Quelites Guisados con Epazote (Shakuá)

Ingredients

Equipment Needed

• •Comal de barro set over leña
• •Wide black-barro cazuela from Capula or Tzintzuntzan
• •Wooden cuchara
• •Large washing basin for the quelites

Instructions

1. 1

   Sort the quelites

   Spread the quelites on a clean cloth and work through them with your hands. Pull out roots, yellow leaves, seed heads, tough stems, and anything bruised. Keep the tender stems. They have flavor and body. If you foraged the greens yourself, you must know the plant and the field. Do not cook greens from sprayed edges, roadsides, or plants you cannot name. Si no conoces el mercado, no conoces la cocina.

   A market vendor from the Meseta will know what she is selling. Ask her which quelite cooks fast and which one needs a quick boil first. That answer is part of the recipe.
2. 2

   Wash until clean

   Fill a large basin with cold water. Swish the quelites hard, lift them out, and leave the grit at the bottom. Empty the basin and repeat until the water is clear, usually three washes. Drain them but leave the leaves damp. If your mix is mostly cenizo or nabo silvestre and the leaves feel thick, blanch them in salted water for 45 seconds, drain, and squeeze lightly. Quintonil and verdolaga can go straight into the cazuela.

3. 3

   Heat the comal

   Build a steady leña fire and set a comal de barro over it. Set a wide barro cazuela on the comal until it warms through. Add the manteca de cerdo. It should melt and shine across the clay. Do not use vegetable oil here. La manteca es el sabor, and it carries the epazote and chile into the greens.

4. 4

   Fry the base

   Add the onion to the lard and cook until it softens at the edges, about 3 minutes. Stir with a wooden cuchara. Add the garlic, serrano, and grated chile perón if using. Cook for 1 minute more, just until the garlic smells round and the chile opens up. Do not brown the garlic hard. Bitter garlic makes bitter greens.

5. 5

   Guisar the greens

   Add the damp quelites by the handful, turning after each addition so they touch the lard and aromatics. Sprinkle in the salt. The pile will look too big, then it will collapse. That is the point. Cover the cazuela for 3 minutes so the greens release their own water, then uncover and keep turning until the leaves are tender, glossy, and still green at the edges. If the cazuela catches before the greens soften, add a splash of water, not a soup ladle.

   Do not chop the greens into paste. Shakuá should have leaves and tender stems you can still recognize. This is food from the milpa, not a purée.
6. 6

   Add the epazote

   Fold in the chopped epazote during the last 2 minutes of cooking. Add it earlier and the flavor turns dull. Added at the end, it perfumes the lard and cuts the earthiness of the greens. Taste for salt now. The greens should taste like the field, the fire, and the clay, with the serrano landing clean at the back of the mouth.

7. 7

   Serve in barro

   Bring the cazuela to the table family-style, with warm hand-pressed corn tortillas wrapped in a cotton servilleta. No flour tortillas. No shredded cheese. No crema poured over the top to hide the greens. Spoon the shakuá into tortillas or serve it beside beans. Cada estado, su propia cocina.

Chef Tips

• •Shakuá is P'urhépecha, from Michoacán's milpa and forest kitchen. Do not turn it into calabacitas con elote y rajas. That is a good broad Mexican dish, but it belongs to another register. This is indigenous P'urhépecha cooking, not Occidente mestizo garnish work.
• •The quelites must be cooked. Never dress them raw and call the plate shakuá. The cooking softens the stems, removes harshness, and lets the lard, chile, garlic, onion, and epazote do their work.
• •Use manteca de cerdo. Vegetable oil gives you slick leaves and no depth. If you cannot eat pork, make a different quelite dish that traditionally uses no lard. Do not pretend the result is the same.
• •A comal de leña and barro cazuela give this dish its edge of smoke and clay. A gas burner and stainless pan will cook the greens, yes, but it will not taste like the Meseta. A substitution is a compromise, not an upgrade.
• •Fresh epazote matters. Dried epazote tastes tired here. If the bunch is black, limp, or smells like dust, cook beans that day and wait for better herbs.
• •The related mushroom register, terekuecha, is rainy-season only. July and August. Charámakua is trompa de puerco, iarini terekua is pashakua, and terékua kuín jatsíri is pata de pájaro. Outside those months, the cocinera tradicional waits for rain.
• •Do not replace foraged terekuecha with cultivated white button champiñón. That is not the dish. For mushroom plates like those documented with María Elena Reyes of Cocucho, the forest decides the menu, not the supermarket.
• •Chilke rojo belongs to Cherán K'eri, and pata de pájaro dishes are grounded in Comachuén and Nahuatzen. These names are not decoration. They belong to pueblos, kitchens, and women who kept the knowledge alive.

Advance Preparation

• •The quelites can be sorted, washed, drained, wrapped in a damp towel, and refrigerated for up to 1 day. Do not store them wet in a sealed bag or they will sour.
• •Tougher cenizo or nabo silvestre can be blanched, squeezed lightly, and refrigerated for up to 1 day before guisar. Tender quintonil and verdolaga are better cooked the same day.
• •Cooked shakuá can be reheated in a cazuela with a small spoonful of lard, but it is best the day it is made. The flavor holds, the green color does not.

Frequently Asked Questions

Nutrition Information

1 serving (about 160g)