Chef Lupita
Asado Chiapaneco de Comitán
Comitán's special-occasion pork asado, cubed pork loin browned in manteca and braised in a thick chile ancho adobo with tomato, vinegar, olives, raisins, and warm spices.
Culinary Explorer
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Zoque Patashete con Pepita
Created by
Chiapas' Zoque patashete, simmered until tender and folded into toasted pumpkin seed sauce with chile simojovel, epazote, and hoja santa, is a budget plate built from milpa logic, not restaurant fashion.
Main Dishes
Mexican
Weeknight
Budget Friendly
Comfort Food
12 hr 20 min
Active Time
2 hr 30 min cook•14 hr 50 min total
Yield6 servings
Chiapas, in the Zoque belt around Tuxtla Gutiérrez, Ocozocoautla, Copainalá, and Tecpatán, is where this dish lives. Not the coast, not the highlands, not a generic Mexican table. This is the cooking of a people who know corn, beans, squash seed, chile, and herbs from the milpa because those ingredients kept families fed long before anyone called plant-based eating modern.
The bean is patashete, an endemic Chiapas legume with a skin and body stronger than a common black bean. You soak it, simmer it with epazote, and give it time. Then comes the pepita: pumpkin seed toasted on a comal until it jumps, ground with chile simojovel, chile guajillo, garlic, onion, and the bean broth itself. The sauce is not decoration. It is the protein, the fat, and the flavor.
A Zoque señora outside Ocozocoautla taught me to watch the pepita, not the clock. She listened for the first little pops on the comal and told me, 'Ya está despertando,' now it is waking up. My mother did not cook patashete in Colonia Roma. She was Jalisciense. But she would have understood the discipline: cook what your region gives you, waste nothing, and don't pretend all Mexican food comes from the same pot. This is a 32-state cuisine.
The Zoque are one of Chiapas's oldest Indigenous peoples, with communities documented in the region before Spanish rule and concentrated today in the central and northwestern parts of the state. Ground pumpkin seed sauces, called pipianes in much of Mexico, come from pre-Columbian milpa cooking, where squash, corn, beans, and chiles were cultivated together and cooked as a complete food system. After the 1982 eruption of El Chichón displaced many Zoque families in northern Chiapas, seed saving and household cooking helped keep regional foods like patashete visible in markets and family kitchens.
The technique, the tradition, and the story behind every dish.
Discover Culinary ExplorerIngredients
dried patashete beans
Quantity
2 cups
picked over and rinsed
water
Quantity
as needed
for soaking
fresh water
Quantity
10 cups, plus more as needed
white onion
Quantity
1 medium
divided
garlic cloves
Quantity
4
divided
fresh epazote
Quantity
2 large sprigs
kosher salt
Quantity
1 1/2 teaspoons, plus more to taste
raw hulled pumpkin seeds (pepitas)
Quantity
1 1/2 cups
dried chile simojovel
Quantity
2
stemmed
dried chile guajillo
Quantity
1
stemmed and seeded
corn oil
Quantity
2 tablespoons
hoja santa (momo) leaf (optional)
Quantity
1 large
center rib removed and leaf torn
hand-pressed corn tortillas (optional)
Quantity
for serving
warmed
| Ingredient | Quantity |
|---|---|
| dried patashete beanspicked over and rinsed | 2 cups |
| waterfor soaking | as needed |
| fresh water | 10 cups, plus more as needed |
| white oniondivided | 1 medium |
| garlic clovesdivided | 4 |
| fresh epazote | 2 large sprigs |
| kosher salt | 1 1/2 teaspoons, plus more to taste |
| raw hulled pumpkin seeds (pepitas) | 1 1/2 cups |
| dried chile simojovelstemmed | 2 |
| dried chile guajillostemmed and seeded | 1 |
| corn oil | 2 tablespoons |
| hoja santa (momo) leaf (optional)center rib removed and leaf torn | 1 large |
| hand-pressed corn tortillas (optional)warmed | for serving |
Equipment Needed
- •Heavy 5-quart pot or pressure cooker for the patashete
- •Cast iron comal or heavy skillet for toasting pepitas and chiles
- •Blender, volcanic stone molcajete, or metate for the pepita sauce
- •Wide clay cazuela for simmering and serving
Instructions
- 1
Soak the patashete
Put the patashete beans in a large bowl and cover with plenty of cool water. Let them soak for 12 hours. Drain and rinse them well. Throw away the soaking water. Patashete is a sturdy Chiapas bean, not a soft canned bean from a supermarket shelf. The soaking softens the skin, helps the bean cook evenly, and removes bitterness. No me vengas con atajos.
