Vegetarian recipes from Guatemala

Guatemalan cooking is held together by recados, sauces thickened with seeds and with vegetables charred on the comal. Tomato, tomatillo, onion, garlic and mild chilli are blackened, toasted sesame and pumpkin seeds are added, then everything is blended: that is the method behind pepián, the national dish, whose vegetable and potato version keeps the whole structure. Maize returns as tortillas at every meal, fat is moderate, and the aromatics are local, achiote, bay and cinnamon. Chirmol, crushed grilled tomatoes, accompanies without further cooking.

Black beans hold the everyday protein slot, as broth, as purée, or paired with seasonal mushrooms, as in beans with chanterelles picked during the rains. Sweetness is not a separate dessert course but a register of its own, carried by panela, unrefined cane sugar, and by plantain: rellenitos de plátano stuff plantain purée with sweetened beans, and chickpeas in panela syrup belong to feast days. The result is a cuisine of charred textures and sauces bound without flour.