Guerrero Chicken Chilate Stew (Chilate de Pollo)

Ingredients

Equipment Needed

• •Heavy 7-quart clay cazuela or Dutch oven
• •Cast iron comal for toasting chiles and roasting aromatics
• •High-powered blender
• •Fine-mesh strainer
• •Wide bowl for shaping chochoyotes

Instructions

1. 1

   Start the broth

   Put the chicken in a heavy pot with the cold water, half the onion, 4 peeled garlic cloves, 2 teaspoons salt, and the epazote sprigs. Bring it to a gentle simmer over medium heat. Skim the gray foam during the first 15 minutes. Do not boil the bird to death. A calm broth gives you clean flavor and chicken that still tastes like chicken.

2. 2

   Cook the chicken

   Simmer partially covered for 35 to 45 minutes, until the chicken is tender but not falling apart. Lift the pieces into a bowl and cover them. Strain the broth and keep it warm. You should have about 8 cups. If you have less, add water. If you have more, let it simmer uncovered for a few minutes. The broth is the spine of the stew.

3. 3

   Toast the chiles

   Heat a dry comal over medium. Toast the guajillo chiles for about 20 seconds per side, just until they soften, darken slightly, and smell fruity. Toast the chile costeño separately because it is smaller and hotter, about 10 to 15 seconds per side. If a chile blackens, throw it away. Burned chile makes bitter chilate, and no amount of prayer fixes it.

   Chile costeño carries the Costa Chica character here. Guajillo gives body and red color; costeño gives the sharper coastal heat. They are not the same chile.
4. 4

   Soak and roast

   Cover the toasted chiles with hot water, not boiling water, and let them soften for 20 minutes. While they soak, roast the remaining half onion, the 4 unpeeled garlic cloves, and the tomatoes on the comal until blackened in spots. Peel the garlic. The char belongs in the blender. It gives the broth the taste of a kitchen, not a packet.

5. 5

   Blend the sauce

   Drain the chiles and put them in the blender with the roasted onion, roasted garlic, roasted tomatoes, 2 cups warm chicken broth, and 1/2 cup of the fresh masa. Blend until completely smooth, longer than you think. Strain through a fine-mesh sieve, pressing hard on the solids. The masa thickens the chilate from inside the broth. Wheat flour has no business here.

6. 6

   Fry the chile

   Melt 3 tablespoons of the lard in the pot over medium heat. Pour in the strained chile sauce carefully because it will sputter. Stir for 8 to 10 minutes, until the sauce darkens to brick red and the fat begins to separate at the edges. La manteca es el sabor. The lard blooms the chile and makes the stew taste finished before the vegetables even enter.

7. 7

   Simmer yuca

   Add 6 cups of the warm chicken broth to the fried chile base and stir until smooth. Add the yuca and simmer for 15 minutes. Yuca needs a head start. It should turn creamy at the edges but hold its shape. If you cut it too small, it will collapse and thicken the pot before the chochoyotes have their turn.

8. 8

   Make chochoyotes

   Mix the remaining 1 1/2 cups masa with the remaining 2 tablespoons lard, 1 teaspoon salt, chopped epazote, and 1/4 cup warm broth. Knead until soft and smooth. If it cracks, add broth by the teaspoon. Roll into walnut-sized balls and press a deep dimple in each one with your thumb. That dimple catches broth. The women who make these every week know exactly why it matters.

9. 9

   Finish the stew

   Return the chicken to the pot with the plátano macho and the torn hoja santa leaves. Simmer 8 minutes, then lower in the chochoyotes one by one. Do not stir hard. Shake the pot gently if you need to move them. Cook 15 to 18 minutes, until the dumplings are firm, the plantain is tender, and the broth coats the spoon with a red masa sheen.

10. 10

    Rest and serve

    Taste for salt. Let the chilate rest off the heat for 10 minutes so the masa settles and the hoja santa perfumes the broth. Ladle chicken, yuca, plantain, and chochoyotes into deep bowls. Tear a little hoja santa over the top if you like and serve with lime halves and warm corn tortillas. Así se hace y punto.

Chef Tips

• •Ask for chile costeño rojo from Guerrero or Oaxaca. If your chile vendor does not know it, ask the women at the market who sell hoja santa and epazote. If you are outside Mexico and must use chile puya with one chile de arbol, understand the compromise. It will not taste exactly like the Costa Chica.
• •Fresh masa is best for the chochoyotes and the broth. Masa harina works when you have no tortillería nearby, but mix it properly and let it hydrate before shaping. Do not thicken chilate with wheat flour. That belongs nowhere near this pot.
• •Hoja santa is not basil. If you cannot find it, use more epazote and accept that the broth loses its anise-green depth. A substitution is a compromise, not an upgrade.
• •Chilate de pollo is not the cacao-rice-cinnamon chilate drink, though both are Guerrerense. One is a stew with chicken and masa. The other is a drink served cold. Learn the difference before you put it on a menu.
• •Costa Chica barbacoa is wet, served with its broth as a plated stew. It is not taquería barbacoa piled dry on a tortilla. Same word, different table.
• •Tichindas are black-shell mangrove mussels foraged from Laguna de Chacahua and Corralero, not generic mussels. Chilpachole is masa-thickened, not flour-thickened. Mondongo jarocho carries the Atlantic slave-trade lineage through Veracruz's port. Name these things correctly. Saber cocinar es saber vivir.

Advance Preparation

• •The chicken broth can be made one day ahead. Refrigerate the broth and chicken separately, then skim only the excess fat. Leave enough fat for flavor.
• •The chile sauce can be toasted, blended, strained, and refrigerated one day ahead. Fry it in lard the day you finish the stew.
• •Chochoyotes can be shaped up to 4 hours ahead. Keep them covered with a damp towel so the masa does not crack.
• •Do not freeze the finished stew. Yuca and chochoyotes turn grainy, and the plantain loses its shape.

Frequently Asked Questions

Nutrition Information

1 serving (about 700g)