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Yucatán's milpa salad of blanched chaya, toasted pepita, naranja agria, and habanero, finished with shaved queso de bola and pickled red onion. The green of the gods, treated with the respect it demands.
This is from the Yucatán Peninsula. Mérida, Valladolid, Tizimín, the small towns of the milpa where chaya grows in courtyards like a tree and where the Maya have been eating its leaves for a thousand years. Chaya is not spinach. The Maya called it the tree of life and they were not exaggerating. The leaves are richer in iron, calcium, and protein than almost any green you can name. But you cannot eat them raw. The leaves carry hydrocyanic glycosides that have to be cooked out. Five minutes in boiling water and they become one of the most generous greens in Mexico. Less than that and you have a problem. La cocina no es decoración, es trabajo.
Yucatecan salads are not lettuce-and-dressing affairs the way the rest of the country sometimes pretends. They are built on what the peninsula grows: jícama, cabbage, radish, betabel, cucumber, ibes, the small native lima bean. They are dressed with naranja agria, the bitter Seville-style orange that does the work vinegar does in other kitchens. They are finished with chile habanero, raw and minced, because habanero is to Yucatán what serrano is to Jalisco and chile de árbol is to Sinaloa. Cada estado, su propia cocina.
I collected this version from a señora in a courtyard kitchen in Mérida who had a chaya tree growing right outside her door and who told me, very directly, that anyone who blanches chaya for less than five minutes does not know what they are doing. She crumbled queso de bola over the top, that hard waxed Edam the Yucatecans inherited from Dutch sailors centuries ago and made their own, and she set the bowl down between a stack of warm tortillas and a glass jar of cebollas moradas. That is how the dish lives. Naranja agria, habanero, pepita, queso de bola. No me vengas con atajos.
Chaya (Cnidoscolus aconitifolius) was a staple of the ancient Maya diet, cultivated in dooryard gardens across the Yucatán Peninsula and documented in colonial-era manuscripts including the 16th-century Diccionario Maya Cordemex, where it appears under the name 'chay.' The plant's hydrocyanic glycosides, neutralized through boiling, made it an ingredient that survived alongside the post-Conquest introductions of citrus, Edam cheese (brought by Dutch merchants trading through Caribbean ports in the 17th and 18th centuries), and the chile habanero, which despite its name arrived in Yucatán from Cuba and the Caribbean rather than from Havana itself. The pairing of indigenous milpa ingredients with these colonial additions defines modern Yucatecan cuisine and distinguishes it sharply from the cooking of central or northern Mexico.
Quantity
1 pound
thick stems removed
Quantity
1/2 cup
Quantity
1/2
sliced into very thin half-moons
Quantity
1/3 cup
or a blend of 2 tablespoons lime juice, 2 tablespoons orange juice, and 1 tablespoon grapefruit juice
Quantity
1
stemmed and finely minced, seeds removed if you want less heat
Quantity
3 tablespoons
Quantity
1
finely grated
Quantity
1 teaspoon, plus more to taste
Quantity
1/2 teaspoon
crumbled between your palms
Quantity
1 cup
cooled, or substitute small white lima beans
Quantity
4
sliced paper-thin
Quantity
2 ounces
shaved into thin curls
Quantity
for serving
Quantity
for serving
warmed
| Ingredient | Quantity |
|---|---|
| fresh chaya leavesthick stems removed | 1 pound |
| raw hulled pepitas (pumpkin seeds) | 1/2 cup |
| small red onionsliced into very thin half-moons | 1/2 |
| fresh naranja agria juiceor a blend of 2 tablespoons lime juice, 2 tablespoons orange juice, and 1 tablespoon grapefruit juice | 1/3 cup |
| chile habanerostemmed and finely minced, seeds removed if you want less heat | 1 |
| extra-virgin olive oil | 3 tablespoons |
| small garlic clovefinely grated | 1 |
| kosher salt | 1 teaspoon, plus more to taste |
| dried Yucatecan oreganocrumbled between your palms | 1/2 teaspoon |
| cooked ibes (Maya lima beans)cooled, or substitute small white lima beans | 1 cup |
| small red radishessliced paper-thin | 4 |
| queso de bola (Edam)shaved into thin curls | 2 ounces |
| lime wedges (optional) | for serving |
| hand-pressed corn tortillas (optional)warmed | for serving |
Chaya is not spinach. Raw, the leaves contain hydrocyanic glycosides that have to be neutralized by heat. You cannot skip this step. You cannot eat chaya raw. The señoras in Tizimín will tell you the same thing and they have been cooking it longer than any of us. Rinse the leaves under cold water and shake them dry. Strip any thick central stems.
Bring a large stainless steel pot of well-salted water to a hard boil. Drop in the chaya leaves and push them under with a wooden spoon. Boil for a full five minutes. Not three. Five. The water will turn dark green. That is the latex and the glycosides leaving the leaves. Drain immediately and shock the chaya in a bowl of ice water. This locks the color and stops the cooking.
Lift the chaya out of the ice bath in small handfuls. Squeeze each handful firmly between your palms over the sink until almost no water comes out. Wet chaya makes a wet salad and a wet salad dilutes the dressing. Chop the squeezed leaves coarsely. You should have about two packed cups.
Heat a dry comal or heavy skillet over medium. Add the pepitas in a single layer. Toast them, shaking the pan often, for three to four minutes. They will start to pop and skitter across the surface and turn a shade darker, like wet sand turning to gold. The kitchen will smell nutty and sweet. The moment the first one jumps, lower the heat. Burned pepita tastes acrid and there is no fixing it. Slide them off the comal onto a plate to cool.
Place the sliced red onion in a small bowl. Pour two tablespoons of the naranja agria juice over it. A pinch of salt. Let it sit for ten minutes. The acid pulls the raw bite out of the onion and turns it pink. This is the same trick the Yucatecan cooks use for their cebollas moradas. The brine that is left becomes part of your dressing.
In a small bowl, whisk together the remaining naranja agria juice, the minced habanero, the grated garlic, the olive oil, the salt, and the oregano. The dressing should be bright, hot, and slightly bitter from the sour orange. That bitterness is the signature of naranja agria. Do not try to round it out with sugar. Yucatecan cooking does not apologize for its acid.
In a wide shallow bowl, combine the chopped chaya, the cooled ibes, and the pickled onion with its brine. Pour the dressing over and toss with your hands so every leaf is coated. Taste for salt. Scatter the radish slices, the toasted pepita, and the shaved queso de bola across the top. Serve right away with lime wedges and warm corn tortillas. Saber cocinar es saber vivir.
1 serving (about 175g)
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