Relleno negro is from the Yucatan Peninsula, and in Quintana Roo it turns up wherever a lot of people need feeding at once. It is the dish of the novenario, the nine nights of prayer after a death, and it is also the dish of weddings, baptisms, and village fiestas. The same pot serves grief and celebration, which is not a contradiction here so much as a matter of practicality: one turkey, one large cauldron, a great deal of black broth, and tortillas to go round. During Hanal Pixan at the start of November it appears again, sometimes cooked in the pib, sometimes just on the stove.
The black comes from recado negro, also called chilmole, a paste of dried chiles burnt until they are genuinely charred, then ground with black pepper, cumin, cloves, allspice, oregano and garlic. Burning chiles to charcoal on purpose is what surprises people. It fills a kitchen with smoke that will empty the house, which is why it is done outdoors on a comal or over a wood fire, and why most cooks in Tulum buy the paste in a brick from the market and get on with the rest.
The turkey is stuffed, and the stuffing is the second half of the dish. Ground pork seasoned with the same recado, mixed with chopped hard-boiled egg, with whole boiled eggs set into the middle so that each slice shows a yellow circle. In Maya, the stuffing is called but. In a home kitchen, it is easier to shape it into a loaf, wrap it in banana leaf, and poach it in the broth alongside the meat rather than wrestle a whole bird.
Done properly, the broth is thick enough to coat a spoon, deeply savory, smoky, with a bitter edge that sits behind everything rather than on top of it. What goes wrong is nearly always one of two things. Too much paste, and the bitterness takes over and cannot be rescued. Or the burnt chiles are not soaked and rinsed before grinding, which leaves the same problem by a different route. Add the recado in stages and taste. It should read as smoke and spice first, bitter last.
It is not a mole, whatever the color suggests, and there is no chocolate, no nuts, and no sweetness in it. Eat it in a deep bowl with a piece of turkey, a slice of stuffing, a wedge of hard-boiled egg, pickled red onion, habanero, and sour orange on the side, and a stack of tortillas to keep working through until the broth is gone.
Ingredients
33 items · for 8For the recado negro, if making it from scratch
- 20 dried chiles secos yucatecos, about 60 g (or 14 guajillo plus 6 chiles de arbol)
- 1 head garlic, unpeeled, cloves separated
- 1 tablespoon black peppercorns
- 1 teaspoon cumin seed
- 6 whole cloves
- 8 allspice berries
- 1 tablespoon dried Mexican oregano
- 2 teaspoons fine sea salt
- 3 tablespoons sour orange juice (or 2 tablespoons lime juice plus 1 tablespoon orange juice)
For the turkey and broth
- 2.5 kg turkey pieces: legs, thighs and breast, skin on, bone in
- 180 to 200 g recado negro paste, shop bought or from above
- 1 large white onion, halved
- 1 head garlic, halved crosswise
- 2 ripe tomatoes
- 1 green bell pepper or 2 chiles x'catik
- 1 large bunch epazote, about 20 g
- 3.5 litres water (14 cups)
- 150 g fresh nixtamalized corn masa (or 100 g masa harina mixed with 200 ml water)
- 2 tablespoons sour orange juice
- Fine sea salt
For the but, the pork and egg stuffing
- 800 g ground pork, not too lean
- 10 eggs
- 1 tablespoon recado negro paste, taken from the amount above
- 4 garlic cloves, finely chopped
- 1 small white onion, finely chopped
- 1 teaspoon dried Mexican oregano
- 1 teaspoon fine sea salt
- 1/2 teaspoon black pepper, freshly ground
- 2 large pieces banana leaf, about 40 cm each, plus kitchen string
To serve
- Corn tortillas, 4 or 5 per person
- 1 red onion, thinly sliced and pickled in sour orange juice and salt
- 2 habaneros, roasted and chopped, or a bowl of chile tamulado
- Sour orange or lime wedges
Step by step
8 stepsBurn the chillies
Skip this step if you are using shop bought paste. Work outdoors or under a strong extractor, because the smoke is fierce. Set a comal or heavy dry pan over high heat and press the whole chillies onto it, turning, until they are black and brittle all through, not merely toasted. Toast the unpeeled garlic cloves alongside until soft and blistered. Put the burnt chillies in a bowl, cover with boiling water and leave 20 minutes, then drain, rinse under cold water and squeeze dry. Discard the soaking water, which carries most of the harsh bitterness.
