. The adobo must taste slightly stronger than you think it should. The corn and the meat will take their share during the long cooking.
Chef Tips
- •Buy chile ancho that is flexible, glossy, and smells sweet, like dried fruit and earth. If it cracks like old paper, leave it with the vendor. You can have perfect technique and dead chiles and you will still get a dead adobo.
- •Chipotle seco is not canned chipotle in adobo. Those cans have tomato, sugar, and vinegar already mixed in. This paste needs dried smoked chile so you control the flavor from the start.
- •Vinagre de pina is right for this Veracruz version. If you cannot find it, raw apple cider vinegar is a compromise, not an upgrade. Plain white vinegar is too sharp and thin for zacahuil.
- •Use fresh manteca de cerdo from a butcher or Mexican market. The shelf-stable hydrogenated block tastes waxy. If that is all you can find, render pork fat yourself. Vegetable oil gives you a red sauce, not adobo huasteco.
- •This adobo is not meant to be painfully hot. The chipotle seco gives smoke and bite, but zacahuil is about corn, chile, meat, leaf, and time. Not all Mexican food is a contest of heat. This is a 32-state cuisine.
Advance Preparation
- •The adobo can be made 3 days ahead and refrigerated in a glass jar with a thin layer of melted manteca on top. The flavor deepens overnight.
- •For zacahuil, rub the cooled adobo into the meat the night before cooking. The salt, vinegar, chile, and garlic need time to enter the meat.
- •Freeze extra adobo in 1-cup portions for up to 2 months. Thaw overnight in the refrigerator and fry it again in a spoonful of manteca before using.
Frequently Asked Questions
Nutrition Information
1 serving (about 35g)
Calories
80 calories
Total Fat
6 g
Saturated Fat
2 g
Trans Fat
0 g
Unsaturated Fat
4 g
Cholesterol
4 mg
Sodium
210 mg
Total Carbohydrates
5 g
Dietary Fiber
2 g
Sugars
2 g
Protein
1 g
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