- 2
Cook the beans
Place the drained patashete in a heavy pot with 10 cups fresh water, half the onion, 2 garlic cloves, and the epazote. Bring to a boil, then lower to a steady simmer. Cook partially covered for 1 hour, then add the salt. Continue cooking 45 minutes to 1 1/2 hours more, until the beans are tender all the way through but still hold their shape. Add hot water if the level drops below the beans. Save at least 4 cups of the cooking broth.
If your patashete is old, it may need more time. The bean decides, not the clock. Do not serve it firm in the center. - 3
Toast the pepitas
Heat a dry comal or heavy skillet over medium-low. Add the pepitas and toast, stirring constantly, for 5 to 7 minutes. They will puff, jump a little, and turn from flat green to a deeper gold-green. The smell should be nutty, never scorched. Reserve 2 tablespoons for serving and put the rest in a blender.
Taste one raw pepita before you toast. If it tastes rancid, throw the bag away. Bad seed makes bad sauce. Sourcing wins before technique. - 4
Toast the chiles
On the same comal, toast the chile simojovel for 10 to 15 seconds per side and the chile guajillo for about 20 seconds per side. They should darken slightly and smell alive, not blacken. Put them in a bowl and cover with hot water for 10 minutes, then drain. Toast the remaining half onion and 2 garlic cloves on the comal until they have dark spots.
- 5
Blend the pepita sauce
Add the softened chiles, toasted onion, toasted garlic, and 2 cups of bean cooking broth to the blender with the toasted pepitas. Blend until the sauce is very smooth and thick enough to coat a spoon. If the blender struggles, add more bean broth, a few tablespoons at a time. A gritty pepita sauce means you stopped too early. Así se hace y punto.
- 6
Fry the sauce
Heat the corn oil in a wide clay cazuela or heavy pot over medium. Pour in the pepita sauce. It will thicken fast, so stir with a wooden spoon and scrape the bottom. Cook 8 to 10 minutes, until the raw seed smell disappears and the sauce looks glossy from the pepita oil. This dish does not need manteca de cerdo. The fat is already in the seed. Cada estado, su propia cocina.
- 7
Simmer with beans
Add the cooked patashete beans and 1 1/2 to 2 cups of their broth to the cazuela. Stir gently so you do not break the beans. Add the torn hoja santa if using. Simmer 15 to 20 minutes, until the sauce hugs the beans and pools thickly at the edge of the spoon. Taste for salt. The flavor should be earthy, nutty, and rounded by chile, not sharp.
- 8
Rest and serve
Turn off the heat and let the patashete rest for 10 minutes. Pepita sauce thickens as it sits. Spoon it into a clay bowl or serve it straight from the cazuela with the reserved toasted pepitas scattered over the top. Put warm hand-pressed corn tortillas on the table. No cheese, no crema, no lettuce pile. This is a Zoque plate. Saber cocinar es saber vivir.
Chef Tips
- •Look for patashete in Chiapas markets, especially around Tuxtla Gutiérrez, Ocozocoautla, Copainalá, and Zoque community stalls. Ask for frijol patashete by name. If the vendor does not know it, you are in the wrong stall.
- •Outside Chiapas, use ayocote blanco or a large dried lima bean only if you must. It will cook into a good bean with pepita, but it will not be patashete. A substitution is a compromise, not an upgrade.
- •Chile simojovel gives a Chiapas signal: dry heat, a little smoke, and a clean finish. If you cannot find it, use 1 dried chile de árbol plus the guajillo already in the recipe. You will get heat, but not the same regional flavor.
- •Use raw hulled pepitas, not salted snack pepitas. Toast them yourself. The moment you outsource the toasting to a factory bag, you lose control of the sauce.
- •Hoja santa is called momo in many Chiapas kitchens. If you cannot find it, omit it. Do not replace it with basil. Basil belongs somewhere else.
Advance Preparation
- •The patashete can be soaked and cooked up to 3 days ahead. Refrigerate the beans in their broth so they do not dry out.
- •The pepita sauce can be blended 1 day ahead and refrigerated. Fry it in the cazuela only when you are ready to finish the dish.
- •Leftovers keep 3 days refrigerated. Reheat gently with a splash of bean broth or water because pepita thickens as it rests.
Frequently Asked Questions
Nutrition Information
1 serving (about 450g)
Calories
580 calories
Total Fat
22 g
Saturated Fat
4 g
Trans Fat
0 g
Unsaturated Fat
19 g
Cholesterol
0 mg
Sodium
700 mg
Total Carbohydrates
74 g
Dietary Fiber
23 g
Sugars
3 g
Protein
28 g
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