Chef Lupita
Aporreado Costeño Guerrerense
Guerrero's Costa Chica cooks dry their cattle into cecina, pound it to fibers on a stone, and stew it slow in chile costeño and epazote. The Afro-Mexican noon meal, built on lard, no eggs in this one.
Culinary Explorer
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Pollo Encacahuatado Afromestizo Jarocho
Created by
Jarocho Veracruz's encacahuatado: chicken drowned in a glossy sauce of toasted ground peanut, ripe tomato, and chile guajillo, fried down in pork lard. The third root of Mexican cooking, on the plate where it belongs.
Main Dishes
Mexican
Dinner Party
Comfort Food
Make Ahead
40 min
Active Time
1 hr 20 min cook•2 hr total
Yield6 servings
This is from Veracruz. The Sotavento, the low coastal country around Tlacotalpan and Boca del Río, where the Gulf carried in more than ships. It carried people. Encacahuatado is a Black Mexican dish, jarocho to the bone, and it holds the African root of this country's cooking in every spoonful. La tercera raíz no es nota al pie. Es plato principal.
The sauce is ground peanut. Cacahuate, toasted on a comal until it smells like a market stall at noon, then ground with chile guajillo, roasted tomato, sesame, and a little canela and pimienta gorda (the allspice that grows wild in Veracruz). Ground. Not peanut butter. No me vengas con atajos. Peanut butter is sugar and oil wearing a costume. This is toasted peanut broken down until it turns to silk, then fried in manteca de cerdo until the fat rises to the top and the sauce goes the color of wet clay.
The peanut crossed the ocean twice to reach this plate. It was born in the Americas, became the soul of West African stew, then came back across the water in the hands of enslaved cooks brought to the sugar coast of Veracruz. What you are making is a homecoming three hundred years in the works. I did not learn it from my mother. She was jalisciense. I learned it on the road, from cocineras in the Sotavento who ground their peanuts on the metate and looked at me like I was simple when I asked why not a blender. El metate sabe, one of them told me. The metate knows.
Respect the frying. The whole dish lives or dies in the few minutes you stand over the cazuela stirring the paste into hot lard, watching it darken, thicken, and split. Rush it and you will taste raw peanut and flat chile. Stand there and do the work. La cocina no es decoración, es trabajo. Así se hace y punto.
The peanut (cacahuate, from the Nahuatl 'tlalcacahuatl') is native to the Americas, but it crossed to West Africa with Portuguese traders in the 16th century and became the backbone of groundnut stews before returning across the Atlantic in the cooking of enslaved West Africans brought to Veracruz's sugar economy. The dish belongs to what the Mexican anthropologist Gonzalo Aguirre Beltrán, in his 1958 ethnography of Cuajinicuilapa, named 'la tercera raíz,' the third root: the African heritage woven into Mexican identity alongside the Indigenous and the Spanish. Mexico's Afro-descendant communities, concentrated on the Costa Chica of Guerrero and Oaxaca and along the jarocho Gulf coast, were recognized in Article 2 of the Constitution through a 2019 reform and counted in the national census for the first time in 2020.
The technique, the tradition, and the story behind every dish.
