Ready for your visit to Cancun? Then get ready for your adventures in paradise, which include a delicious culinary experience coming from the heart of the Yucatan Peninsula.
The Mexican Caribbean and its traditional gastronomy will delight your palate this time with the delicious Mukbil Pollo – aka Mucbil Pollo. Taken from the Mayan Muk, bury; and Bil, twist or mix, together it means “something that has been or must be buried”, and then Mukbil Pollo would mean buried chicken.
This delicacy is prepared for the celebration of the Day of the Death (Día de Muertos). It is believed that through this dish we can get a connection between the world of the living and the world of the dead ones. Known as Hanal Pixán (food for the souls) Yucatecan people wait for this season to create this masterpiece of the culinary world. Made of nixtamalized corn, lard, chicken and a bunch of condiments that form a kind of enormous “tamal”, wrapped in banana leaves, then buried and cooked slowly using the heat of incandescent stones.
Now let us show you the recipe of the Mucbil Pollo:
Ingredients:
– Corn dough
– A bit of corn flour
– Lard
– Chicken
– Pork
– Xpelón (black beans cooked)
– Achiote paste (to taste)
– Salt (to taste)
– Red tomatoes
– A large onion
– Epazote
– Habanero peppers (to taste)
– Banana leaves (previously washed and rinsed)
Preparation:
Start cooking the pork and chicken meat using a roasting pan (pork first), then add the chicken to the roasting pan and more water if needed for 30 minutes. Once everything is cooked, reserve the meat and chicken and separate the broth.
Now pour the broth in a skillet (we will need about four cups. Dissolve the achiote in the broth and add a bit of salt, add some corn flour to the broth to make a thick sauce; this sauce will be the Mayan Kol where the meat and chicken will finish cooking.
Mix the corn dough with the lard, add salt, the beans and use the achiote paste to give the dough that special color.
To make the corn dough base, cover the bottom of a roasting pan with the banana leaves, put masa (dough) on the leaves, giving it the shape of the pan. Save some masa for the end, in order to form the cover of the dish.
Put the meat on the masa then pour the kol sauce all over it. Finally add slices of onion, tomato, chiles and epazote leaves.
Finally, put the lid of masa (dough) on top, wrap the whole with the banana leaves. Preheat the oven at 300 ˚F and bake for about an hour and a half.
That’s it your Mukbil Pollo Bekare Transfers’ style is ready!