Pollo en Chilate Guerrerense

Ingredients

Equipment Needed

• •Large clay olla (olla de barro) or 8-quart stockpot
• •Cast iron comal or heavy skillet for toasting
• •High-powered blender
• •Fine-mesh strainer
• •Wooden spoon for stirring the masa

Instructions

1. 1

   Poach the chicken

   Put the chicken in a large clay olla or stockpot. Cover with about 10 cups of cold water. Add half the onion, two cloves of garlic, the bay leaves, and a generous spoon of salt. Bring it to a gentle simmer over medium heat and skim the gray foam that rises in the first ten minutes. Cook at a lazy bubble for about 40 minutes, until the chicken is tender and cooked through. Lift the pieces out and set them aside. Strain the broth and keep all of it. This broth is the base of the chilate. Don't pour a drop of it down the drain.

2. 2

   Toast the chiles

   Heat a dry comal or heavy skillet over medium. Toast the costeño, guajillo, and pasilla oaxaqueño separately, pressing each flat for a few seconds a side until the skins blister and the chile turns fragrant, about 20 to 30 seconds. You want the smell of toasting chile filling the kitchen, not smoke. That smell is the oils waking up.

   The costeño is the soul of Costa Chica cooking. It is thin and it burns in a blink, and burned chile turns the whole pot bitter with no way back. Toast it last and keep your eyes on it. If one goes black, throw it out and toast another.
3. 3

   Soak the chiles

   Move the toasted chiles to a bowl and cover them with hot water, not boiling. Boiling water cooks the skins and draws out bitterness. Hot water softens the flesh and lets the flavor come through clean. Let them soak for 15 to 20 minutes, until pliable.

4. 4

   Char tomatoes, toast spices

   While the chiles soak, char the tomatoes on the same comal, turning them until the skins blister and blacken in spots and the flesh goes soft. In a small dry pan, toast the cumin, peppercorns, cloves, and allspice for about a minute, until they smell warm and nutty. Toasting whole spices wakes them up. Ground spice from a jar can't do this.

5. 5

   Blend and strain

   Drain the chiles. Put them in a blender with the charred tomatoes, the remaining half onion, the four cloves of garlic, the toasted spices, and two cups of the reserved chicken broth. Blend until completely smooth. Pour it through a fine-mesh strainer into a bowl, pressing hard on the solids and discarding the skins left behind. You want a clean red-orange puree with no grit.

6. 6

   Fry the chile paste

   Wipe out the olla and melt the lard over medium heat. When it shimmers, pour in the strained puree. Stand back, it will sputter. Fry it for 8 to 10 minutes, stirring often, until the color deepens and the fat starts to separate and pool at the edges. La manteca es el sabor. Frying the chile this way takes off the raw edge and builds the backbone of the dish. No me vengas con atajos.

7. 7

   Build the broth

   Pour in the rest of the reserved chicken broth, about six cups. Stir to loosen the fried chile into the liquid and bring it to a steady simmer. Taste and add salt. The broth should taste assertive right now, because the masa is about to soften it.

8. 8

   Thicken with masa

   Dissolve the masa in one cup of cool broth or water, working out the lumps with your fingers, then strain it. With the pot at a simmer, stream the masa in while you stir constantly. Keep stirring for 10 to 15 minutes as it cooks. The broth will turn silky and take on body, coating the back of a spoon. It should never be thick like a mole. It is a broth with corn woven through it. This masa is what makes chilate chilate.

   Stir without stopping when the masa goes in, and scrape the bottom of the pot. Masa clumps and scorches the second you turn your back. If lumps form anyway, blend a ladle of the broth smooth and stir it back in.
9. 9

   Add epazote and chicken

   Lay the epazote sprigs in the pot and slide the chicken pieces back in. Simmer gently for 10 minutes so the chicken drinks in the chilate and the epazote perfumes the broth. Taste one last time for salt.

10. 10

    Serve in clay

    Ladle the chilate into clay bowls, a piece of chicken in each, broth poured generously over the top. Squeeze the lime in at the table, never before. Serve with hot corn tortillas, and white rice if you want to stretch the pot to more mouths. Recetas probadas y garantizadas.

Chef Tips

• •The chile costeño rojo is the coast's own chile and it can be hard to find away from Guerrero and Oaxaca. Look in a serious Mexican market or order it dried online before you settle for less. If you truly can't get it, lean on more guajillo and add two or three chile de árbol for the heat, but know you're making a cousin of chilate, not chilate. A substitution is a compromise, not an upgrade.
• •Fresh masa from a tortillería gives the cleanest corn flavor. Masa harina reconstituted with water is the everyday compromise and it works fine. Either way, dissolve it and strain it before it touches the pot, and stir without stopping. Lumpy chilate is lazy chilate.
• •Fry the chile paste in manteca de cerdo. This is Afro-Caribbean coast cooking and the lard is not up for debate. La manteca es el sabor. Oil will give you a thinner, flatter pot.
• •Some cooks on the Costa Chica skip the dissolved masa and drop in chochoyotes instead, little masa balls pressed with a thumb in the center so they cook through. If you go that way, roll them small, dimple each one, and poach them in the broth for the last 15 minutes. Cada estado, su propia cocina, and every cook her own hand.

Advance Preparation

• •The chile base can be toasted, blended, strained, and fried up to two days ahead. Keep it refrigerated and build the broth on serving day.
• •Chilate keeps three days refrigerated and the flavor deepens overnight. The masa tightens as it sits, so loosen it with a little broth or water when you reheat, stirring over low heat.
• •It does not freeze well. The masa breaks and goes grainy once thawed.

Frequently Asked Questions

Nutrition Information

1 serving (about 450g)