Salpimentado de Res Yucateco

Salpimentado is from Yucatán. Not the Peninsula in general, the state. The name comes from sal y pimienta, salt and pepper, but the pepper in question is pimienta gorda, the allspice berry that grows wild across the southern jungles and that Yucatecan cooks have used for centuries before anyone in Europe had a name for it. This is not a Mexican stew that happens to be from Yucatán. This is a Yucatecan dish, and the rest of Mexico cooks beef differently.

The recado here is simple by Yucatecan standards. There is no achiote in salpimentado, that belongs to the red recado used for cochinita pibil. There is no burned chile in salpimentado, that belongs to the black recado for relleno negro. This is recado blanco territory: pimienta gorda, clove, black pepper, canela, garlic, oregano, all bound with naranja agria. White recado, sometimes called recado de toda clase, is the workhorse of Yucatecan home cooking, and it is what gives this stew its perfume. A recado is not just spice paste. It is the architecture of the dish.

I learned this version from a señora named Doña Marta in Valladolid, in a kitchen with a wood-fired stove and a clay olla the size of a child. She showed me how to char the tomatoes directly on the embers, how to grind the pimienta gorda fresh in a stone molcajete, how to wait, how to stir, how to listen for the moment the recado stops smelling raw and starts smelling like Sunday. She used naranja agria she grew in the courtyard. If you have access to a tree, use that fruit. If you do not, the substitution in the ingredients works. It is a compromise, not an upgrade.

This is comfort food in Yucatán, the pot a family makes on a slow Sunday and eats from for two days. Saber cocinar es saber vivir.