Chiles en Vinagre con Verduras Oaxaqueños

This is the jar that sits on the table at almost every comida in Oaxaca. Not the corner-store can with the yellow label. The homemade one, in a recycled mayonnaise jar, that the cook of the house pulled out of the refrigerator without ceremony to set next to the tlayudas, the memelas, the bowl of frijoles negros con hoja de aguacate. Every Oaxacan household has a version. The proportions shift. The presence of nopales does not.

The nopales are what tell you this jar is Oaxacan and not poblano or jalisciense. Diced small, blanched until the baba cooks out, packed in with the carrots and the cauliflower so they soak up the chile-scented vinegar. Without them, you have made a fine encurtido. With them, you have made the encurtido that the senora at the Mercado 20 de Noviembre would recognize as her own.

The other thing that separates the home jar from the commercial one is the lard. You sear the aromatics in manteca de cerdo before the brine ever hits the pan. La manteca es el sabor. Oil-only versions taste thin. The lard rounds the brine and gives the vegetables a depth that vinegar alone cannot deliver. My mother kept a jar of these in the refrigerator at all times, restocked every few weeks, and she used to say that a kitchen without an open jar of chiles en vinagre is a kitchen that is not ready to feed anyone. Saber cocinar es saber vivir.

Three months in the refrigerator. That is the working life of a good jar. Past that, the vegetables soften and the chiles lose their bite. Make a smaller batch more often. That is how the senoras do it.