Pepián

As tradition built it

Pepián

ICH of the Nation, 2007 (Ministry of Culture recipe)

Ingredients

• 1 hen
• 2 lb tomato
• 4 oz miltomate, husk tomato
• 1 onion
• 2 garlic cloves
• 2 red bell peppers
• 2 chile pasa
• 1 chile guaque
• 1 bunch cilantro
• 1 cinnamon stick
• 4 oz pepitoria, toasted
• 4 oz sesame, toasted
• 1 oz cooking chocolate
• 8 pieces French bread or cold tortilla, to finish the thickening

Method

1. Toast the cinnamon, sesame, pepitoria, the chile pasa, the chile guaque, the cilantro and the bread on a comal.
2. Roast the tomato, miltomate, peppers, garlic and onion separately.
3. Blend each group on its own and strain.
4. Simmer the hen in roughly three litres of salted water until tender.
5. Add the roasted vegetables, then both sauces and the chocolate, and simmer to finish.
6. Serve with white rice and tortillas.

Notes

Even the government's own sources disagree on the exact ICH declaration date, 26 November per the Ministry's own cultural directory, 7 November per another summary of the same decree; its regional home is similarly credited to both Huehuetenango and Chimaltenango by different Guatemalan sources.

What a modern chef changes

Comal heat and a moist confit

Rung 01

Method

1. Toast the pepitoria and sesame in a spice grinder held to a steady low heat rather than a dry pan, for a more even roast than a domestic hob gives, then finish the grind in a high-power blender for a genuinely silkier paste than hand-grinding produces.
2. Roast the tomato, miltomate, peppers, garlic and onion in a Big Green Egg run hot and direct, replicating the comal's fierce, dry heat far more closely than a domestic oven.
3. Confit the hen sous vide before it joins the finished sauce, so the meat stays properly moist through the long simmer that follows rather than drying out in the pot, and pass the finished sauce through a chinois for a genuinely smooth result the strained-by-hand version cannot quite match.