Subanik

As tradition built it

Subanik

San Martín Jilotepeque, Chimaltenango; Kaqchikel Maya; established by 1770 . Serves 6 . 2 hours 10 minutes

Ingredients

• 2 pieces chicken
• 0.5 lb beef
• 0.5 lb pork
• 6 dried chiles
• 2 miltomate
• 3 maxán leaves, for wrapping

Method

1. Bathe the three meats, chicken, beef and pork, in a red recado of dried chiles and miltomate.
2. Wrap in maxán leaves.
3. Steam until the sauce thickens and the meat is tender.

Notes

Multiple independently corroborating Guatemalan sources trace subanik specifically to San Martín Jilotepeque and the Kaqchikel Maya, not Verapaz or Q'eqchi', correcting the volume's own early scoping. As with pulique, no source this chapter reached gives measured quantities, only named ingredients and method.

What a modern chef changes

Meats cooked apart, leaf lightly charred

Method

1. Cook each of the three meats sous vide separately, to the doneness that actually suits it, chicken and pork to a moist finish, beef held longer for tenderness, rather than steaming all three together to a single, compromised result.
2. Build the red recado in the spice grinder and high-power blender, toasting the dried chiles first for real depth.
3. Steam the finished parcels in a Big Green Egg run as a closed, humid oven, banana or chard leaf standing in for maxán, which has no UK source, and finish with a light pass of direct heat at the very end to lightly char the wrapping leaf, a genuine echo of the open-fire cooking the dish would traditionally have known.

Notes

Banana or chard leaf stands in for maxán, which has no UK source.