Feiper Cocina · From the Valles Centrales to your stove

Oaxacan Cooking Without Vegetable Oil

Tasajo seared over high heat, memelas brushed with asiento, chocolate whisked with cinnamon. We cook the way Oaxacan kitchens always have: with lard, butter and olive oil, and not a drop of seed oil.

See the Recipes
Scroll

How this kitchen works

Three rules we never break

Oaxacan food built its reputation long before refined seed oils existed. These recipes stay loyal to that older, simpler pantry.

  • Asiento Lard comes first

    The toasty pork fat left at the bottom of the pot is a seasoning in its own right in Oaxaca. Beans, memelas and tacos all begin with good lard, tallow or butter, fats that brown instead of burn.

  • El Comal Dry heat does the work

    Chiles, tomatoes, garlic and tortillas are toasted naked on a hot comal. No oil slick, no frying basket. Char and smoke build the flavor that defines this cuisine.

  • Ni Una Gota Never vegetable oil

    Not one drop of soybean, canola, corn or sunflower oil appears in any recipe on this site. Where a dish needs fat, we reach for butter, ghee, lard, tallow, olive oil or coconut oil.

Six dishes, one pantry

The recipes

A short, honest collection from the Oaxacan table: markets, coast and milpa. Open a recipe to see every ingredient and step.

Grilled beef tacos on corn tortillas with lime and salsa

Thin sheets of salted beef seared hard and fast, the way the smoky grill halls of Oaxaca City do it, then folded into warm corn tortillas with charred spring onion and avocado.

35 minServes 4Easy

Ingredients

  • 1 1/2 lb flank or sirloin, sliced very thin
  • 2 tsp coarse salt
  • 1 tbsp beef tallow or pork lard
  • 12 corn tortillas
  • 6 spring onions, trimmed
  • 2 limes, quartered
  • 1 ripe avocado, sliced
  • 2 plum tomatoes
  • 2 dried chiles de arbol
  • 1 garlic clove
  • Small handful of cilantro

Method

  1. Season the beef sheets evenly with the coarse salt and let them rest at room temperature for 20 minutes while you prepare everything else.
  2. Toast the tomatoes, chiles and garlic on a dry comal or cast iron pan until blistered, then crush them into a rough salsa with a pinch of salt.
  3. Melt the tallow on the same pan over high heat and cook the spring onions until deeply browned. Set aside.
  4. Sear the beef in batches, about 90 seconds per side, so each sheet chars at the edges but stays juicy inside.
  5. Rest the meat for 3 minutes, then slice it against the grain into ribbons.
  6. Warm the tortillas on the comal, load them with tasajo, onions, avocado and salsa, and finish with cilantro and a squeeze of lime.
Shrimp tacos with avocado salsa on corn tortillas

On the Oaxacan coast, shrimp meet garlic and good butter, not a deep fryer. A quick avocado salsa keeps everything bright.

25 minServes 4Easy

Ingredients

  • 1 lb shrimp, peeled and deveined
  • 3 tbsp unsalted butter
  • 3 garlic cloves, minced
  • 1 tsp smoked chile powder
  • 8 corn tortillas
  • 1 ripe avocado
  • 1 small serrano chile
  • Juice of 1 lime
  • 2 cups finely shredded cabbage
  • Cilantro and salt

Method

  1. Mash the avocado with the serrano, half the lime juice and a pinch of salt into a loose, spoonable salsa.
  2. Toss the cabbage with the remaining lime juice and a little salt so it softens slightly while you cook.
  3. Pat the shrimp very dry and season them with salt and the smoked chile powder.
  4. Melt the butter in a wide skillet over medium high heat, add the garlic for 30 seconds, then the shrimp in a single layer.
  5. Cook about 2 minutes per side, just until the shrimp curl and turn pink, and pull the pan off the heat.
  6. Warm the tortillas, spread each with avocado salsa, then pile on cabbage and shrimp with all the garlic butter from the pan.
Open faced corn masa rounds with toppings on a wooden board

Toasted masa rounds with a pinched rim, brushed with fat, spread with black bean paste and draped with cheese. The breakfast of every Oaxacan market.

