K’ol is the sauce inside the tamale. In Belize it is spelled cull, sometimes col, and it is a Mayan word. It is the thick red gravy, a chicken stock seasoned with recado and thickened with masa, that goes between the masa and the meat in a Belizean tamale. The same sauce, cooked with the chicken instead of folded into the tamal, is pollo en k’ol. Cull, col, k’ol. One sauce, many spellings.
What is k’ol?
K’ol is a Yucatec Maya sauce, a thick red gravy built on chicken stock, recado, and masa. The recado rojo gives it the color and most of the flavor. The masa thickens it. In Belize it is the cull, the sauce in the tamale. It is the same thing whether you call it cull, col, or k’ol.
Where k’ol comes from
In Belize the cull is not a separate dish. It is the heart of the tamale. The classic Corozal and Orange Walk tamale is corn masa spread on a banana leaf, filled with stewed chicken and a thick recado-spiced gravy, the cull, and wrapped and steamed. The sauce is what people argue about. Some like a lot of cull, some like it spicy. It is the part the maker is judged on. You can read the whole tamale in our Belizean tamales recipe, where the cull lives in its place.
It is the same sauce in the Yucatan, over tamales colados and the feast-day birds. In Mérida or in Corozal, the technique is one. The recado has to be good, because the recado is the flavor. Grind your own if you can. If you buy it, get the block, not the powder.
Ingredients
- 1 whole chicken, about 4 lbs, cut in pieces (or use 4 cups good chicken stock)
- 3 tablespoons red recado (recado rojo), a piece about the size of a golf ball
- 1/2 cup masa, from Maseca corn flour mixed with water (or fresh masa)
- 2 tablespoons lard
- 1/2 white onion
- 3 cloves garlic
- 1 sprig epazote (optional, for the pot)
- Salt
Instructions
- Put the chicken in a pot with the onion, garlic, and salt. Cover with water and simmer until the bird is tender, about 45 minutes. Take out the chicken. Keep the stock. The stock is the base of the cull.
- Dissolve the recado in a cup of the warm stock first. If you put it in dry it clumps and never spreads. Already dissolved, it goes in clean.
- Heat the lard in a clean pot. Pour in the dissolved recado and let it fry and tighten a few minutes. The color deepens when it cooks. Is important here, do not rush it.
- Add about 3 cups of the stock and bring it to a low boil. Taste for salt.
- Now the masa. Dissolve it in a cup of cool stock until there are no lumps, then pour it into the pot through a strainer. Stir without stopping. The masa, it thickens the cull as it cooks. Keep it low and keep stirring so it does not catch on the bottom.
- Cook it down 10 to 15 minutes, until it coats the back of a spoon. A cull for the tamale is thick. A cull for pollo en k’ol can be a little looser, so loosen it with stock if you want it to pour.
- For pollo en k’ol, return the chicken to the pot and warm it through in the sauce, 10 minutes. For tamales, this is the cull that goes on the masa with the meat.
Tips and variations
- Cull, col, k’ol. Same sauce, different spelling. Cull and col are the Belizean spellings of the Mayan word. K’ol is how it is written in the Yucatan. Do not let the spelling confuse you.
- The recado is the flavor. A cull is only as good as the red recado in it. The masa thickens, the stock carries, but the recado is what you taste.
- Keep it moving. Masa catches and burns on a still pot. Low heat, steady stirring. On the fogón you pull it to the edge of the fire.
- Make it ahead. The cull thickens more as it sits. Loosen it with stock when you reheat.
Serving
The cull goes inside the tamale, on the masa with the meat. As pollo en k’ol, the chicken is served in the sauce, with rice and warm corn tortillas to carry it. Either way it is feast food, the sauce that holds a Belizean and Yucatec Maya tamale together.
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Masa Harina (Maseca)
Nixtamalized yellow corn flour for the masa that thickens the cull and wraps the tamale. The diaspora staple when fresh masa is out of reach.
El Yucateco Achiote Paste
The red recado that gives the cull its color and most of its flavor, the shortcut when you are not grinding your own.
Dried Epazote
The herb that goes in the pot with beans and broth across the Yucatec Maya kitchen. Dried epazote keeps when the fresh leaf is impossible to find.
Frequently asked questions
What is k’ol?
K’ol is a Yucatec Maya sauce, a thick red gravy of chicken stock seasoned with recado and thickened with masa. In Belize it is the cull, the sauce in the tamale.
Is cull the same as k’ol?
Yes. Cull and col are the Belizean spellings of the Mayan word; k’ol is the Yucatan spelling. It is one sauce, the thick red recado gravy in a tamale.
What is pollo en k’ol?
Pollo en k’ol is chicken cooked in or served with the k’ol sauce, instead of folding the sauce into a tamale. Same cull, served as a main dish.
How do you thicken k’ol?
With masa. Dissolve masa, from Maseca or fresh, in cool stock, strain it into the simmering sauce, and stir constantly on low heat until it coats a spoon.
What is k’ol used for?
It is the sauce in a Belizean tamale, spooned onto the masa with the meat before wrapping. It is also served as pollo en k’ol, chicken in the sauce, with rice and tortillas.
Can you make k’ol ahead of time?
Yes. The cull keeps well and thickens as it sits. Reheat it gently and loosen it with a little stock until it is the consistency you want.
About Fili Post
Fili Post is from Xaibe in the Corozal District of Belize. She is Mayan. She grew up eating game from the bush — gibnut, deer, chachalaca, iguana — and she has been making her own recado from hand-ground spices for as long as her family can remember. She sold spices at a stall in the Corozal market. She still sources locally and grinds her own blends. Her recado is known to locals as the best they can get. She raised yard birds, guinea fowl, and the occasional pig. She writes for the Belize News Post.
