Mesoamerica · Volume 06, The Maya Highland Corn World
Chuchitos
Guatemala
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
Chuchitos
Guatemala; etymology genuinely unresolved
Ingredients
- 1 kg masa
- 2 bundles dried corn husk, for wrapping
- 12 tomatoes, 1 chile guaque tomato and chile recado
- 1 kg chicken, pork or beef
Method
- Wrap small, firm masa in dried corn husk.
- Fill with a tomato and chile recado and chicken, pork or beef.
- Steam roughly an hour and a half on low heat.
Notes
One source claims a K'iche' etymology meaning small, but the Real Academia Española's own historical dictionary treats the word's origin as genuinely unresolved, and this chapter follows the dictionary rather than the folk etymology.
What a modern chef changes
Concentrated filling, even steam
Method
- Dehydrate a portion of the recado's tomato base before it goes into the masa mix, then rehydrate it briefly in stock, concentrating the flavour rather than diluting it into a wetter filling.
- Steam in a Big Green Egg run as a closed, humid oven rather than a stovetop steamer, for a gentler, more even heat across a full batch.
- Grind the filling's dried chile component fresh in the spice grinder immediately before use rather than relying on pre-ground chile powder, the same principle behind every other recado in this chapter.