40 minMakes 8Medium

Ingredients

  • 2 cups masa harina
  • 1 1/4 cups warm water
  • 1/2 tsp fine salt
  • 3 tbsp pork lard or butter, softened
  • 1 1/2 cups cooked black beans
  • 1 garlic clove
  • 1 pinch of anise seed
  • 6 oz quesillo or mozzarella, shredded
  • 1/2 cup crumbled queso fresco
  • Salsa verde, to serve

Method

  1. Knead the masa harina, warm water and salt into a soft dough that holds together without cracking. Rest it 10 minutes under a damp towel.
  2. Warm 1 tablespoon of the lard in a small pan, add the garlic and anise, then mash in the black beans with a splash of water until spreadable.
  3. Divide the dough into 8 balls and press each into a thick round, slightly smaller than your palm is wide.
  4. Cook the rounds on a hot dry comal about 2 minutes per side, until speckled and set.
  5. While each round is still hot, pinch a low rim around the edge with your fingertips.
  6. Brush the tops with the remaining lard, spread on the bean paste and scatter both cheeses.
  7. Return the memelas to the comal for a minute so the cheese slumps, then finish with salsa verde.
Rustic vegetable soup in an enamel pot on a wooden board

Everything the milpa gives in one pot: corn, zucchini, tomato and poblano in a gentle broth perfumed with epazote. Butter carries the vegetables instead of oil.

45 minServes 6Easy

Ingredients

  • 2 tbsp butter or pork lard
  • 1 white onion, chopped
  • 2 garlic cloves, minced
  • 2 ripe tomatoes, diced
  • Kernels from 2 ears of corn
  • 2 zucchini, in half moons
  • 1 poblano chile, roasted and cut in strips
  • 6 cups chicken or vegetable broth
  • 1 sprig epazote or Mexican oregano
  • Salt and lime, to finish

Method

  1. Melt the butter in a soup pot over medium heat and cook the onion until translucent, about 5 minutes.
  2. Add the garlic and tomatoes and cook until the tomato breaks down into a soft base.
  3. Stir in the corn, zucchini and poblano strips and let them take on a little color.
  4. Pour in the broth, add the epazote and bring everything to a gentle simmer.
  5. Cook 15 minutes, until the zucchini is tender but not falling apart, and season with salt.
  6. Serve hot with a squeeze of lime in every bowl.
Basket of golden freshly baked bread loaves

Oaxaca's tender egg yolk bread, faintly sweet and scented with anise. Made for tearing and dunking into hot chocolate.

3 hr 30 minMakes 2 loavesAdvanced

Ingredients

  • 4 cups all purpose flour
  • 2 1/4 tsp active dry yeast
  • 1/2 cup whole milk, warm
  • 1/3 cup sugar
  • 6 egg yolks
  • 2 whole eggs
  • 1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened
  • 1 tsp anise seeds
  • 3/4 tsp salt
  • 1 extra yolk and sesame seeds, for the top

Method

  1. Dissolve the yeast in the warm milk with a spoonful of the sugar and let it foam for 10 minutes.
  2. Mix the flour, remaining sugar, anise and salt, then work in the yolks, whole eggs and yeast mixture until a shaggy dough forms.
  3. Knead in the softened butter a little at a time, then continue kneading about 10 minutes until the dough is smooth and elastic.
  4. Cover and let it rise in a warm spot until doubled, roughly 1 1/2 hours.
  5. Divide the dough in two, shape into tight rounds and set them on a lined baking sheet for a second rise of 45 minutes.
  6. Brush the loaves with beaten yolk and scatter sesame seeds over the tops.
  7. Bake at 350 F for 25 to 30 minutes, until deeply golden and hollow sounding underneath. Cool before slicing.
Rustic chocolate pieces with almonds and cinnamon sticks

The thick, warming cousin of hot chocolate: stone ground chocolate with cinnamon and almonds, whisked into milk thickened with masa. Dessert in a clay mug.

25 minServes 4Easy

Ingredients

  • 3 cups whole milk
  • 1 cup water
  • 1/4 cup masa harina
  • 3 oz Mexican chocolate with cinnamon and almonds
  • 2 oz piloncillo or 1/4 cup brown sugar
  • 1 cinnamon stick
  • 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
  • 1 small pinch of salt
  • 1 tsp butter, to finish
  • Ground canela, for dusting

Method

  1. Whisk the masa harina into the cup of water until completely smooth, with no lumps at all.
  2. Warm the milk with the cinnamon stick, piloncillo and salt in a heavy pot over medium heat until the sugar dissolves.
  3. Add the chocolate and whisk until it melts into the milk.
  4. Pour in the masa slurry in a thin stream, whisking constantly so the atole thickens without clumping.
  5. Simmer gently 8 to 10 minutes, whisking often, until it coats a spoon like thin custard.
  6. Take out the cinnamon stick, stir in the vanilla and butter, and serve hot with a dusting of canela.

Our kitchen

Cooking the long way, on purpose

Feiper Cocina is a small editorial kitchen devoted to the food of Oaxaca: the comal, the clay pot, the molinillo and the market basket. We test every recipe in a home kitchen with ordinary equipment, because that is where these dishes have always lived.

We publish slowly and only what we would cook again. Every dish on this site is made entirely without vegetable oil, using the traditional fats that carried this cuisine for generations: lard, butter, tallow and olive oil.

Smoke, corn and patience. Everything else is decoration.
A saying in our kitchen