Estofado Oaxaqueño Almendrado

Ingredients

Equipment Needed

• •Heavy 6-quart Dutch oven or deep clay cazuela
• •Cast iron comal or heavy skillet for toasting and roasting
• •High-powered blender
• •Medium-mesh sieve
• •Small skillet for frying the bread and plantain

Instructions

1. 1

   Poach the chicken

   Place the chicken pieces in a heavy stockpot or Dutch oven. Cover with cold water by two inches. Add the quartered onion, the three peeled garlic cloves, bay leaves, thyme sprigs, marjoram sprigs, peppercorns, and salt. Bring to a gentle simmer over medium heat. Skim the gray foam that rises in the first ten minutes. Reduce to a lazy bubble and cook partially covered for 35 to 40 minutes, until the thigh meat pulls away from the bone easily. Remove the chicken to a platter and strain the broth. Reserve at least two cups. This broth is the liquid foundation of the sauce and it carries everything the spices and bones gave up. Do not discard it.

   Start with cold water. Cold water extracts flavor slowly from the bones. Hot water seals the surface and gives you a weaker broth.
2. 2

   Toast the almonds

   While the chicken poaches, heat a dry comal or heavy skillet over medium-low. Add the blanched almonds in a single layer and toast them, stirring constantly, for four to five minutes. They should turn golden and smell nutty, not brown and not burned. One shade past golden and they turn bitter. Pull them off the comal the moment they are ready and set aside. The almonds are the spine of this sauce. Everything else leans on them.

3. 3

   Toast the chiles and spices

   On the same dry comal, toast the chile ancho for about 20 seconds per side. They should puff, darken slightly, and release a sweet, raisin-like smell. Not a burned smell. Transfer to a bowl and cover with hot tap water. Let them soak for 15 minutes. On the comal, toast the canela stick and the cloves for about 30 seconds, until the kitchen fills with warm spice. Pull them immediately. Toast the saffron threads for 10 seconds, just a flash of heat, and crumble them into a small cup with two tablespoons of warm chicken broth to bloom.

   Chile ancho is mild. It is here for its sweetness, its dark garnet color, and the raisin-like depth it gives the sauce. This is not a spicy dish. If someone tells you all Mexican food burns, hand them a bowl of this estofado and watch them reconsider.
4. 4

   Roast the tomatoes, onion, and garlic

   Place the four Roma tomatoes, the half onion, and the three unpeeled garlic cloves directly on the hot comal. Let them char slowly, turning every few minutes. The tomatoes need about eight minutes total, until the skins blister and blacken in spots and the flesh softens. The onion takes ten minutes, until the cut face is deeply browned. The garlic takes five minutes. Peel the garlic when cool enough to handle. Everything goes into the blender later, char and all. The char is flavor.

5. 5

   Fry the bread and plantain

   In a small skillet, melt one tablespoon of the lard over medium heat. Fry the bread slices until golden on both sides, about two minutes per side. Remove and set aside. In the same lard, fry the plantain rounds until they caramelize and turn deep amber, about three minutes per side. The plantain adds a sweetness that rounds the sauce and keeps it from tasting sharp. This is one of those ingredients that a cook from Etla told me about, something her mother always added. La cocina no es decoracion, es trabajo.

6. 6

   Blend the sauce

   Drain the soaked chiles. Place them in a blender with the toasted almonds, roasted tomatoes, roasted onion, roasted garlic, fried bread torn into pieces, fried plantain, the toasted canela and cloves, the dried thyme and marjoram, and the bloomed saffron with its liquid. Add one cup of the reserved chicken broth. Blend on high for two full minutes. You are looking for a completely smooth, thick sauce the color of dark terra cotta. If the blender fights you, add another quarter cup of broth. Strain through a medium-mesh sieve, pressing hard on the solids with a wooden spoon. Discard the skins. The sauce should feel velvety, not gritty.

