Mone de Pejelagarto Tabasqueño

Ingredients

Equipment Needed

• •Wide tamalera, clay cazuela with rack, or heavy pot fitted for covered steaming
• •Cast iron comal for softening banana leaves
• •Molcajete or blender for the achiote recado
• •Kitchen twine or thin strips of banana leaf for tying packets

Instructions

1. 1

   Season the fish

   Put the pejelagarto pieces in a bowl and season with the salt. Turn them gently with your hands and let them sit while you make the recado. Pejelagarto has firm flesh, but it is still fish. Do not beat it around like pork.

2. 2

   Make the achiote recado

   In a molcajete or blender, grind the achiote paste with the naranja agria, manteca de cerdo, garlic, black peppercorns, and cumin until smooth. The paste should be brick red, glossy, and sharp from the sour orange. La manteca es el sabor here too. It carries the achiote and keeps the fish moist inside the leaf.

   If you use orange and lime instead of naranja agria, understand the compromise. Naranja agria has bitterness and perfume that regular orange does not. Use it when the market gives it to you.
3. 3

   Dress the vegetables

   In a second bowl, combine the tomatoes, white onion, chile dulce tabasqueño, chile amashito, and cilantro criollo. Pour in half of the achiote recado and mix until the vegetables are stained red. The chile dulce is not there to burn your mouth. It is aromatic, fruity, and very Tabasco. Not all Mexican food is trying to punish you.

4. 4

   Coat the pejelagarto

   Pour the remaining achiote recado over the fish and turn each piece until covered. Let it rest for 20 minutes, no longer than 40. The sour orange should season the fish, not cook it. No me vengas con atajos: if the achiote is pale and thin, the finished mone will taste pale and thin.

5. 5

   Soften the leaves

   Pass each banana leaf square over a gas flame or hot comal for a few seconds per side, just until it turns darker green and flexible. Do the same gently with the hoja de momo if the leaves feel stiff. The banana leaf is the wrapper. The momo is the perfume. Confuse those jobs and the dish loses its Tabasco voice.

6. 6

   Wrap the mone

   Lay one banana leaf square on the counter, glossy side down. Place one hoja de momo in the center. Add a spoonful of the vegetable mixture, then several pieces of pejelagarto, then another spoonful of vegetables and their juices. Fold the banana leaf into a tight rectangular packet and tie with kitchen twine or thin strips of banana leaf. The packet should hold its liquid. That liquid becomes the sauce.

7. 7

   Cook low and covered

   Set a steamer rack inside a wide tamalera, clay cazuela, or heavy pot. Add water below the rack, not touching the packets. Line the rack with extra banana leaf scraps, arrange the mone packets seam side down, cover, and cook over medium-low heat for 60 to 70 minutes. Keep the water at a steady simmer. The leaves will darken, the packet will feel firm, and the achiote juices will stain the folds red-orange.

8. 8

   Rest and serve

   Turn off the heat and let the packets rest, covered, for 10 minutes. Open them at the table on a barro tabasqueño platter so the juices stay with the fish. Serve with corn tortillas, white rice, lime halves, and extra chile amashito for the people who know what they are asking for. Cada estado, su propia cocina.

Chef Tips

• •Pejelagarto is hard to find outside Tabasco and the Gulf lowlands. Ask at Mexican fish markets that serve Tabasqueño, Campechano, or Chiapaneco customers. If you cannot find it, firm river catfish or alligator gar is the closest compromise. It is a compromise, not an upgrade.
• •Hoja de momo is not decoration. It perfumes the fish and keeps the flesh from tasting flat. If your vendor calls it hoja santa or acuyo, fine. If the leaves are wilted, black at the edges, or smell like nothing, do not buy them.
• •Chile dulce tabasqueño is aromatic and only mildly hot. Do not replace it with green bell pepper and pretend nothing changed. If you must, use small sweet peppers plus one extra chile amashito, and remember what you are missing.
• •The packet must be tight. Loose wrapping lets the juices run into the pot, and then you have steamed fish with sad leaves. The sauce belongs inside the mone.
• •For an outdoor version, cook the packets in a covered clay cazuela set into a low coal bed, with banana leaves above and below. That is closer to the pib logic. In an apartment kitchen, a tamalera works.

Advance Preparation

• •The achiote recado can be made 2 days ahead and refrigerated. Bring it to room temperature before coating the fish so the manteca softens again.
• •Banana leaves and hoja de momo can be cleaned, dried, wrapped in a towel, and refrigerated 1 day ahead. Soften them over the comal right before assembly.
• •The packets can be assembled up to 4 hours ahead and refrigerated. Do not hold the fish longer in the sour orange or the texture will tighten.
• •Cooked mone reheats well the next day. Keep the packets closed and warm them gently in a covered steamer for 15 to 20 minutes.

Frequently Asked Questions

Nutrition Information

1 serving (about 335g)