Chef Lupita
Cebollas Moradas en Escabeche Yucatecas
Yucatán's pink pickled red onions, blanched and steeped in naranja agria with allspice, charred habanero, and oregano yucateco. The Peninsula's table garnish, in every fonda from Mérida to Tizimín.
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Ensalada de Remolacha Yucateca
Created by
Yucatán's cantina beet salad, cubed betabel folded with cebolla morada macerated in naranja agria, fresh habanero, cilantro, and oregano yucateco. The pink dish that arrives with the cold beer.
Salads
Mexican
Make Ahead
Picnic
Comfort Food
25 min
Active Time
45 min cook•1 hr 10 min total
Yield6 to 8 servings as a side
This is from Yucatán. The peninsula that cooks differently from the rest of Mexico because it sat for centuries with its back turned to Mexico City, looking out at the Caribbean and across to Cuba and New Orleans instead. The Yucatán has its own chiles, its own citrus, its own oregano, its own cheese, its own way. Cada estado, su propia cocina, and the peninsula proves it harder than anyone.
Yucatecan salads are not what most of the world imagines when it hears the word salad. There is no iceberg lettuce. There is no ranch. There is jícama with chile piquín dust. There is cabbage with sour orange. There is this betabel salad, served cold from a glass jar in a cantina, cubed deep red beet tossed with pink onion that has been bathing in naranja agria. It arrives with the cold beer and the saltines and it sits on the table until it is gone.
The ingredient that makes this Yucatecan is the naranja agria. Sour orange. The same citrus that cures cochinita pibil, the same juice that turns red onion into the pink confetti you see on every Mérida plate. It is not lime. It is not regular orange. It is bitter and floral and slightly resinous and there is no proper substitute, though I will give you one in the tips because I am practical, not because I am happy about it. La cocina yucateca tiene su propio idioma, and naranja agria is half the alphabet.
My mother did not cook Yucatecan food. She was jalisciense. But I spent a month in Mérida in my second year of the 32-state project, staying with a señora named Doña Elvira in a courtyard house behind the Mercado Lucas de Gálvez, and she taught me that the Yucatecan kitchen is built on three pillars: achiote, naranja agria, and chile habanero. This salad has two of the three. Pregúntale a las señoras del mercado.
The Yucatán Peninsula's culinary distinctiveness is a product of its geographic and political isolation: until the railroad reached Mérida in 1957, the peninsula was more easily reached from Havana or New Orleans than from Mexico City, and its cuisine absorbed Maya, Spanish, Lebanese, and Caribbean influences while remaining largely untouched by central Mexican developments. The naranja agria (Citrus aurantium), introduced by the Spanish in the 16th century, replaced the indigenous Maya souring agents and became the defining acid of the regional cuisine, used in everything from cochinita pibil to escabeches to the daily salads that fill cantina tables. The cebolla morada en naranja agria, the pink pickled onion that sits in a jar in every Yucatecan refrigerator, is so ubiquitous that it functions less as a condiment than as a pantry staple, like salt or oregano yucateco, the wild oregano that grows in the peninsula's limestone scrub and tastes nothing like its Mediterranean cousin.
The technique, the tradition, and the story behind every dish.
Discover Culinary ExplorerIngredients
medium red beets (betabel)
Quantity
2 pounds
tops trimmed but tails left on
red onion (cebolla morada)
Quantity
1 large
sliced into very thin half-moons
fresh naranja agria juice
Quantity
3/4 cup (about 4 to 5 sour oranges)
divided
fresh chile habanero
Quantity
1
stemmed and finely minced (seeds in for heat, out for fragrance only)
fresh cilantro leaves and tender stems
Quantity
1/2 cup
roughly chopped
good olive oil
Quantity
1/4 cup
dried Yucatecan oregano (oregano yucateco)
Quantity
1 teaspoon
crumbled between the fingers
kosher salt
Quantity
1 1/2 teaspoons, plus more to taste
freshly ground black pepper
Quantity
1/2 teaspoon
lima agria (optional)
Quantity
1
halved, for finishing (or 1 extra naranja agria)
totopos or hand-pressed corn tortillas (optional)
Quantity
for serving
| Ingredient | Quantity |
|---|---|
| medium red beets (betabel)tops trimmed but tails left on | 2 pounds |
| red onion (cebolla morada)sliced into very thin half-moons | 1 large |
| fresh naranja agria juicedivided | 3/4 cup (about 4 to 5 sour oranges) |
| fresh chile habanerostemmed and finely minced (seeds in for heat, out for fragrance only) | 1 |
| fresh cilantro leaves and tender stemsroughly chopped | 1/2 cup |
| good olive oil | 1/4 cup |
| dried Yucatecan oregano (oregano yucateco)crumbled between the fingers | 1 teaspoon |
| kosher salt | 1 1/2 teaspoons, plus more to taste |
| freshly ground black pepper | 1/2 teaspoon |
| lima agria (optional)halved, for finishing (or 1 extra naranja agria) | 1 |
| totopos or hand-pressed corn tortillas (optional) | for serving |
Equipment Needed
- •Medium saucepan for boiling the beets
- •Glass jar or non-reactive bowl for macerating the onion
- •Sharp paring knife and chef's knife
- •Wide ceramic serving bowl, ideally Ticul red-clay or Yucatecan slipware
Instructions
- 1
Boil the betabel whole
Place the beets in a pot, tails on, skins on. Cover with cold water by two inches and add a generous pinch of salt. Bring to a boil, then lower to a steady simmer. Cook 35 to 45 minutes depending on size, until a paring knife slides through the center with no resistance. Boiling whole keeps the color inside the beet where it belongs. Peeling and chopping first bleeds the betabel into the water and leaves you with a pale salad.
