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Mexico City's daily refried beans, slow-fried in lard with epazote, white onion, and chile serrano. The base that holds up molletes, tlacoyos, sopes, and half the breakfasts in the capital.
These are capitalina beans. Ciudad de México beans. Not the lard-bomb pinto refritos of the north, not the soupy black beans of Veracruz, not the colado puree of Yucatán strained until silken. This is the everyday pot of Mexico City: black or pinto, depending on what your mother cooked, smashed by hand in the cazuela, fried slow in manteca, finished with epazote.
Epazote is the herb that tells you where you are. It grows wild in lots and sidewalk cracks across the Valle de México, and central Mexican cooks have used it on beans since before the Spaniards arrived. The smell is not subtle. Anise, gasoline, green pepper, something medicinal underneath. The first time you smell it on the comal you may not love it. Cook with it for a month and you will not understand how anyone makes beans without it. Pregúntale a las señoras del mercado at La Merced. They will tell you the same.
My mother kept a clay pot of beans on the stove from Monday to Thursday in our kitchen in Colonia Roma. Monday they were de la olla, just simmered. Tuesday she pulled half the pot into the cazuela, melted manteca, and turned them into refritos that fed us for two more days. Same beans, three dishes. That is household economy. That is how women have fed families in this city for generations. Saber cocinar es saber vivir.
The technique is patience. The fat is non-negotiable. La manteca es el sabor. Vegetable oil makes a sad imitation. Butter makes a French dish. Manteca de cerdo makes frijoles refritos. Así se hace y punto.
The phaseolus bean was domesticated in Mesoamerica more than seven thousand years ago, and the technique of cooking beans in clay pots with native herbs predates the conquest by millennia. Epazote (Dysphania ambrosioides), known to the Mexica as 'epazotl,' was used both for flavor and for its carminative properties, reducing the gas associated with bean digestion, a practical pairing that survived the colonial period intact. The act of refrying, frijoles refritos, is post-conquest, dependent on the introduction of pork lard by the Spanish, and the Mexico City style of mashing rather than pureeing reflects the pre-blender kitchen technology of the colonial and early republican periods. The word 'refritos' is itself a mistranslation in English; 'refrito' in Spanish does not mean fried twice but rather well-fried or thoroughly fried, an intensifier rather than a repetition.
Quantity
1 pound
picked over and rinsed
Quantity
1 medium
halved (half whole, half finely diced)
Quantity
4
peeled and lightly smashed
Quantity
2 large sprigs, plus more for frying
Quantity
1 tablespoon, plus more to taste
Quantity
1/2 cup
Quantity
1 (or 2 for more heat)
finely chopped
Quantity
for serving
Quantity
for serving
Quantity
for serving
| Ingredient | Quantity |
|---|---|
| dried black or pinto beanspicked over and rinsed | 1 pound |
| white onionhalved (half whole, half finely diced) | 1 medium |
| garlic clovespeeled and lightly smashed | 4 |
| fresh epazote | 2 large sprigs, plus more for frying |
| kosher salt | 1 tablespoon, plus more to taste |
| pork lard (manteca de cerdo) | 1/2 cup |
| fresh chile serranofinely chopped | 1 (or 2 for more heat) |
| crumbled queso fresco (optional) | for serving |
| totopos (optional) | for serving |
| chiles chipotles en adobo (optional) | for serving |
Place the rinsed beans in a heavy pot, preferably a clay olla if you have one. Cover with cold water by three inches. Add the whole half of the onion, the smashed garlic, and one large sprig of epazote. Do not salt yet. Bring to a gentle simmer over medium heat and skim any foam that rises in the first ten minutes. Cover partially and cook for two hours, until the beans crush easily between two fingers but still hold their shape. Top up with hot water if the level drops below the beans. Cold water at this stage tightens the skins and you will fight them the rest of the cooking.
Once the beans are tender, add the salt and the second sprig of epazote. Simmer ten more minutes so the salt works its way into the bean. This is when you taste the broth. The caldo de frijol should taste like something you would drink from a clay jarro, savory and round. If it tastes flat, more salt. If it tastes thin, simmer it down. The caldo is half the flavor of the refritos.
In a wide cazuela or heavy skillet, melt the lard over medium heat. When it shimmers, add the diced onion and the chopped chile serrano. Cook for five to seven minutes, stirring, until the onion turns translucent at the edges and golden at the corners. La manteca es el sabor. This is not the place for olive oil. Olive oil tastes like the wrong country. Manteca tastes like a Mexico City kitchen at one in the afternoon.
Lift the beans into the cazuela with a slotted spoon, working in two batches. Pour in about a cup of the bean broth with each batch. Crush the beans with a bean masher or the back of a wooden spoon as they hit the fat. Some cooks puree everything in a blender. The capitalina way is to mash by hand and leave the texture uneven, some beans whole, most broken, the broth holding everything together.
Lower the heat to medium-low. Now you fry. Stir often with a wooden spoon, scraping the bottom and folding the beans onto themselves. The mixture will sputter and thicken. Add more bean broth a half cup at a time as it tightens. You are doing this for twenty to thirty minutes. The beans will darken, the fat will pull to the edges of the pan, and the whole mass will start to pull away from the sides in one piece when you tilt the cazuela. That is the sign. That is when they are refritos and not just smashed beans.
Tear the leaves from another sprig of fresh epazote and stir them in during the last two minutes of frying. The heat releases that anise-petrol smell that no other herb in the world has. Epazote is not a garnish in central Mexican cooking. It is the herb that tells the bean what it is. Without it, you have refried beans. With it, you have frijoles capitalinos.
Tip the beans onto a warm plate in a long oval, the way the fondas do it on Avenida Insurgentes. Crumble queso fresco down the center. Set totopos sticking out of one end like a fan. Pass the chipotles en adobo at the table. These beans are the platform for molletes, the spread for tlacoyos, the bed under huevos rancheros, the side that anchors a Sunday breakfast. Recetas probadas y garantizadas.
1 serving (about 210g)
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