Chintextle Oaxaqueño

Ingredients

Equipment Needed

• •Cast iron comal or heavy skillet for toasting
• •Metate (volcanic stone grinding slab) - or a heavy basalt molcajete as a second choice
• •Wide clay or ceramic mixing bowl
• •Clean glass jar with tight-fitting lid for storage
• •Small pan for melting the manteca

Instructions

1. 1

   Know your chile

   The chile pasilla oaxaqueño is not the chile pasilla you find in most US markets. It is grown and smoke-dried over wood in the Sierra Mixe and Sierra Norte of Oaxaca. The skin is wrinkled, the color is deep mahogany with red highlights, and when you smell it, you should smell wood smoke before you smell anything else. If your chile smells like a regular dried chile, you have the wrong one. Find a Oaxacan vendor or a serious importer. No me vengas con atajos.

2. 2

   Toast the chiles lightly

   Heat a dry comal over medium-low. Open the chiles flat with your hands. Toast them in batches, pressing each one down with a spatula for about ten seconds per side. You are warming them, not toasting them dark. They are already smoked. If you toast them hard, the smoke turns to soot and the chintextle goes bitter. The chile should soften and release its smoke perfume. That is enough.

   If even one chile turns black on the edge, throw it out. Bitter chile is bitter chintextle and there is no fixing it later.
3. 3

   Soak briefly

   Place the warmed chiles in a bowl and cover with hot tap water, not boiling. Let them soften for ten to twelve minutes, no longer. Chintextle is a paste, not a salsa. Too much water and you have something else. Drain the chiles and reserve a few tablespoons of the soaking water. Press the chiles between your hands to squeeze out as much water as you can.

4. 4

   Toast the garlic, shrimp, and avocado leaves

   Return the comal to medium heat. Toast the unpeeled garlic cloves, turning often, until the skins blister and the cloves soften, about six minutes. Set aside and peel once cool enough to handle. Toast the dried shrimp in a single layer for two minutes, shaking the pan, until the shells go orange-pink and the kitchen smells like the coast. Last, pass the avocado leaves over the comal for ten seconds per side, until the oils release and you can smell the anise. Watch them. They go from fragrant to ash in seconds.

5. 5

   Grind on the metate

   If you have a metate, this is the moment it earns its keep. Grind the avocado leaves first to a coarse green dust. Add the dried shrimp and grind until they break down into a fibrous powder, shells and all. Add the toasted garlic and the salt and work them in. Finally, add the drained chiles a handful at a time, grinding each batch into the paste before adding the next. The metate gives you a chintextle with texture, with grit, with the fingerprint of the cook. This is how the senoras of the Sierra Mixe have made it for generations.

   If you do not have a metate, a heavy molcajete will get you most of the way. A food processor is the last resort, and you must pulse, never run it continuously. Continuous blades whip air into the paste and turn it into something soft and bland. Chintextle wants resistance.
6. 6

   Bind with manteca

   Scrape the paste into a bowl. Warm the manteca in a small pan until just melted, then stir it into the paste a tablespoon at a time until you have a thick, spreadable consistency, like a dense miso. La manteca es el sabor and the manteca is also the preservative. The fat coats the chile and the shrimp and is what lets chintextle keep for weeks. If the paste is too tight, add a teaspoon of the reserved chile soaking water. No more. Taste for salt now. The shrimp and the chile both bring salt of their own. The salt you add should sharpen, not dominate.

7. 7

   Cure and store

   Pack the chintextle into a clean glass jar, pressing it down to remove air pockets. Smooth the surface and pour a thin layer of melted manteca over the top to seal it. Cover and let it sit at room temperature for at least four hours before using. The flavors marry overnight. Refrigerated and properly sealed under fat, chintextle keeps for a month or longer. This is travel food. Sierra Mixe shepherds and traders have carried it on the road for centuries because it does not spoil and a single spoonful turns a tortilla into a meal. Asi se hace y punto.

Chef Tips

• •The chile pasilla oaxaqueño is the recipe. There is no real substitute. Chipotle morita comes closest in smoke and color but it is not the same chile and the result is not chintextle, it is a smoky chile paste. If you cannot source the real one, wait until you can. This dish keeps for a month. It is worth the wait.
• •Use small dried shrimp with the heads and shells still on. The shells carry most of the flavor and they grind down to a fine powder on the metate. The peeled, washed dried shrimp sold in some supermarkets has been stripped of what makes it useful here.
• •Manteca de cerdo from a Mexican carniceria is darker and more flavorful than the white block lard at the supermarket. Render your own from pork fat trimmings if you can. The chintextle will taste of the pork and that is the point. La manteca es el sabor.
• •Spread chintextle on a tlayuda before adding the asiento, beans, quesillo, and tasajo. That is how it is eaten in Oaxaca. It also belongs on a hard-boiled egg, inside a quesadilla with quesillo, stirred into black beans, or spread on a hot corn tortilla with nothing else. The senoras of the sierra eat it that way when there is nothing else, and that is enough.

Advance Preparation

• •Chintextle is itself a make-ahead preparation. Sealed under a layer of manteca and refrigerated, it keeps for at least one month and the flavor only deepens.
• •The flavor at twenty-four hours is good. The flavor at one week is better. The smoke and the avocado leaf and the shrimp need time to marry, and there is no rushing it.
• •Bring the jar to room temperature before serving so the manteca softens and the paste spreads. Cold chintextle straight from the refrigerator is too tight to work with.

Frequently Asked Questions

Nutrition Information

1 serving (about 26g)