Chef Lupita
Arroz Blanco con Elote Yucateco
Yucatán's white rice with sweet corn kernels, toasted in lard with garlic and onion. The quiet base that holds up against the peninsula's bold achiote-stained stews.
Culinary Explorer
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Ibes Guisados al Chiltomate
Created by
Yucatán's white milpa bean, ibes, simmered with epazote and finished in a fire-roasted chiltomate of charred tomato and whole habanero. The honest weeknight pot of the peninsula.
Side Dishes
Mexican
Weeknight
Comfort Food
Make Ahead
20 min
Active Time
2 hr cook•2 hr 20 min total
Yield6 servings
This is from Yucatán. Not from a generic Mexican kitchen. The ibe is a small white lima bean cultivated in the milpa, the ancient three-sisters planting of corn, beans, and squash that has fed the Maya for more than three thousand years. You will not find ibes in a supermarket in Ciudad de México. You find them at the markets in Mérida, Valladolid, Tekax, sold by women who weighed them out by hand and know the harvest by the field it came from.
Chiltomate is the Yucatecan tomato sauce. Not Italian, not Mexican-national. Yucatecan. The tomatoes go on the comal and char until the skins blister, the habanero goes on whole and stays whole. The smoke from the fire is half the flavor. The other half is the manteca de cerdo it gets fried in. La manteca es el sabor. Use olive oil and you have made something else.
The women of Tekax cook this dish without ceremony. It is weeknight food, milpa food, the kind of pot that holds together for two or three days and gets better each time you reheat it. My notebook from a trip to the southern Yucatán in 2018 has a margin note from doña Felipa, who fed me ibes guisados in her kitchen behind the market: 'el ibe se cocina solo, tú solo lo acompañas.' The ibe cooks itself. You only keep it company. That is the philosophy. Saber cocinar es saber vivir.
The ibe (also spelled ib or ibis in Yucatec Maya) is a regional variety of lima bean, Phaseolus lunatus, cultivated in the Yucatán Peninsula since pre-Columbian times as part of the milpa system alongside maize, squash, and chiles. The word 'chiltomate' is a contraction of the Nahuatl-derived 'chilli' and 'tomatl,' and the dish predates Spanish contact, with archaeological evidence of charred tomato and chile preparations in Mesoamerican cooking sites dating to the Classic Maya period. The use of manteca de cerdo in the finishing step is a colonial addition that the Yucatecan kitchen absorbed without abandoning the underlying Maya preparation, an example of what food historian Ricardo Muñoz Zurita calls the peninsula's 'doble herencia' (double inheritance), where indigenous technique and Spanish fat coexist in the same cazuela.
The technique, the tradition, and the story behind every dish.
Discover Culinary ExplorerIngredients
dried ibes (Yucatecan white lima beans)
Quantity
1 pound
picked over and rinsed
white onion
Quantity
1 medium
half left whole, half finely chopped
garlic cloves
Quantity
6
3 whole and 3 finely chopped
fresh epazote
Quantity
4 large sprigs
kosher salt
Quantity
1 tablespoon, plus more to taste
ripe Roma tomatoes
Quantity
2 pounds
chile habanero
Quantity
1
whole and unbroken
manteca de cerdo (pork lard)
Quantity
3 tablespoons
ground allspice (pimienta gorda)
Quantity
1 teaspoon
hand-pressed corn tortillas (optional)
Quantity
for serving
warmed
crumbled queso fresco or queso de bola rallado (optional)
Quantity
for serving
sliced chile habanero (optional)
Quantity
for serving
| Ingredient | Quantity |
|---|---|
| dried ibes (Yucatecan white lima beans)picked over and rinsed | 1 pound |
| white onionhalf left whole, half finely chopped | 1 medium |
| garlic cloves3 whole and 3 finely chopped | 6 |
| fresh epazote | 4 large sprigs |
| kosher salt | 1 tablespoon, plus more to taste |
| ripe Roma tomatoes | 2 pounds |
| chile habanerowhole and unbroken | 1 |
| manteca de cerdo (pork lard) | 3 tablespoons |
| ground allspice (pimienta gorda) | 1 teaspoon |
| hand-pressed corn tortillas (optional)warmed | for serving |
| crumbled queso fresco or queso de bola rallado (optional) | for serving |
| sliced chile habanero (optional) | for serving |
Equipment Needed
- •Heavy 4-quart pot or clay olla for the beans
- •Cast iron comal or heavy skillet for charring the tomatoes
- •Wide clay cazuela or heavy skillet for the chiltomate
- •Blender
- •Slotted spoon
Instructions
- 1
Soak the ibes
Place the ibes in a large bowl and cover with cold water by four inches. Leave them on the counter for at least six hours, overnight is better. The ibe is a thin-skinned bean and it drinks water fast. A proper soak shortens the cooking time and keeps the bean intact instead of bursting open in the pot.
