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Oaxaca's thick oval masa cakes, pinched at the edges, smeared with asiento, and layered with refried black beans, quesillo, and a rough salsa de chile de árbol. Breakfast the way the mercado women make it.
This is Oaxacan food. Not Mexico City Oaxacan food. Not the version you get at a restaurant that says "Oaxacan-style" on the menu. This is the memela you eat standing at a fonda outside the Mercado de Abastos in Oaxaca de Juárez at seven in the morning, bought from a woman who has been pressing masa on that same comal since before you were born.
The memela is a thick oval of masa, cooked on a clay or metal comal and pinched at the edges while it is still hot to form a shallow wall. That wall holds the asiento, the refried beans, the quesillo. Without the rim, you have a thick tortilla. With it, you have architecture. The shape is the recipe.
Asiento is the ingredient that separates Oaxacan cooking from everywhere else in Mexico. It is the dark, caramelized residue left at the bottom of the pot after pork lard is rendered. Not lard itself, the sediment beneath the lard: smoky, concentrated, almost burnt in its depth. In the Valles Centrales, every market has a vendor selling asiento in plastic bags, dark brown and grainy, smelling like pork and wood smoke. If you have never cooked with it, you do not yet know what Oaxacan food actually tastes like. It goes on memelas, tlayudas, tamales de rajas. It is as essential to Oaxaca as mole negro.
My mother did not make memelas. She was from Jalisco. But the first time I ate one in the Central de Abastos, standing at Doña Elvira's counter with black bean paste on my fingers and quesillo stretching from the memela to my mouth, I wrote down everything I saw her do. The masa pressed thick, not thin. The comal screaming hot. The pinch done with bare fingers, fast and sure. The asiento spread while the masa was still warm so it soaked in. I went back three mornings in a row to make sure I had it right. That is how this recipe was built. Saber cocinar es saber vivir.
Memelas belong to the broader family of pre-Columbian antojitos built on nixtamalized corn, alongside tlacoyos, sopes, huaraches, and gorditas, each distinguished by its shape, thickness, and regional filling. The word 'memela' appears in colonial-era Oaxacan records as a term for a thick corn cake, and the technique of pinching a rim into freshly cooked masa to create a vessel for toppings predates European contact. Asiento, the dark sediment from pork-lard rendering, became a defining Oaxacan ingredient after the Spanish introduction of pigs in the 16th century, replacing or supplementing the animal fats previously rendered from native game. Oaxaca's Central de Abastos market remains the largest indigenous market in Latin America and the primary site where memelas are consumed as a daily breakfast food, not a special-occasion dish.
Quantity
2 pounds
or 2 cups masa harina mixed with 1 1/2 cups warm water
Quantity
1/2 teaspoon
Quantity
1/4 cup
Quantity
1 1/2 cups
with some of their broth
Quantity
2 tablespoons
Quantity
2
Quantity
1/2 teaspoon
Quantity
8 ounces
pulled into thin strips
Quantity
8
stemmed
Quantity
2
unpeeled
Quantity
3 medium
husked and rinsed
Quantity
1/4 teaspoon, plus more to taste
Quantity
1/4 cup
| Ingredient | Quantity |
|---|---|
| fresh masa for tortillas (masa de maiz)or 2 cups masa harina mixed with 1 1/2 cups warm water | 2 pounds |
| kosher salt (for the masa) | 1/2 teaspoon |
| asiento (dark pork-fat residue from lard rendering) | 1/4 cup |
| cooked black beans (frijol negro)with some of their broth | 1 1/2 cups |
| pork lard (manteca de cerdo) | 2 tablespoons |
| dried avocado leaves (hojas de aguacate) | 2 |
| kosher salt (for the beans) | 1/2 teaspoon |
| quesillo (Oaxacan string cheese)pulled into thin strips | 8 ounces |
| dried chile de árbolstemmed | 8 |
| garlic clovesunpeeled | 2 |
| tomatilloshusked and rinsed | 3 medium |
| kosher salt (for the salsa) | 1/4 teaspoon, plus more to taste |
| water (for the salsa) | 1/4 cup |
Heat a dry comal or cast iron skillet over medium. Place the dried chiles de árbol on the hot surface and toast for about 45 seconds, turning once, until they darken slightly and the kitchen smells sharp and smoky. They go fast. Pull them before they blacken. On the same comal, lay the garlic cloves in their skins and the husked tomatillos. Let them char on all sides, turning every two or three minutes. The tomatillos will soften and blister, maybe collapse a little. The garlic skins will be spotted black. This takes about 8 minutes total. Peel the garlic. Drop the toasted chiles, charred tomatillos, peeled garlic, salt, and water into a molcajete or blender. Grind or pulse to a rough, textured salsa. Not smooth. You want pieces. Taste and add salt if it needs it. Set aside.
In a small saucepan or clay bean pot, heat the lard over medium. When it shimmers, crumble in the dried avocado leaves and let them fry for 15 seconds. The smell is anise-like, deep, distinctly Oaxacan. Add the cooked black beans with about half a cup of their broth. Mash them with a bean masher or the back of a wooden spoon until they form a rough paste. You want some texture, not baby food. Cook for five or six minutes, stirring, until the paste thickens enough to hold its shape on a spoon. If it gets too stiff, add more broth a tablespoon at a time. Season with salt. Keep warm over low heat.
Mix the salt into the masa and knead for a minute until smooth and pliable. The masa should feel like soft clay. If it cracks at the edges when you press it, it is too dry. Add water a tablespoon at a time and knead again. Divide the masa into 12 equal balls, about the size of a golf ball. One at a time, press each ball into a thick oval about five inches long and a quarter inch thick. Use a tortilla press lined with plastic, or press between your palms. This is not a tortilla. The memela is thicker and oval. Do not make it thin or it will crack when you pinch the edges later.
Heat a dry comal over medium-high until a drop of water sizzles and evaporates instantly. Lay a formed memela on the hot surface. Cook for about two minutes on the first side until the bottom sets and light brown spots appear. Flip and cook the second side for another minute and a half. Now, while the memela is still hot and on the comal, use your fingertips to pinch up the edges all the way around, forming a shallow rim about half an inch high. Work quickly. Your fingers will remember the heat. That pinched border is the wall that holds the beans and the asiento. Without it, you have a thick tortilla, not a memela. Transfer to a towel-lined plate and repeat with the remaining masa.
Take each warm memela and spread a generous teaspoon of asiento across the inside surface with the back of a spoon. The asiento should be at room temperature so it spreads easily. It will melt slightly into the hot masa, soaking into the surface. This is the step that makes a memela a memela. The dark, smoky, almost caramelized pork flavor of the asiento is the foundation of the entire dish. La manteca es el sabor, and asiento is the deepest expression of that truth.
Spread a spoonful of the warm refried black beans over the asiento layer, leaving the pinched rim visible. Lay strips of quesillo across the beans. The residual heat from the memela will soften the cheese just enough that it starts to yield, pulling into long strings when you tear a piece away. Spoon the salsa de árbol over the top. Not too much. The salsa is a sharp accent, not a bath. Serve immediately, two or three per person, eaten with the hands. This is how they eat them at the fondas outside the Mercado de Abastos in Oaxaca City, standing at a counter at seven in the morning. Recetas probadas y garantizadas.
1 serving (about 250g)
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