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Papadzules
Yucatán tortillas filled with egg in pumpkin-seed sauce, with tomato salsa (papadzules)
Papadzules may be the oldest dish still eaten in the Yucatán: Maya cooks were rolling tortillas in ground squash seeds long before the Spanish brought chickens and their eggs. Today they are a lunch and Lent dish in Mérida, Valladolid and Campeche. Corn tortillas are dipped in a pale green sauce of toasted pumpkin seeds and epazote, rolled around chopped hard-boiled egg, then topped with a cooked habanero-tomato sauce and a few drops of green pumpkin-seed oil squeezed from the paste. The flavours are nutty, herbal and gently hot. Chef's tip: keep the seed sauce warm, never boiling; heat makes it split and turn grainy, and the oil that separates is meant to be drizzled on top, not stirred back in.
- Total time
- 55 min
- Difficulty
- medium
- Serves
- 4
Ingredients
For the tomato sauce
For the pumpkin-seed sauce
To assemble
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What you'll need
Fresh ingredients (4)
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Method
0/7 doneStep 1: Hard-boil 6 eggs for 10 minutes, cool in cold water, peel and chop finely.
12 minStep 2: Blend 4 ripe tomatoes and ½ white onion until smooth. Heat 1 tbsp vegetable oil in a small pan over a medium heat, add the purée, 1 habanero chilli and ½ tsp salt and simmer for 10 minutes, until it thickens and darkens slightly. Remove the habanero.
12 minStep 3: Toast 7 oz shelled green pumpkin seeds (pepitas) in a dry frying pan over a medium heat, stirring all the time, for 4–5 minutes, until they puff, pop and smell nutty but are still green, not brown.
5 minStep 4: Simmer 3 epazote sprigs in 2 cups water for 5 minutes. Blend the seeds with the hot epazote water and ¾ tsp salt until it is a smooth, pourable sauce like single cream.
6 minStep 5: Pour the sauce into a wide pan over a very low heat. If a little green oil rises, spoon it into a cup and keep it for the end. Common mistake: letting the sauce boil; it curdles into a gritty mass. If it thickens too much, loosen with warm water.
Step 6: Dip one of 12 corn tortillas into the seed sauce to coat, put 2 tablespoons of egg along the middle and roll up. Lay seam-down on a warm plate. Repeat with the rest, three per plate.
Step 7: Spoon more seed sauce over, then a line of the tomato sauce, and drizzle with the saved green oil. Serve at once.
Nutrition per serving
- Calories
- 560 kcal
- Protein
- 27 g
- Carbs
- 42 g
- Fat
- 33 g
- Fibre
- 7 g
Nutrition values are estimates.
KrazyBadal
Good to know
- How long does papadzules take?
- About 55 minutes in total: 25 minutes to prepare and 30 minutes to cook.
- How many people does it serve?
- 4 as written. Change the servings above the ingredients and every amount scales to match.
- Is it vegetarian?
- Yes. It has no meat or fish.
- Is it gluten free?
- Yes, as written. Check the labels on stock, sauces and spice mixes, which sometimes contain gluten.
- What can I use instead of ripe tomatoes?
- Tinned chopped tomatoes: a 400g tin for about 6 tomatoes (in cooked dishes, not salads).
- What can I use instead of white onion?
- 2 shallots per onion.
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