Grind the recado
Grind the peppercorns, cumin, cloves, allspice and oregano to a powder in a spice grinder. Peel the toasted garlic. Blend the drained chillies, spices, garlic, salt and sour orange juice to a stiff, smooth, near black paste, adding water a spoonful at a time only if the blender stalls. It should hold its shape on a spoon and smell of smoke and clove. This keeps three weeks in the fridge and freezes well.
Boil and set the eggs
Hard boil 8 of the eggs, 10 minutes from a rolling boil, then cool in cold water and peel. Set 4 aside whole for the stuffing and 4 for serving. Chop 2 of the serving eggs roughly if you want them mixed through the but as well, which is the usual habit.
Start the turkey
Rub the turkey pieces with salt. Put them in a large stockpot with the water, halved onion, halved garlic head, whole tomatoes, the pepper and half the epazote. Bring to a boil, skim the grey foam off the top for the first ten minutes, then lower to a steady simmer, cover partly and cook 60 to 75 minutes, until the meat is tender but still holding to the bone. Lift the turkey out onto a tray. Strain the broth and discard the vegetables, or blend the tomato and pepper back in if you like a fuller body.
Mix and wrap the but
Mix the ground pork with the chopped onion, garlic, 1 tablespoon of the recado, oregano, salt, pepper, the 2 remaining raw eggs and any chopped hard boiled egg. It should be soft but hold together when pressed. Pass the banana leaves briefly over a flame or hot comal until they turn glossy and pliable. Spread half the pork on a leaf in a rectangle about 3 cm thick, lay the 4 whole boiled eggs down the centre in a line, then bring the pork up over them to enclose. Roll the leaf into a tight parcel, fold the ends under and tie with string in two or three places.
Dissolve the recado
Ladle about 500 ml of the hot broth into a bowl. Whisk in 150 g of the recado paste and the masa until completely smooth, with no lumps of either. Pass it through a sieve back into the pot, pressing with a ladle. Bring the pot to a simmer, stirring, and it will turn black and thicken slightly. Taste. Add more recado, dissolved the same way, until the broth is strongly smoky and savoury with only a trace of bitterness at the back. Season with salt and the sour orange juice.
Simmer everything together
Return the turkey to the pot and lower in the wrapped but. Add the rest of the epazote. Simmer gently, uncovered, 45 to 60 minutes. The broth should reduce to the thickness of single cream and coat the back of a spoon, and the parcel should feel firm when pressed. Stir now and then, from the bottom, because the masa will settle and catch.
Rest, slice and serve
Lift out the but and let it sit 10 minutes before you cut the string and unwrap it. Cut it into 2 cm slices, which should show the whole eggs in cross section. Serve each bowl with a piece of turkey, a slice or two of the but, a wedge of hard boiled egg and plenty of black broth poured over. Pickled onion, habanero, sour orange and a tall stack of tortillas on the table.
Notes from the kitchen
- Recado negro is sold in bricks in every market in the peninsula and by weight online elsewhere, often labelled chilmole. It is the shortcut most households take and no one will hold it against you. Burning your own chillies is worth doing once so you know what the flavour is made of.
- Without banana leaf, wrap the but tightly in a double layer of parchment and then foil, or shape the pork into large balls and poach them straight in the broth for 30 minutes. The flavour is very slightly flatter but the dish works.
- Chicken stands in for turkey. Use 2 kg of thighs and drumsticks and cut the first simmer to 35 minutes, since chicken will fall apart in the second cooking otherwise.
- It keeps four days in the fridge and improves on the second, thickening as it sits. Loosen with water or broth when reheating. Leftover meat and broth are the standard filling for relleno negro tamales.
This is the standard peninsular household version, scaled down from the fiesta pot to a large stockpot, with the stuffing wrapped as a loaf rather than sewn into a whole turkey.
This photograph was generated with artificial intelligence and may differ from the finished dish.