Avocado leaf

• hoja de aguacate

  Spanish — Mexico

  A Mexican market selling hojas de aguacate is selling leaves of the criollo or Mexican avocado, which are anise-scented. Leaves from a Hass tree — a Guatemalan-race hybrid — are not the same ingredient and are not sold this way.

• ahuacacuahuitl

  Nahuatl

Anise and toasted nut, with a mild astringency from the tannins in the leaf. It is subtler in the dish than the crushed leaf suggests, and it works as a background — a pot of black beans cooked with it tastes rounder and does not taste of anise.

Strongly of anise when crushed, with a green, faintly tannic base. Toasting brings out a nutty, hazelnut-adjacent warmth over the anise, and toasted avocado leaf is one of the more distinctive smells in Mexican cooking.

Mid green fresh, drying to a dull olive-brown. Larger and thinner than a bay leaf.

Thin and brittle when dried; crumbles readily and can be ground.

• Estragole — The anise character, and the compound that makes the Mexican race the culinary one — the Guatemalan and West Indian races carry little of it. It is the same compound that leads in tarragon and in several basil cultivars.(what estragole is)

Toast it first. A few seconds over a flame or on a dry comal, turning until it smells nutty, and it goes into the pot immediately — this is not optional and an untoasted leaf is a duller, more tannic thing. One or two leaves flavour a pot of beans; more than that and the anise starts to be identifiable, which is not the intention. Before buying or picking, crush a leaf and smell it: if there is no anise, it is the wrong variety and toasting will not create what is not there.

A background aromatic in Oaxacan and central Mexican cooking. Toasted and dropped whole into a pot of black beans, laid into barbacoa and mixiotes where it flavours and protects the meat, and toasted and ground into moles. It is used for roundness rather than for a recognisable anise note, and a dish made with it does not taste of anise — which is the usual surprise for a cook meeting it for the first time.

• toasting — The defining preparation. Passed over a comal or a flame for a few seconds until it smells nutty, which develops Maillard character over the anise. Untoasted leaves are duller and slightly more tannic.
• boiling — Added whole to a pot of beans or a stew and simmered for the duration. It gives up its character slowly and does not turn bitter, which is why it suits long cooking.
• grinding — Toasted and ground into moles and spice mixtures, where it contributes anise and body. Ground leaf goes into the dish and stays, so it is used more sparingly than a whole leaf that will be lifted out.
• baking — Laid under and over meat in a pit-cooked barbacoa or a mixiote, where the leaves both flavour and protect. This is the use closest to hoja santa’s.

Crush a leaf between the palms and smell. It should be immediately and clearly anise. This is the same test that distinguishes the culinary variety from an ordinary avocado tree, so it does two jobs.

• No anise smell on crushing
• Leaves gone soft rather than brittle
• Crumbling to dust in the packet

• Slow loss of estragole and the anise character
• Moisture uptake, softening the leaf and making it hard to toast

Whole, and toast them yourself. The toasting is the step that makes the ingredient and it takes seconds, and a whole leaf can be lifted out of a bean pot where ground leaf commits everything at the start.

• A strong anise smell when a leaf is crushed — the identification, and the test that separates the culinary variety from an ordinary avocado tree.
• Whole, unbroken leaves rather than a bag of fragments.
• Bought from a Mexican grocer, where they are sold in bundles as an ordinary item.
• Brittle rather than soft, which means they have stayed dry.

Lauraceae

A medium evergreen tree. The Mexican-race leaves are the identifying feature: crushed, they smell strongly and unmistakably of anise, which the Guatemalan and West Indian races do not. The tree is more cold-tolerant than the other races and is grown in highland Mexico.

Mexico, and the Mexican race of avocado is the highland one — native to the central and southern highlands, where the culinary use of the leaf is concentrated.

• MX (Oaxaca, Puebla and central Mexico) — origin. The centre of culinary use; leaves are sold dried in markets by the bundle.
• GT — notable producer
• US (California and the Southwest) — notable producer. Where Mexican-race trees are grown, largely for diaspora cooking.

Mature leaves picked and air-dried, or used fresh where the tree is to hand.

1. Picking — Mature leaves stripped and sorted.
2. Air drying — Dried flat in shade until brittle, then bundled.Why: The keeping form, and the one sold in Mexican markets.
3. Toasting before use — Passed over a comal or a flame until fragrant, immediately before going into the dish.Why: The step that makes the ingredient. Toasting develops a nutty, faintly hazelnut character over the anise, and an untoasted leaf is a noticeably duller thing.

The commercial risk is varietal rather than fraudulent: leaves from non-Mexican-race trees are aromatically inert and can reach a market by mistake. The crush-and-smell test is the practical protection and requires no equipment.

The leaf is a by-product of trees grown for fruit, shade and timber rather than a crop in its own right, and much of what reaches a market is gathered from garden and field trees.

Highland subtropical. The Mexican race tolerates more cold than the races grown commercially for fruit, which is part of why it persists in highland Mexico while the fruit trade went elsewhere.

The avocado was domesticated in Mesoamerica and the leaf has been used there as a seasoning for a very long time. Unlike the fruit, which became a global commodity in the twentieth century on the back of the Guatemalan-race Hass cultivar, the leaf did not travel — partly because it is a by-product and partly because the race that supplies it is not the race the world plants.

A regional trade in dried leaf, sold by the bundle in Mexican markets and reaching Mexican groceries abroad. It is not separately reported in the international statistics and is dwarfed by the fruit trade from the same tree.

A recorded material in Mexican herbal practice. Recorded as tradition; SpiceHQ makes no health claim and holds no clinical source assessing it.