Chirmole de Gallina Tabasqueño

Ingredients

Equipment Needed

• •6-quart heavy pot for cooking the hen broth
• •Cast iron comal or heavy skillet for charring tortillas and toasting chiles
• •High-powered blender
• •Wide heat-safe clay cazuela or heavy Dutch oven
• •Fine-mesh strainer, optional if your blender leaves chile skins behind

Instructions

1. 1

   Salt the hen

   Season the hen pieces with 1 1/2 teaspoons salt and let them sit while you prepare the pot. Gallina de rancho is not tender little supermarket chicken. It has worked its muscles, and that is why the broth tastes like something. Give the salt time to enter the meat.

2. 2

   Make the broth

   Put the hen in a heavy pot with the whole half onion, halved garlic head, bay leaves, and 8 cups water. Bring to a gentle simmer over medium heat and skim the foam during the first 15 minutes. Lower the heat, cover partially, and cook 1 1/2 to 2 hours, until the joints loosen and the meat is fully cooked but not falling apart. Strain and reserve the broth. Keep the hen pieces whole.

   If you use young chicken, it will cook in about 45 to 60 minutes, but the broth will be thinner. That is a compromise, not an improvement.
3. 3

   Toast the chiles

   Heat a dry comal over medium. Toast the chile ancho and chile guajillo separately, about 20 to 30 seconds per side, just until the skins puff and the smell turns deep and raisiny. Toast the chile amashito for only a few seconds, because it is small and mean and burns fast. Put all the toasted chiles in a bowl and cover with hot water for 20 minutes. Hot water, not boiling. Boiling makes the skins harsh.

4. 4

   Burn the tortilla

   On the same comal, char the stale tortillas until they are black in patches and brittle at the edges. This is not a mistake. The burned tortilla gives chirmol its low, dark backbone. But listen carefully: blackened is useful, gray ash is garbage. If the tortilla turns to ash, throw it out and start again. Así se hace y punto.

5. 5

   Roast the vegetables

   Roast the tomatoes and the quartered half onion on the comal until the tomato skins blister and collapse and the onion edges brown. Peel the garlic cloves from the broth and save them for the sauce. Tabasco cooks know this economy. The broth has already paid for that garlic once. Use it.

6. 6

   Toast pepitas

   Add the pumpkin seeds to the dry comal and toast, shaking often, until they puff, turn golden in spots, and smell nutty. Toast the allspice berries and cumin seeds for 20 seconds, just until fragrant. The pepita is the body of the sauce. Do not replace it with peanut butter. No me vengas con atajos.

7. 7

   Blend the chirmol

   Drain the soaked chiles. In a blender, combine the chiles, burned tortillas torn into pieces, roasted tomatoes, roasted onion, cooked garlic cloves, toasted pepitas, allspice, cumin, achiote paste, and 2 cups reserved hen broth. Blend until very smooth. If your blender struggles, add more broth a little at a time. The sauce should be dark brown, thick, and pourable, with no hard pieces of chile skin.

8. 8

   Fry the sauce

   Melt the manteca de cerdo in a wide clay cazuela or heavy Dutch oven over medium heat. Pour in the chirmol carefully. It will sputter. Cook 10 to 12 minutes, stirring from the bottom, until the sauce darkens, thickens, and a reddish-brown shine of fat begins to gather around the edges. La manteca es el sabor. The frying wakes up the chile and fixes the sauce to the fat.

9. 9

   Braise the hen

   Add the hen pieces to the cazuela and turn them to coat with chirmol. Add 2 to 3 cups reserved broth, enough to make a loose sauce that still clings to the meat. Add the epazote and hoja santa. Simmer uncovered for 25 to 35 minutes, turning the pieces once, until the sauce tastes integrated and the hen has taken on the dark color. Taste for salt. It should be savory, earthy, and only as hot as the chile amashito allows.

10. 10

    Rest and serve

    Turn off the heat and let the cazuela rest for 20 minutes. Chirmol needs that pause. The pepita settles, the chile rounds out, and the hen absorbs the sauce instead of wearing it like paint. Remove the epazote stems and hoja santa before serving. Bring the cazuela to the table with white rice, warm corn tortillas, and chile amashito in vinegar. Cada estado, su propia cocina.

Chef Tips

• •Ask for gallina de rancho at a Mexican butcher or a live poultry market if one exists near you. A mature stewing hen gives a deeper broth and firmer meat. Bone-in chicken thighs will work in a weeknight kitchen, but they do not give the same body.
• •Chile amashito is Tabasco's small wild chile. Look for it dried in Mexican markets that carry products from Tabasco, Chiapas, or the Yucatán Peninsula. If you cannot find it, use chile de arbol, but understand what is missing: chile de arbol brings heat, chile amashito brings the Tabasco accent.
• •Burned tortilla is part of the sauce. Burned chile is not. Toast the chiles until fragrant, then stop. If the chile blackens, throw it away. Bitter chile punishes the whole cazuela.
• •Do not add chocolate. Chirmol is not mole poblano. The darkness comes from charred maize, toasted chile, roasted tomato, pepita, and time in the cazuela.
• •White rice is not a lazy side here. It catches the sauce. Warm corn tortillas belong on the table. Flour tortillas are a northern tradition, and Tabasco is not the north.

Advance Preparation

• •The hen can be simmered one day ahead and refrigerated in its strained broth. Keep the meat submerged so it does not dry out.
• •The chirmol sauce can be blended and fried up to two days ahead. Refrigerate it separately, then loosen with hot hen broth when you return it to the cazuela.
• •The finished stew keeps three days refrigerated. Reheat gently over low heat and add a splash of broth if the pepita thickens the sauce too much.

Frequently Asked Questions

Nutrition Information

1 serving (about 480g)