Chef Lupita
Arroz a la Oaxaqueña
Oaxaca's red rice, stained with tomato and fried in lard, steamed with carrots, ejotes, black beans, and epazote. The side that anchors a Oaxacan family meal and earns its place beside the main.
Culinary Explorer
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Ejotes con Tomate Sinaloenses
Created by
Sinaloa's ranch-style green beans, blanched and folded into a lard-built tomato sofrito with serrano, cumin, and oregano. The side dish that lands on the table next to the carne asada every week of summer.
Side Dishes
Mexican
Weeknight
Quick Meal
Budget Friendly
10 min
Active Time
15 min cook•25 min total
Yield4 to 6 servings
This is from Sinaloa. The Pacific coast, the agricultural valleys around Culiacan, the ranchos that feed the state. Sinaloa grows more tomatoes than anywhere else in Mexico and the green beans come in just as the tomato season peaks. The two ingredients land in the same pan because they land in the kitchen on the same day. That is how northern cooks have always cooked. Cook what the garden gave you this morning.
The technique is simple and the technique is the recipe. You blanch the ejotes hard and fast so they hold their bite. You build a sofrito of onion, garlic, and serrano in manteca de cerdo, not oil. You cook the tomato down until the water leaves and the lard rises. Then you fold the beans through at the end. Twenty minutes. No mystery, no shortcut. The discipline is in the timing.
Do not look for epazote here. This is not Veracruz. The herb pantry of the noroeste is cumin and Mexican oregano, the legacy of cattle country and the trade routes that ran north into what is now the U.S. Southwest. And the tortilla on the side is flour, not corn. Sinaloa, Sonora, Chihuahua, the wheat states. My mother was from Jalisco and she made these beans with corn tortillas. She was wrong about that, and she would have admitted it if I had pushed her. Cada estado, su propia cocina.
The green bean (Phaseolus vulgaris in its unripe pod form) is one of the oldest cultivated foods of the Americas, with archaeological evidence of bean cultivation in the Tehuacan Valley dating back more than 7,000 years. Sinaloa's emergence as Mexico's dominant vegetable-producing state began in the early 20th century with the development of the Culiacan irrigation district, which transformed the state into a year-round supplier of tomatoes, beans, and chiles for both domestic and U.S. markets. The pairing of ejotes with tomato in a lard-built sofrito reflects the noroeste's ranchero kitchen tradition, where cumin and Mexican oregano, both carried north along the Camino Real, replace the epazote and hoja santa that anchor central and southern Mexican cooking.
The technique, the tradition, and the story behind every dish.
Discover Culinary ExplorerIngredients
fresh green beans (ejotes)
Quantity
1 1/2 pounds
ends trimmed, cut into 2-inch lengths
kosher salt (for blanching water)
Quantity
1 tablespoon
manteca de cerdo (pork lard)
Quantity
3 tablespoons
small white onion
Quantity
1
finely diced
garlic cloves
Quantity
3
minced
fresh chile serrano
Quantity
2
finely chopped, seeds in
Roma tomatoes
Quantity
4 medium (about 1 1/2 pounds)
finely diced
whole cumin seeds
Quantity
1/2 teaspoon
lightly crushed in a molcajete
dried Mexican oregano
Quantity
1 teaspoon
crumbled between your fingers
kosher salt
Quantity
1 teaspoon, plus more to taste
freshly ground black pepper
Quantity
to taste
hand-pressed flour tortillas (optional)
Quantity
for serving
warmed
| Ingredient | Quantity |
|---|---|
| fresh green beans (ejotes)ends trimmed, cut into 2-inch lengths | 1 1/2 pounds |
| kosher salt (for blanching water) | 1 tablespoon |
| manteca de cerdo (pork lard) | 3 tablespoons |
| small white onionfinely diced | 1 |
| garlic clovesminced | 3 |
| fresh chile serranofinely chopped, seeds in | 2 |
| Roma tomatoesfinely diced | 4 medium (about 1 1/2 pounds) |
| whole cumin seedslightly crushed in a molcajete | 1/2 teaspoon |
| dried Mexican oreganocrumbled between your fingers | 1 teaspoon |
| kosher salt | 1 teaspoon, plus more to taste |
| freshly ground black pepper | to taste |
| hand-pressed flour tortillas (optional)warmed | for serving |
Equipment Needed
- •Wide cast iron or heavy skillet, 12-inch
- •Large stockpot for blanching
- •Small dry skillet for toasting cumin
- •Molcajete for crushing the cumin seed
- •Wooden spoon
Instructions
- 1
Trim and blanch the ejotes
Bring a large pot of water to a hard boil and salt it generously. It should taste like the Gulf of California. Drop the trimmed beans in and cook for three to four minutes, until the color deepens to a vivid green and the beans bend without snapping. Drain them. Do not shock them in ice water. Northern cooks do not bother with that. The residual heat keeps cooking the bean just enough to meet the tomato halfway.
