Carne Salada con Chaya Tabasqueña

Ingredients

Equipment Needed

• •Wide clay cazuela or heavy Dutch oven
• •Stainless steel pot for blanching chaya
• •Wooden spoon
• •Comal for warming corn tortillas

Instructions

1. 1

   Salt the beef

   Rub the beef chunks all over with the coarse sea salt and place them in a nonreactive bowl. Cover and refrigerate for at least 8 hours, or overnight if you planned like a cook instead of rushing like a tourist. The salt firms the meat, seasons it through, and gives the dish its name. Carne salada means salted beef. Así se hace y punto.

   If you bought already salted beef from a Latin market, skip the salting and go straight to soaking. Taste a tiny cooked piece after simmering before adding more salt.
2. 2

   Soak and rinse

   Rinse the salted beef under cool water, then place it in a bowl and cover with fresh water. Soak 30 minutes. Drain and rinse again. You are not removing all the salt. You are bringing it under control so the chaya and plantain can be tasted.

3. 3

   Simmer the beef

   Put the beef in a heavy pot with 8 cups water. Bring to a gentle simmer, skim the gray foam, then lower the heat and cook partially covered for 1 hour 30 minutes, until the beef is tender but not falling apart. Keep 3 cups of the cooking broth and drain the rest. That broth is salty, beefy, and useful. Do not throw away your flavor and then complain the stew tastes thin.

4. 4

   Blanch the chaya

   While the beef simmers, bring 2 cups water to a boil in a separate pot. Add the chaya leaves and cook 15 minutes, until the leaves turn deep green and soften. Drain well, let cool enough to handle, and chop roughly. Chaya must be cooked thoroughly. Raw chaya is not salad. Preguntale a las señoras del mercado and they will tell you the same thing.

   Wear gloves if your skin is sensitive. Some fresh chaya leaves irritate the hands. Also, use stainless steel or clay, not an aluminum pot, when cooking chaya.
5. 5

   Make the sofrito

   Melt the manteca de cerdo in a wide clay cazuela or heavy Dutch oven over medium heat. Add the onion and cook until soft and glossy, about 5 minutes. Add the garlic and cook 1 minute more. Stir in the tomatoes, chile dulce, optional crushed chile amashito, and achiote paste. Cook 8 to 10 minutes, until the tomatoes collapse and the fat stains orange-red. La manteca es el sabor, and here it carries the achiote and tomato into the beef.

6. 6

   Braise with chaya

   Add the simmered beef to the sofrito and turn the pieces so they pick up the color. Pour in 2 cups of the reserved beef broth, add the chopped chaya, epazote, black pepper, and 1/2 teaspoon salt. Bring to a low simmer. Cook uncovered for 20 minutes, stirring now and then, until the broth thickens slightly and the chaya tastes like it belongs to the pot, not like it was added at the end.

7. 7

   Add the plantain

   Nestle the ripe plantain half-moons into the cazuela and add another splash of reserved broth if the pot looks dry. Simmer 15 to 20 minutes more, until the plantain is tender but still holding its shape. The sweetness is not decoration. It balances the salted beef and the green mineral taste of the chaya.

8. 8

   Taste and serve

   Remove the epazote sprig. Taste the broth before adding more salt because the beef has already spoken. Stir in the chopped cilantro. Serve family-style in the cazuela with white rice, warm corn tortillas, lime halves, and chile amashito salsa on the side. This is Tabasco food: humid, green, salty, a little sweet, and not interested in pretending to be from somewhere else.

Chef Tips

• •Fresh chaya is best bought from a mercado vendor who sells herbs by the bundle, not from a plastic box at a supermarket. The leaves should be firm, deep green, and not yellow at the edges. Si no conoces el mercado, no conoces la cocina.
• •Chile amashito is Tabasco's small wild chile, sharp and fragrant. Use it lightly in the pot or serve it as salsa on the side. If you cannot find it, use one fresh chile habanero pierced with a knife and removed before serving. That is a compromise, not an upgrade.
• •Do not replace chaya with baby spinach and call it the same dish. Spinach wilts into softness and lacks chaya's sturdy, green body. If chaya is impossible to find, use mature Swiss chard, but say what it is: a practical substitution.
• •The plantain should be ripe, yellow with black patches, not green. Green plantain belongs to other preparations. Here you need sweetness against the salted beef.
• •Serve with corn tortillas. Flour tortillas are a northern tradition. Tabasco is not Sonora, and this is a 32-state cuisine.

Advance Preparation

• •The beef can be salted up to 24 hours ahead. After that, it becomes too firm and too salty for this home-style braise.
• •The beef can be simmered one day ahead and refrigerated in its broth. The next day, lift off any hardened fat, then continue with the sofrito.
• •The finished stew keeps refrigerated for 3 days. Reheat gently with a splash of reserved broth or water so the plantain does not break apart.

Frequently Asked Questions

Nutrition Information

1 serving (about 500g)