If you cannot find true ibes, large dried lima beans or butter beans are the closest compromise. They are not the same. The ibe has a thinner skin and a softer interior, and it carries the flavor of the milpa where it was grown alongside corn and squash. Substitute and you lose the bean that gives the dish its name. - 2
Cook the ibes
Drain the soaked ibes and put them in a heavy pot or clay olla. Cover with fresh cold water by three inches. Add the half onion left whole, the 3 whole garlic cloves, and 2 sprigs of the epazote. Do not add salt yet. Salt early toughens the skin. Bring to a gentle simmer over medium heat, skim any foam that rises, then lower the heat until the water just trembles. Cover partially and cook for one hour to one hour and fifteen minutes, until the ibes are tender but still hold their shape. The pot liquor should taste like beans, not water.
- 3
Make the chiltomate
While the ibes simmer, set the tomatoes and the whole habanero directly on a hot comal or under a broiler. Turn them as they char. You want the tomato skins blackened in patches and the flesh softened, about 10 minutes. The habanero should blister but stay whole. This is chiltomate the way they make it across the peninsula, fire-roasted, not boiled. The smoke from the comal is half the flavor.
Do not break the habanero. In Yucatecan cooking the habanero perfumes the dish whole, it does not burn it. A pierced habanero turns a gentle pot of beans into something nobody at the table can eat. - 4
Blend the chiltomate
Pull the stems off the charred tomatoes. Leave the blackened skins on, that is the color and the depth. Set the whole habanero aside. Place the tomatoes in a blender with a pinch of salt and pulse two or three times. You want a chunky, rustic puree, not a smooth sauce. Pregúntale a las señoras del mercado en Mérida and they will tell you the same: chiltomate is not a salsa, it is a textured base.
- 5
Fry the chiltomate
In a wide cazuela or heavy skillet, melt the manteca de cerdo over medium heat. Add the chopped onion and chopped garlic. Cook until the onion is translucent and the garlic smells sweet, about 4 minutes. Pour in the chiltomate. It will sputter. Stir in the ground allspice. Cook for 8 to 10 minutes, stirring often, until the puree darkens and the fat starts to separate at the edges. La manteca es el sabor. Skipping this step gives you a thin, raw-tasting chiltomate.
- 6
Marry the beans and the chiltomate
Lift the cooked ibes out of their pot with a slotted spoon and add them to the cazuela with the chiltomate. Pour in about two cups of the bean cooking liquid, enough to come halfway up the beans. Tuck the whole charred habanero into the pot and add the remaining 2 sprigs of fresh epazote. Add the tablespoon of salt now. Simmer gently for 20 minutes, uncovered, so the beans take on the color and the perfume of the chiltomate. Stir gently. The ibes are delicate and they will fall apart if you bully them.
- 7
Taste, rest, and serve
Pull out the habanero and discard it. Taste for salt. The pot should look like white beans suspended in a brick-red, slightly chunky sauce, glossy from the manteca. Let it rest off the heat for five minutes so the flavors settle. Serve in shallow clay bowls with warm corn tortillas, a scatter of queso fresco or grated queso de bola, and slices of fresh habanero on the side for whoever wants more heat. Así se hace y punto.
Chef Tips
- •True ibes are hard to find outside the Yucatán Peninsula. Look in Yucatecan markets, specialty Mexican grocers, or order them dried from peninsula suppliers. Large dried lima beans or butter beans are the closest compromise, but they are coarser in skin and starchier in texture. A compromise, not an upgrade.
- •The whole habanero is non-negotiable for flavor and non-negotiable in staying whole. It perfumes the pot with that floral, citrusy Yucatecan heat without making the dish unbearable. If it bursts, fish it out immediately and taste before adding more.
- •Fresh epazote matters here. Dried epazote loses most of what makes it useful, both the digestive function and the gasoline-herb flavor that anchors the dish. If you cannot find fresh epazote, leave it out entirely rather than substitute dried.
- •This dish is better the second day. The ibes drink in the chiltomate overnight and the manteca rounds out. Make it the night before you plan to serve it.
Advance Preparation
- •The ibes can be soaked the night before and cooked one day ahead. Hold them in their cooking liquid in the refrigerator.
- •The chiltomate base can be made up to two days ahead and refrigerated. Combine with the cooked ibes and finish the 20-minute marriage step on serving day.
- •Leftovers keep for four days refrigerated and the flavor deepens with time. Reheat gently with a splash of water to loosen the sauce.
Frequently Asked Questions
Nutrition Information
1 serving (about 330g)
Calories
360 calories
Total Fat
7 g
Saturated Fat
3 g
Trans Fat
0 g
Unsaturated Fat
4 g
Cholesterol
6 mg
Sodium
880 mg
Total Carbohydrates
57 g
Dietary Fiber
17 g
Sugars
5 g
Protein
18 g
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