So the other day I was talking to a guy who grew up and spent most of his life in Mexico City. The conversation got around to food, and he was describing popular Mexican dishes. His English was pretty bad, and was using Spanish for the descriptions. Since my Spanish sucks, the conversation was slow, at best.
Something he mentioned is very popular is something that sounded like ‘ashote’ or ‘ashoté’. He described it as a seed/grain that is used in a lot of native cooking. I tried to get a better description but the language barrier prevented me from understanding much more than ‘little seeds’. I asked if they were peppers or pepper seeds, and he said no, it was something different.
So, anyone know what ‘ashoté’ might be? He did mention (I think) they use it in pork dishes a lot.
Achiote, or annatto seeds, are what you are looking for. Used alot in the cooking of the Yucatan.
ETA: This is the achiote paste you are most likely to find in well-stocked groceries with Hispanic foods. Here are the ground seeds. And here are the whole seeds. It is also used to give foods a yellow/orange color. For example, yellow cheddars use annatto for their coloring. The flavor of the seeds themselves are unique and quite earthy.
It’s wonderful on pork, especially in the preparation known as cochinita pibil. Here’s a recipe. The achiote marinade/paste also works really well on grilled shrimp and chicken. ETA: Here’s a shrimp recipe.
P.S. If you care about eating artificial additives and preservatives, you may want to go for the whole achiote seeds (which are normally prepped by infusing in hot oil). Many of the other preparations have MSG, preservatives, etc.
The El Yucateco brand paste that I normally use only has sodium benzoate as a preservative. It is, however, already flavored with garlic, spices, and so forth, so if you see a recipe asking specifically for achiote seeds, you should use the whole seeds or the powder (depending on what the recipe prep has you do with the achiote.) The commonly found El Mexicano brand is similar, with the addition of FDC #40. I personally have never noticed MSG in the achiote pastes, but I normally only use those two brands.
Achiote oil gets spread on the banana leaves and inside with the meat. I’ll tell you the truth, in the US most everybody uses wax paper and not banana leaves.
It helps to know Spanish spelling rules.
