Ingredient

Epazote

Epazote is a pungent Mexican herb with a flavour people struggle to place — petrol, oregano, anise and citrus have all been offered, and none of them is flattering or wrong. It is cooked with black beans almost universally in central and southern Mexico, and in the right quantity it is one of the more distinctive things you can add to a pot.

What it tastes like

Strong, and in a direction most European herbs do not go. The common descriptors are camphor, petrol, tar, anise, oregano and citrus, and the honest summary is that epazote tastes medicinal and resinous and slightly of turpentine, in a way that is compelling in a dish and startling on its own.

Fresh epazote is much more pungent than dried, and the pungency drops considerably during cooking. A sprig in a pot of beans for half an hour does not make the beans taste of turpentine — it gives them a savoury, herbal, slightly resinous background that is difficult to identify and obvious by its absence.

Use it sparingly. A single sprig for a large pot is the usual proportion. Epazote is one of the few herbs where more is decidedly not better.

How it is used

• In black beans. The classic and near-universal pairing across central and southern Mexico — a sprig thrown into the pot for the last part of the cooking.
• In quesadillas, particularly with squash blossom or mushroom, where a few leaves go in with the filling.
• In soups and stews, especially those with corn, mushrooms or pork.
• With mushrooms, which it suits particularly well.
• In mole verde and other green sauces, in small amounts.
• With corn — esquites and corn soups often carry it.
• Added towards the end rather than at the start, since prolonged cooking flattens it.

Getting it and substituting it

Fresh

Mexican and Latin American grocers, and it grows readily. Long serrated leaves on a tall stem, with a strong smell when you rub one.

Dried

Much easier to find and considerably milder. Usable, and not the same. Use noticeably more than a fresh-quantity recipe implies.

Growing it

Very easy from seed, likes sun, and self-seeds so freely that it becomes weedy. A single plant covers a household.

Substitutes

There is no good one. Mexican oregano is the usual suggestion for the herbal register, sometimes with a little fennel seed. Neither gets the resinous quality.

A note on quantity

Epazote has traditionally also been used medicinally, and concentrated preparations of it are a different thing from a sprig in a pot of beans. Culinary quantities are small by convention as well as by taste.

Using it in a pot of beans

The classic application, and the timing matters more than the quantity.

1. Cook your beans as you normally would, with onion, garlic and whatever else.
2. Add a single sprig of fresh epazote — or roughly a teaspoon of dried — when the beans are around three quarters cooked.
3. Do not add it at the start. An hour of simmering flattens the aromatics and you lose most of what you added it for.
4. Leave the sprig whole rather than chopping it, so you can fish it out at the end if the flavour is stronger than you wanted.
5. Taste the beans before you decide whether to add more. Epazote is assertive and a pot that has had too much cannot be walked back.
6. Remove the sprig before serving, in the same way you would a bay leaf.

Common questions