Chaya en Salsa de Pepita

Ingredients

Equipment Needed

• •Cast iron comal or heavy skillet for charring
• •Stainless steel or clay pot for blanching the chaya (never aluminum)
• •High-powered blender
• •Heavy clay cazuela or stainless steel pot for the final braise
• •Wooden spoon

Instructions

1. 1

   Handle the chaya correctly

   Wear gloves when you stem the chaya. The raw leaf has tiny stinging hairs and contains hydrocyanic compounds that need heat to neutralize. Strip the leaves from the woody stems and discard the stems. Rinse the leaves twice in cold water. Never eat chaya raw, never blend it raw, and never use an aluminum pot to cook it. This is the rule the abuelas in Valladolid will tell you first.

   If you cannot find chaya outside the peninsula, the closest substitute is a mix of mature spinach and Swiss chard. It is a compromise, not an upgrade. Chaya has a meatier leaf and a mineral flavor that spinach does not carry.
2. 2

   Blanch the chaya

   Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil in a stainless steel or clay pot, never aluminum. Drop the chaya leaves in and boil for 15 minutes. The water will turn dark green. Drain the chaya, reserving one cup of the cooking water, and let the leaves cool enough to handle. Chop them coarsely. The long blanch is non-negotiable. It cooks off the cyanogenic glycosides and softens the leaf into something tender. No me vengas con atajos.

3. 3

   Char the chiltomate ingredients

   Heat a dry comal over medium-high. Place the tomatoes, the unpeeled garlic, the whole half of the onion, and the whole habanero on the comal. Turn them as the skins blacken. The tomatoes take 8 to 10 minutes and should collapse and char in patches. The garlic takes 4 to 5 minutes. The habanero takes 3 minutes and should blister without splitting open. The onion takes 7 minutes. This is the foundation of chiltomate, the peninsular roasted tomato salsa. The char is the flavor.

   Do not break the habanero. The whole charred chile flavors the sauce without overwhelming it. If you split it, your salsa is no longer chiltomate, it is a different and much hotter sauce.
4. 4

   Toast the pepitas

   Lower the comal to medium. Add the pumpkin seeds in a single layer. Stir constantly with a wooden spoon. They will puff and pop within 3 to 4 minutes. Pull them off the moment they turn golden and you hear the popping slow. Burned pepitas turn the whole sauce bitter and there is no fixing it. This is the Mayan technique called sikil, toasted seed ground into sauce, and it predates the Spanish by a thousand years.

5. 5

   Build the salsa

   Peel the charred garlic. Transfer the toasted pepitas, charred tomatoes, garlic, the charred onion half, and the whole charred habanero to a blender. Add 1 1/2 cups of water and 1 teaspoon of salt. Blend on high until completely smooth, about 2 minutes. The sauce should be the color of jade with flecks of tomato red. Taste it. It should taste of toasted seed first, charred tomato second, with the habanero whispering underneath, not shouting.

6. 6

   Fry the sauce

   Melt the manteca in a heavy cazuela over medium heat. When it shimmers, add the chopped onion and cook for 3 minutes until translucent. Pour in the blended pepita sauce. It will sputter. Stir constantly with a wooden spoon for 8 to 10 minutes. The sauce will darken, thicken, and the fat will start to bead at the edges. La manteca es el sabor. This frying step transforms a raw puree into a finished sauce. Skip it and the pepitas taste like wet flour.

7. 7

   Add the chaya and epazote

   Stir the chopped blanched chaya into the sauce. Add the epazote sprigs whole, stems and all. Pour in the remaining 1 1/2 cups of water and the reserved chaya cooking water if the sauce looks too thick. Lower the heat and simmer uncovered for 12 to 15 minutes, stirring every few minutes. The chaya should absorb the sauce and the whole pot should pull together into one dish, not a leaf floating in sauce. Adjust salt at the end. The epazote will perfume everything. Without it, this is a different dish.

8. 8

   Serve from the cazuela

   Pull out the spent epazote stems and the whole habanero. Bring the cazuela to the table. Serve with warm corn tortillas, wedges of naranja agria, and cebolla morada en escabeche on the side. In Yucatán this is comida de diario, weekday food eaten with tortillas and pickled onion. Saber cocinar es saber vivir.

Chef Tips

• •If you live outside the peninsula, look for chaya at Mexican grocers that serve a Yucatecan community, in Maya nurseries that sell the live plant, or grow your own. The shrub thrives in warm climates and one plant feeds a household. If you absolutely cannot find chaya, use a 50-50 mix of mature spinach and Swiss chard and reduce the blanching time to 5 minutes. It is a substitution, not an upgrade.
• •The pepitas need to be raw and hulled, not the salted snack version from the grocery aisle. A Mexican market will sell them by the bag. Toast them yourself. Pre-toasted pepitas are stale by the time you buy them and the flavor is half of what it should be.
• •Cebolla morada en escabeche is not optional on the Yucatán table. Slice a red onion paper-thin, cover with hot water for one minute, drain, then dress with the juice of 2 sour oranges (or lime), 1 teaspoon salt, and a pinch of Mexican oregano. Let it sit one hour. It cuts the richness of the pepita sauce and is the peninsular condiment for nearly everything.
• •Never use an aluminum pot, an aluminum spoon, or an aluminum colander with chaya. The reaction is not folklore. It is documented chemistry and the abuelas in Yucatán have known it for generations.

Advance Preparation

• •The pepita and chiltomate sauce can be made one day ahead through step 6 and refrigerated. Reheat gently, add the blanched chaya and epazote, and finish the braise on serving day.
• •Blanched chaya keeps refrigerated for three days and freezes for three months. Many Yucatecan cooks blanch a big batch on market day and pull from it through the week.
• •Toasted pepitas keep in a sealed jar at room temperature for one week before they start to taste tired. Toast only what you need.

Frequently Asked Questions

Nutrition Information

1 serving (about 280g)