Recipe: Chicken Pepián with Vegetables

Chicken Pepián with Vegetables Recipe

By: Michelle B. Sultan

Photo by: Rudy Girón

Ingredients:

• 1 whole chicken , cut into pieces
• 1 ½ lb potato (peeled and sliced)
• ½ lb green beans
• 1 bunch of coriander

For the message:

• 1 ½ lb tomato
• 4 oz. thousand tomato
• ½ large onion
• ½ chili pepper
• 5 garlic cloves
• 1 guaque chile (guajillo) – seedless if you don't like it spicy
• 1 chile rasa (pasilla) - seedless if you don't like it spicy
• 3 oz. pepitoria
• 3 oz. Sesame
• 1 ½ liters Water
• Salt and pepper

Preparation

1. In a griddle (or two pans), roast the vegetables from the recado. Heat the griddle or skillet well before adding the vegetables. In a pan put the tomatoes and miltomates. In the other put the chili pepper, garlic, onion, chile guaque and chile raisin. When they have been roasted, add the pepitoria to the pan with the chiles. When it has roasted, add the sesame seeds to the pan. Make sure you are always stirring the seeds as they roast quite quickly.
2. Once roasted, add ½ lt of water between the two pans to cool the vegetables and prevent them from continuing to roast.
3. Blend all the roasted ingredients with 1 more lt of water, salt and pepper. If you have a powerful blender, it is not necessary to strain the message. Otherwise, strain the recado so that it comes out more watery. If your message is very runny, you can add 1-2 tortillas to it to make it more consistent.
4. In a pot, put the chicken, potatoes and green beans. Pour the errand on top and heat until it boils. Cover and cook for 15-20min (or until chicken is done).
5. Add cilantro (tie the sprigs together with a rubber band to make it easy to remove later) and heat over low heat again for 5min.
6. Scoop out the coriander and serve over rice. Season with more salt and pepper to taste.