The Key to Good Mexican Food: Intentional Burning

Go even further than this. Photo credit: StockFood / Chavarria, Enrique

“Here’s the story,” New York chef Alex Stupak told Food & Wine. “A pastry chef likes Mexican food, has never cooked it, but decides to do it anyway.” That’s what he said about his first two restaurants, Empellón Cocina and Empellón Taqueria, which earned him a Best New Chef award from the magazine last year. As far as why he decided to open Empellon Al Pastor, a more casual, traditional Mexican restaurant than his otherwise high-end mini-empire, he told us: “I fell in love with a beautiful Mexican girl.” That’s true, and that girl is his wife now. But Stupak also likes a challenge, and for this Culinary Institute of America- and Wylie Dufresne-trained Chef with a capital C, a bar-cum-tortilleria was definitely a challenge.

So was getting okay with the idea of burning things.

“I had seen recipes for black mole, but when I made them, they never came out the right color,” Stupak told us. “It took a trip to Oaxaca and a cooking class there, where I watched a woman make it, to really understand” that when those recipes call for burnt chili seeds, they mean burnt.

“I’d never taken anything that far because it felt like a mistake.”

Another use for these charred ingredients is chilmole, a Yucatecan seasoning paste. “This is not ‘charring on the outside,’” said Stupak. “This is taking a dried chili and putting it in an incinerator.” The resulting flavor, he said, is surprisingly akin to caramel and coffee.

Once he got it right, he was hooked. “We’ve intentionally burned lemons, hazelnuts—all kinds of things at the restaurants,” he said. For example, he and his cooks make a hummus, of sorts, with lime ash-flavored black beans in place of chickpeas. Despite burning it to shreds, you can still trace the flavor back to a lime, Stupak said. “It metamorphosizes. It’s like a caterpillar turning into a butterfly—with burnt-ass wings.”

Stupak’s ashes also give grill flavor without the grill. “Oftentimes, why food tastes better is because it’s experienced very high heat,” he said. “If you take a piece of fish and sprinkle it with one of these ashes and bake it in the oven, you’re kind of simulating a flavor that you can’t produce in an apartment without a ton of smoke.”

Here are three ways to try this ash thing at home. Go on. Burn ‘em!

Alex Stupak’s Ashes at Home

For all, roast them bare—no oil—on a sheet pan at 350 degrees for 90 minutes. Once cool, grind the burnt item in a coffee or spice grinder. Then:

Jalapeño: ”This is all about making raw or blanched veggies taste grilled,” said Stupak. Toss cooked green beans or asparagus in olive oil and lemon juice and garnish with a pinch of jalapeño ash.

Lemon: Sprinkle onto salmon, cod, or fluke and then bake it as usual.

Hazelnut: “Let’s go off-road, here,” said Stupak. He suggests topping coffee ice cream with this, or sprinkling it on a bit of toast with butter and grated chocolate.