Chef Lupita
Chiapas Cochito Adobo Paste
Chiapas' brick-red recado for cochito, built from toasted chile ancho, guajillo, achiote, vinegar, pimienta gorda, and thyme before it stains pork for the oven.
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Tabasco Amashito Chile Salsa (Salsa de Chile Amashito)
Created by
Tabasco's lowland salsa of fresh chile amashito crushed in a molcajete with salt, lime, garlic, and charred tomato, sharp enough to wake up beans, pejelagarto, and grilled meat.
Sauces & Condiments
Mexican
Make Ahead
Weeknight
BBQ
10 min
Active Time
8 min cook•18 min total
YieldAbout 1 cup
Tabasco, especially the Chontalpa and the lowlands around Villahermosa, Nacajuca, Jalpa de Mendez, and Centla, keeps chile amashito on the table the way other regions keep salt. Tiny, green, wild or semi-wild, picked around milpas and acahuales, sold in little piles at Mercado Jose Maria Pino Suarez. This is not chile piquin. Say that twice before you cook.
The salsa is not complicated, but it is exact. Fresh chile amashito, coarse salt, lime, a roasted garlic clove, and sometimes a tomato charred on the comal until the skin blackens in patches. You crush it in a molcajete because the stone breaks the chile and tomato differently than a blender. A blender gives you foam and speed. The molcajete gives you a salsa that tastes like somebody worked for it.
My mother was from Jalisco, so this was not in her notebook. I learned it from a woman in Nacajuca who served it beside frijoles de la olla and grilled fish, with momo, hoja santa, folded near the plate for another dish on the table. She watched my hand on the tejolote and told me, stronger, hija, the chile has to break. She was right. La cocina no es decoracion, es trabajo.
Use what the Tabasco market gives you. If the tomatoes are weak, make the raw version with only chile, salt, and lime. If the amashito is red instead of green, use it, but understand the flavor will be fruitier and sharper. Recetas probadas y garantizadas, but the mercado speaks first.
Chile amashito is one of Tabasco's emblematic small chiles, associated with Chontal Maya, or Yokot'an, foodways in the humid lowlands shaped by the Grijalva and Usumacinta river basins. It is gathered from wild and semi-wild plants around milpas, home gardens, and secondary growth, then sold fresh in markets rather than standardized through large commercial chile production. Although outsiders often compare it to chile piquin because of its size, Tabasco cooks treat amashito as its own chile, with a greener, direct heat tied to the state's lowland table salsas.
The technique, the tradition, and the story behind every dish.
Discover Culinary ExplorerIngredients
fresh chile amashito
Quantity
2 tablespoons
stems removed
ripe tomatoes
Quantity
2 medium (about 10 ounces total)
small garlic clove
Quantity
1
unpeeled
coarse sea salt
Quantity
1/2 teaspoon, plus more to taste
fresh lime juice
Quantity
2 tablespoons
preferably from Mexican limes
white onion (optional)
Quantity
1 tablespoon
finely chopped
fresh cilantro (optional)
Quantity
1 teaspoon
chopped
| Ingredient | Quantity |
|---|---|
| fresh chile amashitostems removed | 2 tablespoons |
| ripe tomatoes | 2 medium (about 10 ounces total) |
| small garlic cloveunpeeled | 1 |
| coarse sea salt | 1/2 teaspoon, plus more to taste |
| fresh lime juicepreferably from Mexican limes | 2 tablespoons |
| white onion (optional)finely chopped | 1 tablespoon |
| fresh cilantro (optional)chopped | 1 teaspoon |
Equipment Needed
- •Volcanic stone molcajete and tejolote
- •Dry cast iron comal or heavy skillet
- •Small barro negro bowl from Amatenango del Valle or a clay salsa bowl
- •Tongs
Instructions
- 1
Char the tomato
Heat a dry comal over medium. Put the tomatoes and the unpeeled garlic clove on it. Turn them with tongs until the tomato skin blisters and blackens in patches and the garlic softens, about 6 to 8 minutes. The tomato should slump a little but not collapse into water. That char gives the salsa its body.
- 2
Peel the garlic
Remove the garlic from the comal, let it cool just enough to handle, and slip off the papery skin. Do not rinse it. That roasted edge belongs in the salsa. If the clove burned black all the way through, throw it out and roast another. Burned garlic bullies everything.
- 3
Crush the chile
Put the salt and chile amashito in a molcajete. Grind with the tejolote until the chiles burst and stain the salt green. This chile is tiny, but it is not chile piquin. Do not treat it like piquin and do not replace it with a northern chile just because both are small. Cada estado, su propia cocina.
Wear gloves if your hands are sensitive. Amashito heat is direct and persistent, and it will stay under your nails while you pretend you are tougher than the chile. - 4
Grind the base
Add the peeled roasted garlic and grind it into the chile-salt paste. Add the charred tomatoes one at a time, crushing them against the stone until the salsa is rough and juicy, not smooth. A blender makes it thin and polite. This salsa should have texture. No me vengas con atajos.
- 5
Season with lime
Stir in the lime juice. Taste for salt. The salsa should hit first with tomato, then lime, then the clean bite of chile amashito. Add the onion and cilantro only if the table wants them. In many Tabasco kitchens, the chile is enough. Así se hace y punto.
- 6
Serve or hold
Serve in the molcajete or a small barro negro bowl with grilled meat, beans, empanadas, tamales, or pejelagarto when you are in Tabasco and the river has given you the real fish. Let the salsa sit 10 minutes before eating if you can. The salt pulls juice from the tomato and the chile settles into the lime.
Chef Tips
- •Buy chile amashito fresh if you can, green or red, from a vendor who knows the name. If the vendor calls every tiny chile piquin, keep asking. Si no conoces el mercado, no conoces la cocina.
- •If you cannot find chile amashito, you can make a different table salsa with fresh chile piquin or chile chiltepin, but do not call it salsa de chile amashito. A substitution is a compromise, not an upgrade.
- •The tomato is optional in Tabasco homes. With tomato, the salsa is rounder and better for spooning over beans or grilled meat. Without tomato, just chile, salt, and lime, it is sharper and closer to a table condiment for fish.
- •Do not add vinegar. That turns this into a different kind of sauce. The acid here is lime, clean and immediate.
- •For a Tabasco table, serve it with pejelagarto when you have the real alligator gar from the Grijalva and Usumacinta basins. There is no acceptable substitute for pejelagarto, so do not pretend another fish is the same.
Advance Preparation
- •The salsa can be made up to 1 day ahead and refrigerated, but the chile tastes brightest in the first few hours.
- •If making ahead, add the lime when serving. Lime turns dull when it sits too long against tomato and chile.
- •Leftover salsa keeps refrigerated for 2 days. Stir before serving because the tomato water separates. That is normal.
Frequently Asked Questions
Nutrition Information
1 serving (about 32g)
Calories
10 calories
Total Fat
0.1 g
Saturated Fat
0 g
Trans Fat
0 g
Unsaturated Fat
0.1 g
Cholesterol
0 mg
Sodium
145 mg
Total Carbohydrates
2 g
Dietary Fiber
0.5 g
Sugars
1 g
Protein
0.4 g
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