Guatemala - Jocón

I've been looking forward to making this dish all week. It's got pumpkin seeds in it and I've never had them before. I'm curious what my family will think of it as it's a bit different to food we usually eat.

This recipe usually includes tomatillos but I couldn't find any so had to leave them out. Not much of a shame since I'm not too keen on tomatoes, haha :)

Ingredients:

  • Chicken (I used 3 breasts for 4 people and it was plenty)
  • Water - 2 cups
  • Salt - 1 teaspoon
  • Pumpkin seeds 
  • Sesame seeds
  • Corn tortillas - 4-6 small ones
  • Coriander
  • Spring onions






Cut the chicken breasts in half and boil in the water for about 20 minutes. Take out the chicken when done and save the water for later.






While the chicken cooks you can toast the sesame seeds and pumpkin seeds in a slightly oiled pan. They smell really good while they cook!






Next, some stuff needs chopping so chop up the coriander, corn tortillas and spring onions.






The recipe calls for a coffee grinder to grind up the toasted seeds but I don't have one. It seemed to work well enough in my pestle & mortar though. Bizarrely the toasted seeds together smell exactly like pork scratchings! O_o



Put the seeds and other chopped stuff in a pan with the saved chicken water.



Also, this bit of the recipe should be done in a food processor but I don't have one of those either. So, I blitzed it with a hand blender instead :)







Now to add the chicken, woo! Shred up the chicken by hand and add it to the sauce.



Then stir it in and cook on medium for a few minutes to heat it through properly. It's ready to serve up!




The sauce was really thick and creamy. I was surprised how well the corn tortillas had thickened it. The taste was like nothing I've had before and I wasn't quite sure if I liked it or not. The chicken was delicious and together with the sauce made the whole dish a lovely texture in my mouth. The kids weren't too impressed but JD loved it and polished off the rest of it. I think the tomatillos would have made it less thick so I'm glad I left them out. Overall a nice change from our usual food :)

Comments

  1. This is one of the best foods from another country I've ever had. :)

    ReplyDelete

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