Mesoamerica · Volume 05, Agave, Birria and the Manila Galleon Coast
Uchepos
Michoacán, Mexico
An illustration of the dish, not a photograph of it cooked.
- Time
- Not statedNo source states a time and the atlas has too few comparable dishes to estimate one.
- Reviewed
- Not yet reviewed from inside the tradition
- Cooked
- Not yet cooked and reported
As tradition built it
Uchepos
Steaming time varies by household, from roughly 30 minutes to 1.5–2 hours, commonly 50–60 minutes
Ingredients
- 12 whole ears fresh corn, husks reserved for wrapping
- 2 tbsp baking powder
- 1 cup sugar, to taste
- to taste ground cinnamon, to taste
- 1/2 cup butter
Method
- Grind the fresh corn kernels raw, without nixtamalising, reserving the husks, hoja de elote, the fresh husk of the ear itself, not the corn-plant leaf corundas use.
- Mix the ground corn with baking powder, sugar and cinnamon to taste, and butter.
- Wrap in the fresh husk.
- Steam; timings genuinely vary by household, from roughly 30 minutes at the shortest to 1.5 to 2 hours at the longest, a commonly cited middle figure of 50 to 60 minutes, judged done when the husk peels cleanly away and the uchepo is firm but tender.
What a modern chef changes
UK Sweetcorn, Blended and Browned Butter
Rung 03
Method
- Use UK sweetcorn bought from a farm shop in August or September, within a day of picking, as the honest substitute for Michoacán's own milky-stage field corn; supermarket corn, bred for sugar retention rather than field-corn character, will not give the same result.
- Blend the fresh corn kernels in a high-power blender, then pass through a chinois for a genuinely smoother masa than a domestic blender leaves, without the fibrous skin some home versions carry through.
- Cook the butter to a light brown, nutty stage before folding it through the masa, a small variable change against the plain butter most home versions use.