Mesoamerica · Volume 02, Achiote, the Pib and the Lebanese Table
Relleno negro
Yucatán, Mexico
An illustration of the dish, not a photograph of it cooked.
- Time
- Not statedNo source states a time and the atlas has too few comparable dishes to estimate one.
- Reviewed
- Not yet reviewed from inside the tradition
- Cooked
- Not yet cooked and reported
As tradition built it
Relleno negro
Traditionally tied to funerary ritual and, today, to weddings, baptisms and the Hanal Pixán table.
Ingredients
An outline, not yet a recipe: the tradition's method with its ingredients named but not weighed. Quantities are being added from sources inside the tradition, lead dishes first.
- 1 whole chicken (or turkey, or pork), simmered for broth chicken, turkey or pork
- 50 dried chiles (cha’wa or chile país), toasted and ground with allspice, black pepper, cloves and cumin recado negro (toasted chile and spice paste)
- 400g pork, minced, for the but' meatballs
- 2 hard-boiled egg, for the but' meatballs
- further recado, for the but' meatballs
Method
- Simmer the chicken, turkey or pork in a broth built from recado negro.
- Mix minced pork with hard-boiled egg and further recado to make the but' meatball element.
- Poach the but' meatballs in the same broth.
What a modern chef changes
Smoke-toasted recado, sous vide meatballs, chile dust
Method
- Toast the dried chiles for the recado in a Big Green Egg run hot and closed, rather than on a stovetop comal, for a more even, smoke-carried char across the whole batch.
- Poach the but' meatballs sous vide before their final finish in the broth, holding them properly tender rather than risking the tougher result direct simmering can give a delicate egg-bound mixture.
- Grind a portion of the toasted chile separately in the spice grinder into a finishing dust for the plate, putting recado negro's own char back on top of the dish.