Jocón

By Melissa Pitts

This is classic green and rich Guatemalan dish made from tomatillos, pepitoria,and chicken (although you can use turkey or pork) and can be found on most Guatemalan tables throughout the week. This recipe has you making the sauce from scratch, although there are powdered versions where you just add water- what’s the fun in that? This dish brings a little nostalgia to me and this version is the closest I have come to repeating the same flavor from my family’s kitchen (which apparently no one knows how it’s made- it just appears on the table somehow). This is best served with white rice, tortillas, and some some boiled güisquil or potatoes.

Cook Time: 30 mins
Preparation Time: 30 mins

Ingredients

  • 1 chicken cut into eight pieces or 4 chicken breasts, skin on and bone in
  • 6 cups water
  • 4 teaspoons powdered chicken consume (recommended Mahler or Maggie)
  • 2 teaspoons coriander
  • 2 teaspoons dried oregano
  • 15 grinds fresh black pepper
  • 2 dried bay leaves
  • 1 teaspoon dried thyme (optional)
  • 1 carrot, cut into thirds
  • 1/2 white onion, roughly chopped
  • 2 stocks of celery, cut into thirds
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 1/4 cup pepitoria (roasted and ground squash seeds)*** see note
  • 1/3 cup sesame seeds, toasted
  • 2 corn tortillas, toasted and torn into pieces
  • 6-7 tomatillos, papery skins removed
  • 1/2 cup cilantro, roughly chopped
  • 2 scallions, roughly chopped
  • 3 chile serranos- roughly chopped (ojo: if you don’t like your food so spicy, only do 1 or 2 and remove the seeds and veins)

Directions

  1. For the chicken: cover the chicken with the water in a large pot. Add the consume, coriander, oregano, pepper, bay leaves, thyme, carrot, onion, celery, and salt. Let it all come to a boil and reduce heat to a simmer. Let the chicken simmer until an instant read thermometer reads 165 degrees F (about 30-45 minutes). Remove from heat and let cool slightly in the broth.
  2. In the meantime, in another pot, cover the tomatillos with water, bring to a boil, turn down the heat and let smmer for 15 minutes. Drain and let the tomatillos cool.
  3. In a coffee grinder/spice grinder/blender grind the sesame seeds with the pepitoria until it is a fine powder.
  4. Add the sesame and pepitoria, tortillas, tomatillos, cilantro, scallions and serrano peppers to a food processor or blender. Add 1 ½ cups of the broth from the chicken and process until smooth.
  5. Return the chicken (you can remove the bones and skin before you do this) to the pot where you simmered the tomatillos. Pour over pureed sauce and add 1 ½-2 cups of the remaining broth to give it a sauce-like consistency- add more or less depending on how thick you want your sauce to be. Let everything simmer on low for about 20 minutes.  Serve.

*** Pepitoria can be tricky to find, you can substitute it with pepitas which are easier to find in Latin American supermarkets–although it does change the flavor.

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