Chef Lupita
Animalitos de Yema Comitecos
Comitán's pan de yema shaped into little pigs, birds, and rabbits, a Chiapas bakery bread rich with egg yolks, manteca de cerdo, and anís, baked golden on hoja de plátano.
Culinary Explorer
A cooking platform built around craft, culture, and the stories behind what we eat.
Tortillas Comitecas con Asiento
Created by
Comitán's highland Chiapas tortilla, hand-pressed from fresh nixtamal masa and finished hot with asiento, the dark pork-lard sediment that melts into corn and makes weeknight food serious.
Breads
Mexican
Weeknight
Comfort Food
25 min
Active Time
1 hr 5 min cook•1 hr 30 min total
Yield10 to 12 tortillas
Chiapas, in the Meseta Comiteca around Comitán de Domínguez, is where this tortilla belongs. The town sits near the Guatemalan border, in highland corn country, with Tojolabal villages close enough that market days carry more knowledge than most cookbooks. This is not a northern flour tortilla. It is fresh nixtamal masa, a comal, and asiento.
Asiento is the dark, fragrant sediment at the bottom of rendered manteca de cerdo. Not clean white lard. Not bacon grease. Asiento. The little browned pork particles and corn-colored fat carry more flavor than a pile of toppings. In Comitán, I watched women keep it in a small clay cazuelita at the side of the comal, spooning it onto tortillas while the surface was still open and hot.
The trick is restraint: enough asiento to perfume the tortilla, not so much that you lose the corn. The tortilla should puff, freckle, and stay tender. Fold it, tuck it into a servilleta, eat it with black beans or a spoonful of chile simojovel salsa if the table wants heat. Cada estado, su propia cocina. This one is Chiapas.
Comitán de Domínguez sits on the Meseta Comiteca Tojolabal of Chiapas, a maize region shaped by Maya Tojolabal communities and by trade routes to Guatemala. Pork fat entered the local kitchen after pigs arrived with the Spanish in the 16th century, and home cooks learned to save asiento, the browned sediment left from rendering manteca, because it stretched flavor across a stack of tortillas. Oaxaca is better known nationally for asiento because of tlayudas, but the Comiteco tortilla is smaller, soft, and eaten from the tortillero, not a northern flour tortilla and not an Oaxacan giant.
The technique, the tradition, and the story behind every dish.
Discover Culinary ExplorerIngredients
pork back fat or pork fat trimmings with a little meat attached
Quantity
1 pound, or 1/2 cup prepared asiento
cut into 1-inch pieces if rendering
water
Quantity
1/4 cup
for rendering
fine sea salt
Quantity
1 teaspoon, divided
fresh nixtamalized white corn masa
Quantity
1 1/2 pounds
warm water
Quantity
1/3 to 1/2 cup
as needed for softening the masa
salsa de chile simojovel (optional)
Quantity
for serving
made with roasted tomatillo and garlic
frijoles negros de olla (optional)
Quantity
for serving
| Ingredient | Quantity |
|---|---|
| pork back fat or pork fat trimmings with a little meat attachedcut into 1-inch pieces if rendering | 1 pound, or 1/2 cup prepared asiento |
| waterfor rendering | 1/4 cup |
| fine sea salt | 1 teaspoon, divided |
| fresh nixtamalized white corn masa | 1 1/2 pounds |
| warm wateras needed for softening the masa | 1/3 to 1/2 cup |
| salsa de chile simojovel (optional)made with roasted tomatillo and garlic | for serving |
| frijoles negros de olla (optional) | for serving |
Equipment Needed
- •Cast iron comal or well-seasoned clay comal
- •Tortilla press lined with two sheets of plastic
- •Heavy small cazuela or saucepan for rendering manteca
- •Woven cotton servilleta and tortillero
Instructions
- 1
Render the pork fat
Put the pork fat in a heavy small cazuela or saucepan with the 1/4 cup water. Cook over medium-low heat, stirring every few minutes, until the water cooks off, clear manteca pools in the pan, and the small pork bits turn golden brown, 35 to 45 minutes. Do not rush this. If the heat is high, the sediment scorches before the fat renders and your asiento will taste bitter. If you bought prepared asiento from a carnicería, warm 1/2 cup gently in a small cazuela and begin at step 3.