The tails matter. Cut them off and the beet leaks its color into the pot. Leave them on until the beet is cooked and cooled. - 2
Macerate the cebolla morada
While the beets cook, place the sliced red onion in a glass jar or bowl. Pour 1/2 cup of the naranja agria juice over the onion, add 1/2 teaspoon of salt, and push the onion down so it submerges. Let it sit at room temperature for at least 30 minutes. The onion will turn from purple to a vivid pink and the bite will soften. This is the same cebolla morada that goes on top of cochinita pibil. In Yucatán, this jar lives in every refrigerator.
- 3
Peel the beets cold
Drain the beets and run them under cold tap water for a minute. The skins will slip off under your thumbs. Wear gloves if you do not want pink hands for two days. Trim the root and stem ends now. Cut the peeled beets into 1/2-inch cubes. Even cubes. This is a composed salad, not a chopped one. The cook shows herself in the knife work.
- 4
Mince the habanero with respect
The chile habanero is the soul of Yucatecan cooking and it is not the chile serrano. One habanero can perfume a whole bowl. Stem it, slit it open, and decide: seeds in for heat, seeds out for fragrance only. Mince it as fine as you can. Wash your hands with cold water and soap before you touch your face. No me vengas con atajos. Skip the habanero and this is not a Yucatecan salad.
If you cannot find fresh habanero, do not substitute jalapeño or serrano. The flavor is wrong. A dried habanero rehydrated in warm water is closer than the wrong fresh chile. - 5
Build the salad
In a wide bowl, combine the cubed betabel, the macerated onion with its pink juice, the minced habanero, and the chopped cilantro. Add the remaining 1/4 cup naranja agria, the olive oil, the crumbled oregano yucateco, the remaining 1 teaspoon salt, and the black pepper. Fold gently with a spoon. Do not overwork it. The beet will release just enough color to tint the onion and the cilantro a deep pink. That color is the signature of the dish.
- 6
Rest before serving
Let the salad sit at room temperature for 20 minutes so the flavors marry, or refrigerate up to 24 hours. It improves overnight. Before serving, taste for salt and acid. Squeeze the lima agria over the top if it needs a final lift. Serve cold or just below room temperature with totopos on the side. In a Tizimín cantina this would arrive with the cold beer. Así se hace y punto.
Chef Tips
- •Naranja agria is the work of this salad. If you cannot find sour oranges at a Latin or Caribbean market, make a substitute: 2 parts fresh lime juice, 1 part fresh sweet orange juice, with a tiny pinch of grated grapefruit zest. It is a compromise, not an upgrade, and the salad will taste close but not exact. The naranja agria has a bitterness in the peel that lime and orange together can only approximate.
- •Oregano yucateco is not Mexican oregano from the north and it is not Mediterranean oregano. It is a peninsula herb, more floral, slightly camphorous, sold dried in the Mérida markets. If your spice shop carries it, buy a pound. If not, Mexican oregano from Oaxaca or Chiapas is the closest stand-in. Italian oregano is wrong for this dish.
- •Make the cebolla morada a day ahead and keep it in a glass jar in the refrigerator. It will stay good for two weeks and you will find yourself putting it on everything: cochinita, panuchos, frijoles, fried eggs. In Yucatán this jar is as essential as the salt cellar.
Advance Preparation
- •The cebolla morada en naranja agria can be made up to 2 weeks ahead and refrigerated in a glass jar. It improves with time.
- •The beets can be boiled, peeled, and cubed up to 3 days ahead and refrigerated.
- •The finished salad keeps refrigerated for 3 days and the flavors only deepen. Bring it back to just below room temperature before serving so the olive oil loosens.
Frequently Asked Questions
Nutrition Information
1 serving (about 185g)
Calories
145 calories
Total Fat
8 g
Saturated Fat
1 g
Trans Fat
0 g
Unsaturated Fat
6 g
Cholesterol
0 mg
Sodium
430 mg
Total Carbohydrates
18 g
Dietary Fiber
3 g
Sugars
12 g
Protein
3 g
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