Discover Culinary ExplorerIngredients
whole chicken
Quantity
3.5 to 4 pounds
cut into 8 pieces
white onion (for the broth)
Quantity
1/2
white onion (for the sauce)
Quantity
1/4
garlic cloves
Quantity
5
2 for the broth, 3 for the sauce
bay leaf
Quantity
1
kosher salt
Quantity
1 tablespoon, plus more to taste
raw skinless peanuts (cacahuate)
Quantity
1 1/2 cups
dried chile guajillo
Quantity
5
stemmed and seeded
ripe tomatoes
Quantity
3 (about 1 pound)
ajonjolí (sesame seeds)
Quantity
2 tablespoons, plus more for garnish
Mexican cinnamon (canela)
Quantity
1 inch piece
whole cloves (clavo)
Quantity
2
black peppercorns
Quantity
4
allspice berries (pimienta gorda)
Quantity
3
corn tortilla
Quantity
1
torn into pieces
manteca de cerdo (pork lard)
Quantity
3 tablespoons
divided
reserved chicken broth
Quantity
4 cups, plus more as needed
cooked white rice (arroz blanco) (optional)
Quantity
for serving
ripe plátano macho (plantains) (optional)
Quantity
2
peeled and sliced on the bias
manteca de cerdo (for the plátano) (optional)
Quantity
for frying
warm corn tortillas (optional)
Quantity
for serving
toasted sesame seeds (for garnish) (optional)
Quantity
for garnish
| Ingredient | Quantity |
|---|---|
| whole chickencut into 8 pieces | 3.5 to 4 pounds |
| white onion (for the broth) | 1/2 |
| white onion (for the sauce) | 1/4 |
| garlic cloves2 for the broth, 3 for the sauce | 5 |
| bay leaf | 1 |
| kosher salt | 1 tablespoon, plus more to taste |
| raw skinless peanuts (cacahuate) | 1 1/2 cups |
| dried chile guajillostemmed and seeded | 5 |
| ripe tomatoes | 3 (about 1 pound) |
| ajonjolí (sesame seeds) | 2 tablespoons, plus more for garnish |
| Mexican cinnamon (canela) | 1 inch piece |
| whole cloves (clavo) | 2 |
| black peppercorns | 4 |
| allspice berries (pimienta gorda) | 3 |
| corn tortillatorn into pieces | 1 |
| manteca de cerdo (pork lard)divided | 3 tablespoons |
| reserved chicken broth | 4 cups, plus more as needed |
| cooked white rice (arroz blanco) (optional) | for serving |
| ripe plátano macho (plantains) (optional)peeled and sliced on the bias | 2 |
| manteca de cerdo (for the plátano) (optional) | for frying |
| warm corn tortillas (optional) | for serving |
| toasted sesame seeds (for garnish) (optional) | for garnish |
Equipment Needed
- •Cast iron comal or heavy skillet for toasting
- •High-powered blender (or a metate, if you have the arm)
- •Heavy clay cazuela or Dutch oven
- •Wooden spoon
- •Fine-mesh strainer for the broth
Instructions
- 1
Poach the chicken
Put the chicken pieces in a large pot with the half onion, two cloves of garlic, the bay leaf, and the tablespoon of salt. Cover with cold water by an inch and bring to a gentle simmer over medium heat. Skim the gray foam that rises in the first ten minutes. Cook for about 25 minutes, until the chicken is just done. Lift out the pieces and set them aside. Strain the broth and keep every drop. You build the whole sauce on it, so do not pour it down the drain.
- 2
Toast the peanuts
Heat a dry comal or heavy skillet over medium. Add the raw peanuts and toast them, stirring almost constantly, until they turn golden and smell warm and nutty, about 6 to 8 minutes. This is the soul of the dish: toasted peanut, ground by your own hand. Tip them onto a plate to cool so they stop cooking.
Peanuts go from golden to burnt in seconds. Keep them moving and pull them the moment the color turns. One scorched batch runs a bitter thread through the whole sauce and there is no taking it out later. - 3
Toast and soak the guajillos
On the same comal, toast the guajillos about 20 to 30 seconds per side, pressing them flat with a spatula. They should turn fragrant and pliable, never black. Drop them into a bowl of hot water, not boiling, and let them soften for 15 minutes. Boiling water cooks the skin and turns the sauce bitter. Hot water softens the flesh and keeps the chile flavor clean.
- 4
Char the tomatoes
Roast the whole tomatoes, the quarter onion, and the three garlic cloves on the comal over medium-high heat. Turn them until the tomato skins blister and blacken in patches and the onion and garlic soften and char at the edges. This char is where a flat sauce gets its depth. Peel the garlic once it cools enough to handle.
- 5
Toast the sesame and spices
Toast the sesame seeds in the dry skillet until they turn gold and start to hop, about a minute, then set them aside. Briefly toast the canela, cloves, peppercorns, and allspice until fragrant. Melt one tablespoon of the manteca and fry the torn tortilla until crisp and golden. The tortilla gives the sauce body, the old way of thickening before anyone in this country owned a measuring cup.