- 2
Gather the asiento
Strain the clear lard into a heatproof jar and save it. That is good manteca for beans. Do not wash the pan. Scrape up the dark brown paste from the bottom and spoon any browned pork crumbs from the strainer back into it. Stir in 1/2 teaspoon salt and loosen with 1 or 2 tablespoons of the warm rendered lard until spoonable. This dark, salty, roasted sediment is the asiento.
Brown is right. Black is burned. If the sediment smells acrid instead of nutty and porky, throw it out. No me vengas con atajos. - 3
Knead the masa
Put the fresh nixtamal masa in a bowl. Sprinkle in the remaining 1/2 teaspoon salt. Knead with your hand, adding warm water 1 tablespoon at a time, until the masa feels soft and pliable, like the lobe of your ear. Press a little between your palms. If the edges crack, it is dry. If it sticks heavily, it is too wet. The tortilla puff begins here, before the comal ever sees it.
- 4
Press the tortillas
Divide the masa into 10 to 12 balls, about 2 ounces each. Keep them covered with a damp cloth. Line a tortilla press with two pieces of plastic and press each ball into a 5 to 5 1/2 inch round, a little thicker than a supermarket tortilla. Uneven edges are fine. Machine-perfect circles are not the goal. Tender corn is the goal.
- 5
Cook on the comal
Heat a dry comal over medium-high heat. Lay one tortilla down and cook until the edges look dry and the underside has pale freckles, about 30 seconds. Flip and cook the second side for 45 seconds. Flip once more and press gently near the edges with a folded cloth or spatula. The tortilla should puff in places and smell deeply of corn. That puff tells you the masa, moisture, and heat are working together.
- 6
Finish with asiento
As soon as the tortilla comes off the comal, spread 1 to 1 1/2 teaspoons warm asiento over one side with the back of a spoon. Work quickly while the surface is still hot and open. The asiento should melt into the pores of the corn, leaving dark glossy streaks, not a greasy puddle. Fold the tortilla in half or quarters and tuck it into a servilleta-lined tortillero while you cook the rest.
Do not cook the asiento hard on the comal after spreading it. You are finishing the tortilla, not frying it. Too much heat turns the pork solids harsh. - 7
Serve from the tortillero
Serve the tortillas warm, straight from the tortillero, with frijoles negros de olla if you want a full weeknight table. If you put salsa out, make it with chile simojovel, roasted tomatillo, garlic, and salt. The tortilla itself is not a chile dish. The asiento is the point. Así se hace y punto.
Chef Tips
- •At a Mexican carnicería, ask for asiento or boronas de manteca. If they hand you clean white lard, that is not asiento. White lard gives fat. Asiento gives fat, browned pork, salt, and memory.
- •Fresh nixtamal masa from a tortillería or mercado is the first choice. Masa harina will work when you have no mercado nearby, but it is a compromise, not an upgrade. Hydrate it well and let it rest 20 minutes before pressing.
- •The tortilla should taste first of corn, then of pork. If you bury it under cheese, crema, lettuce, or bottled sauce, you missed the lesson. This is Chiapas, not a plate built for a photograph.
- •If you do not eat pork, do not fake asiento with oil. Make tortillas with frijol colado or look to chinculguajes from the Chiapas highlands. Mexican cuisine has choices. It does not need bad substitutions.
Advance Preparation
- •Asiento can be made up to 1 week ahead. Keep it refrigerated with a little rendered lard over the top, then warm gently and stir before using.
- •Fresh masa is best the day it is bought. If you must hold it, wrap tightly, refrigerate up to 24 hours, then bring to room temperature and knead in warm water before pressing.
- •Cooked tortillas con asiento are best fresh. To revive leftovers, warm them briefly on a dry comal and touch them with a little more warm asiento.
Frequently Asked Questions
Nutrition Information
1 serving (about 70g)
Calories
220 calories
Total Fat
11 g
Saturated Fat
4 g
Trans Fat
0 g
Unsaturated Fat
7 g
Cholesterol
10 mg
Sodium
240 mg
Total Carbohydrates
28 g
Dietary Fiber
4 g
Sugars
1 g
Protein
4 g
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