P'urhépecha Pipián Atápakua de Pepita

Ingredients

Equipment Needed

• •Volcanic stone molcajete or metate
• •Dry comal or heavy cast iron skillet
• •3 to 4-quart clay cazuela, preferably Cocucho barro, or a heavy pot if barro is not available
• •Wooden spoon for stirring the masa-thickened sauce
• •Blender for batch grinding if you accept a smoother texture

Instructions

1. 1

   Toast the pepita

   Heat a dry comal over medium. Add the pepita de calabaza and stir constantly for 4 to 6 minutes, until the seeds puff, turn spotty golden, and smell green and nutty. Do not let them go dark. Burned pepita makes the whole sauce taste old. Reserve 2 tablespoons for finishing and set the rest aside.

   Taste one raw pepita before you start. If it tastes rancid or dusty, throw the bag away. You can have perfect technique and bad seeds, and you will still get a bad pipián.
2. 2

   Toast the guajillos

   Toast the guajillos on the same dry comal, about 15 to 20 seconds per side, just until the skins darken slightly and the chile smell opens. They should bend, puff, and shine, not blacken. Put them in a bowl and cover with hot water, not boiling water, for 15 minutes. Drain them before grinding.

   Guajillo gives color and red fruit, not brute heat. If it burns, it turns bitter. Throw out the burned chile and toast another. Así se hace y punto.
3. 3

   Roast the perón

   Roast the chile perón, jitomates, onion, and unpeeled garlic on the comal. Turn them as they blister. The jitomates should soften and collapse at the edges, the onion should char in spots, and the garlic should feel soft inside its skin. Rub only the loose black patches from the chile perón. Keep some amber skin for flavor and texture. Peel the garlic.

   Chile perón is not jalapeño and not serrano. It has thick flesh, black seeds, and a floral citrus aroma from the highlands around Uruapan and Pátzcuaro. Substitute only when the market forces you, and know what you lost.
4. 4

   Grind the paste

   In a molcajete, grind the salt and roasted garlic first. Add the onion, jitomates, chile perón, and softened guajillos. Work them into a rough paste. Add the toasted pepita by handfuls and keep grinding until the paste is thick, speckled, and cohesive. A blender works for a larger batch with 1 cup of the broth, but it makes the sauce smoother. The molcajete gives you the martajada texture the women in Pátzcuaro expect.

5. 5

   Loosen the masa

   Break the fresh masa de maíz into a bowl. Whisk in 1 cup of the warm broth until it looks like thin atole with no dry lumps. Do not dump masa straight into the cazuela. It clumps and the center tastes raw. The masa is the binder of atápakua. The pepita is flavor. Remember that and you will not confuse this with mole.

6. 6

   Cook in clay

   Set a clay cazuela over medium-low heat. If you are serving chicken or pork, melt the manteca de cerdo first. La manteca es el sabor. If you are serving kurucha, skip the lard and warm the cazuela with a splash of broth. Add the ground paste and cook for 4 to 5 minutes, stirring with a wooden spoon, until the color deepens and the paste smells toasted instead of raw. Add the remaining broth, then stir in the masa mixture. Simmer gently for 20 to 25 minutes, stirring often, until the sauce leaves a clear trail when the spoon crosses the bottom.

   If cooking over leña, keep the fire steady and low. Atápakua thickens fast and grabs the bottom of the cazuela if you get proud and walk away.
7. 7

   Serve from barro

   Stir in the nurite or epazote during the last 5 minutes. Taste for salt. Rest the atápakua for 10 minutes so the masa settles and the sauce tightens. It should nap the back of a spoon, not run like broth. Spoon it over cooked chicken, pork, or kurucha and bring it to the table in barro with hand-pressed corn tortillas. Recetas probadas y garantizadas.

Chef Tips

• •Do not call this mole. Mole can use seeds, nuts, bread, tortillas, chocolate, and fruit for body depending on the region. Atápakua thickens with masa de maíz. The pepita in this pipián is a flavor ingredient. No me vengas con atajos.
• •Ask for chile perón at a Michoacán stall, especially around Pátzcuaro, Uruapan, or Morelia markets. It should be yellow to orange, thick-fleshed, and full of black seeds. Chile manzano or rocoto is the closest outside Michoacán because it is also Capsicum pubescens. Jalapeño or serrano gives green heat, not the floral Meseta aroma. A substitution is a compromise, not an upgrade.
• •Fresh masa from a tortillería is the right thickener. Masa harina can rescue you if you are far from Mexico, but it needs to be hydrated and rested before using. Cornmeal is not masa. It has not been nixtamalized and it will taste wrong.
• •The molcajete gives a rough sauce with visible chile skin and pepita specks. A blender is useful for volume, and I use one when teaching fifty students, but the texture changes. Tell the truth about your tools.
• •For kurucha or other freshwater fish, do not force pork fat into the dish. Use fish broth or water and cook the paste gently. For chicken or pork, manteca de cerdo belongs. La manteca es el sabor.

Advance Preparation

• •The toasted pepita and chile paste can be ground 1 day ahead and refrigerated. Cook it with the masa on the day you serve it for the cleanest texture.
• •Cooked atápakua keeps refrigerated for 3 days. It thickens as it sits, so reheat slowly with splashes of warm broth or water until it loosens back to a spoon-coating sauce.
• •Do not freeze this sauce. Masa turns grainy after freezing, and atápakua should feel thick and smooth, not sandy.

Frequently Asked Questions

Nutrition Information

1 serving (about 240g)