   Blend in batches if your blender is small. Overcrowding the jar means the almonds never fully break down and you end up with a grainy sauce. Patience here saves the texture of the whole dish.
7. 7

   Fry the sauce in lard

   In the same stockpot or Dutch oven, cleaned out, melt the remaining two tablespoons of lard over medium heat. When the lard shimmers, pour in the strained sauce all at once. It will sputter. Stir immediately. Cook the sauce for ten to twelve minutes, stirring regularly, until it darkens by a shade, thickens enough to coat the back of a spoon, and the fat begins to separate and pool at the edges. La manteca es el sabor. This frying step transforms the sauce from raw-tasting to deep and layered. There is no shortcut. Asi se hace y punto.

8. 8

   Add the chicken and garnishes

   Nestle the poached chicken pieces into the fried sauce. Add the olives, capers, and raisins, scattering them around the chicken so every piece gets its share. Pour in another half cup of the reserved broth to loosen the sauce to a consistency that coats the chicken generously without being soupy. Stir gently. The olives give brine, the capers give sharpness, the raisins give a burst of sweetness. This is the baroque balance of the dish, nothing dominates, everything negotiates.

   Use Spanish manzanilla olives, not canned black olives. The brine and the firm flesh of the manzanilla is what the convent cooks would have used. Black olives are soft, flat-tasting, and wrong for this dish.
9. 9

   Simmer and let the flavors marry

   Reduce heat to low, cover, and simmer for 25 to 30 minutes. The chicken will absorb the sauce and the almonds will continue to thicken the liquid. Stir once or twice to make sure nothing sticks to the bottom. Taste for salt. The olives and capers add salinity, so be careful. You may not need more. The sauce should be thick enough to cling to the chicken but loose enough to pool on the plate. If it tightens too much, add another splash of broth.

10. 10

    Serve family-style

    Bring the cazuela or pot to the table. Serve the chicken pieces with the sauce ladled generously over each portion, making sure every plate gets its share of olives, capers, and raisins. Set warm corn tortillas or sliced bolillo on the side for the sauce. This is not a dish that needs garnish or decoration. The olives and raisins scattered across the dark almond sauce are the presentation. Cada estado, su propia cocina. This one belongs to Oaxaca's convent kitchens, and it has looked like this for four hundred years.

Chef Tips

• •The almonds must be blanched, not skin-on. Skin-on almonds leave a gritty, tannic residue in the sauce no matter how long you blend. If you can only find skin-on almonds, blanch them yourself: one minute in boiling water, drain, and the skins slip right off. It takes ten minutes and saves the entire dish.
• •Azafran de Castilla, true saffron, is what gives this estofado its golden undertone and its perfume. Mexican saffron, azafran mexicano, is actually safflower, a completely different plant. It gives color but almost no flavor. If you can find true saffron, even a small pinch, use it. If you cannot, leave it out entirely rather than substituting safflower. A substitution is a compromise, not an upgrade.
• •This estofado is better the next day. The almonds continue to release their oils into the sauce overnight and the flavors settle. Make it on the 23rd, serve it on the 24th. The señora in Etla who taught me her version told me: 'Estofado that hasn't rested overnight is estofado that hasn't finished cooking.' She was right.
• •Do not skip the ripe plantain. It rounds the sauce and keeps the acidity of the tomato and the brine of the olives from turning sharp. If you cannot find plantain, do not substitute banana. Leave it out. Banana is too soft, too sweet, and too wet. It will ruin the texture.

Advance Preparation

• •The entire estofado can and should be made one day ahead. Refrigerate the chicken in its sauce overnight. The almonds release their oils into the sauce as it rests and the flavor deepens considerably. Reheat gently over low heat, adding a splash of broth if the sauce has thickened.
• •The chicken can be poached and the broth strained up to two days ahead. Refrigerate separately. The fat will solidify on top of the broth overnight; leave it there as a natural seal and scrape it off before reheating.
• •The almond sauce can be blended and strained up to one day ahead, stored in the refrigerator. Fry it in lard on serving day. Do not fry it ahead; the sauce tastes best when the frying step is fresh.

Frequently Asked Questions

Nutrition Information

1 serving (about 330g)