Buy your ejotes the day you cook them. A bean that bends like rubber instead of snapping clean has been on the shelf too long. Preguntale a las senoras del mercado which vendor brought them in that morning. - 2
Toast the cumin
While the beans drain, set a small dry skillet over medium heat. Add the crushed cumin seeds and toast for 30 to 45 seconds, swirling the pan until the kitchen smells nutty and warm. Tip them onto a plate immediately. Cumin burns fast and burned cumin tastes like dust. The northern states use cumin where the south uses epazote. Different region, different herb pantry.
- 3
Build the sofrito
Melt the manteca in a wide cast iron or heavy skillet over medium heat. La manteca es el sabor and these beans need that pork backbone. When the fat shimmers, add the onion with a pinch of salt. Cook for four to five minutes, stirring, until the onion turns translucent and the edges start to gild. Add the garlic and the chopped serrano. Cook another minute, until the garlic perfumes the lard. Do not let it brown.
- 4
Cook down the tomato
Add the diced tomato, the toasted cumin, the oregano, and the teaspoon of salt. Stir to combine. Cook over medium heat for six to eight minutes, mashing the tomato gently with the back of a wooden spoon as it softens. You want a loose, jammy sofrito with the lard rising at the edges. Cook past the watery stage. Cook until the spoon leaves a brief trail across the bottom of the pan.
- 5
Fold in the ejotes
Add the drained green beans to the skillet. Fold them through the tomato until every bean is coated. Cook another two to three minutes, just long enough for the beans to take on the flavor of the sofrito. Taste for salt. Crack black pepper over the top. The beans should still have a clean bite. If they have gone limp, you cooked them too long at the start.
This is a side dish that respects the bean. The ejote is not background here. If you cook it to mush, you have made a different dish and a worse one. No me vengas con atajos. - 6
Serve hot from the pan
Bring the skillet to the table or turn the beans out into a wide stoneware bowl. Serve alongside carne asada, machaca, or a pot of frijoles puercos with warm flour tortillas for scooping. In Sinaloa, flour tortillas, not corn. Asi se hace y punto. Recetas probadas y garantizadas.
Chef Tips
- •Use the freshest ejotes you can find. A green bean that bends in your hand instead of snapping clean is too old. At the mercado, ask the vendor what came in that morning. Si no conoces el mercado, no conoces la cocina.
- •Manteca de cerdo is not optional here. Vegetable oil will give you a flat, sharp tomato sauce. The lard rounds the acid and carries the cumin. If you cannot find good lard, render some from pork fatback. It takes 30 minutes and lasts months in the refrigerator.
- •The serranos go in with the seeds. This is a northern dish and the heat should be present, not aggressive. If you remove the seeds you remove the dish's spine. If two serranos is too much for your table, use one whole one with seeds. Do not seed it.
- •Ripe Roma tomatoes are the standard, but if you are cooking in August and your garden tomatoes are ready, use those instead. Sinaloa cooks use what the season gave them. Out of season, canned whole Roma tomatoes from a Mexican brand will outperform a bad winter supermarket tomato every time.
Advance Preparation
- •The ejotes can be blanched and drained up to four hours ahead. Spread them on a sheet pan to cool, then hold uncovered at room temperature. Do not refrigerate or they lose their snap.
- •The sofrito can be built one day ahead and refrigerated. Reheat in the skillet with a spoonful of lard, then fold in the freshly blanched beans at serving time.
- •Leftovers keep for two days refrigerated. Reheat in a skillet, never the microwave. The beans turn rubbery under microwave heat.
Frequently Asked Questions
Nutrition Information
1 serving (about 280g)
Calories
150 calories
Total Fat
8 g
Saturated Fat
3 g
Trans Fat
0 g
Unsaturated Fat
5 g
Cholesterol
7 mg
Sodium
340 mg
Total Carbohydrates
17 g
Dietary Fiber
6 g
Sugars
9 g
Protein
4 g
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