- 6
Grind the sauce
Drain the guajillos. In a blender, combine the toasted peanuts, guajillos, charred tomatoes, onion, garlic, sesame seeds, toasted spices, and the fried tortilla. Add two cups of the warm broth. Blend until completely smooth and thick, working in batches if you need to. Give it time. The peanut has to break all the way down into silk.
A blender works here and I will not pretend otherwise. But the cocineras of the Sotavento grind this on a metate, and a metate pulls the oil from the peanut in a way steel blades cannot. If you own one and have the arm, use it. If not, blend long and blend well. - 7
Fry the sauce
Heat the remaining two tablespoons of manteca in a heavy clay cazuela or Dutch oven over medium until it shimmers. Pour in the blended paste all at once and stand back, because it will sputter. Stir constantly with a wooden spoon for 10 to 15 minutes. The sauce darkens from brick to deep terracotta, thickens, and begins to split as the fat beads at the edges. La manteca es el sabor. This is the step that makes the dish. Do not walk away from it.
If the sauce fights you and spits too hard, lower the heat. The moment you see the manteca rising in little pools at the edges, the paste is fried and ready for the broth. - 8
Simmer the sauce
Stir in two more cups of broth, a little at a time, until the sauce coats the back of a spoon but still falls in a slow ribbon. Lower the heat and simmer gently for 15 minutes so the raw edges cook off and the flavors marry. Taste for salt now. The peanut drinks salt, so be honest with it. Keep extra broth close, because the sauce thickens as it cooks.
- 9
Add the chicken
Nestle the poached chicken pieces into the sauce, spooning it over them so they sit half buried. Simmer another 10 to 15 minutes, turning once, until the chicken is hot through and has drunk the flavor of the sauce. If the sauce tightens too much, loosen it with a splash of broth. It should cling to the chicken, glossy and thick, never thin and watery.
- 10
Fry the plátano and serve
While the chicken finishes, melt a little manteca in a skillet and fry the slices of ripe plátano macho until the edges caramelize and turn deep brown. Serve the encacahuatado straight from the cazuela, each plate with white rice, fried plátano macho, and warm corn tortillas to pull through the sauce. Scatter a few toasted sesame seeds over the top. Recetas probadas y garantizadas.
Chef Tips
- •Buy raw peanuts from the bulk bin or a Mexican market and toast them yourself. Not cocktail peanuts, not roasted-salted, and never peanut butter. Encacahuatado is ground peanut. Peanut butter is sugar and emulsifiers wearing a disguise. No me vengas con atajos.
- •This is the jarocho version, built on chile guajillo and ripe tomato for a round, brick-red sauce. On the Costa Chica, in Cuajinicuilapa and Pinotepa Nacional, the cooks reach for chile costeño and sometimes chile pasilla oaxaqueño, and the heat runs sharper. Same African root, two kitchens. Cada estado, su propia cocina.
- •The manteca de cerdo is not a suggestion. The Afro-Caribbean habit of frying in pork lard is half the flavor of this coast. A neutral oil will carry the sauce if you have no choice, but you will feel the floor drop out from under it. A compromise, not an upgrade.
- •The fried plátano macho is not decoration. The sweet, caramelized plantain against the savory peanut sauce is the whole point of the plate. Use the ripe ones, the skins going black, not the green ones. Green plantain is for a different dish.
Advance Preparation
- •The peanut sauce can be made two to three days ahead and refrigerated. It thickens cold, so reheat it gently with a splash of broth and stir until it loosens. Add the chicken only when you reheat.
- •The sauce freezes well for up to a month, before the chicken goes in. Thaw overnight in the refrigerator and bring it back slowly with broth.
- •Poach the chicken and build the broth a day ahead if it helps your schedule. Keep the broth covered in the refrigerator. It is the foundation of the sauce, not an afterthought.
Frequently Asked Questions
Nutrition Information
1 serving (about 590g)
Calories
1040 calories
Total Fat
55 g
Saturated Fat
14 g
Trans Fat
0 g
Unsaturated Fat
38 g
Cholesterol
150 mg
Sodium
1350 mg
Total Carbohydrates
83 g
Dietary Fiber
11 g
Sugars
15 g
Protein
58 g
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