Guatemalan? Chicken

Ragazzi, Annalena could not come up with a title that she thought was clever here, so please bear with the old bird.  The question mark is there, however, because Annalena has absolutely no idea if this recipe is an authentic, Guatemalan recipe, or not.  What she does know, is that it's good.  It's very comforting, it's filling, and .... it's easy.  Also, for those of you who are concerned about this (aren't we all), it is ridiculously low in fat.  So, Annalena shall ship it off to her bud Emily, who has become the cook of Napa.  You will enjoy this one, Annalena is sure.

So let's go. First, you need three pounds of chicken, on the bone, without skin.  Get a mix of thighs and breasts here.  When Annalena did her shopping, she had no trouble getting skinless breasts on the bone.  Thighs were another matter:  skinless and boneless?  No problem.  Skin and bone?  No problem.  Bone and no skin?  Not to be had.  Well, if you can't remove the skin from a chicken thigh, uh....


Ok, so you have your three pounds of chicken.  Put this in a pot, together with a pound of tomatillos, which have been hulled (you can still get them from your farmers market.  Make haste though, and buy extra.  Freeze them for this recipe),  at least one, and as many as you want, of halved jalapeno peppers.  Take out the seeds unless you really want a spicy dish  (please wear gloves when you do that, ragazzi).  Add a teaspoon or so of salt to this, and then, six cups of water.  You're going to make a spicy chicken broth, by bringing this to a boil, and then reducing the heat and simmering, for about 30 minutes.  At the end, separate the chicken and the veggies from each other, and let them, and the broth , cool.

Meanwhile, or afterwards,  slice up a small bunch of scallions, 3 large cloves of garlic,  a large, or two small, green peppers ,  and put this in a pan with a tablespoon of olive oil.    (Note that this is the one, and ONLY time, you will be adding oil to this recipe).  Fry this up until it softens, and picks up a little color.   Put these cooked veggies together with the veggies from the stock and now - here's the fun part - rip up a couple of corn tortillas, and throw those in, too.  Also,  you need to add a half cup of  peeled pumpkin seeds (pepitas), and a quarter cup of sesame seeds.  If you are so inclined,  you can toss these in a dry pan until you get the aroma of toasted nuts.

Now, we're going to make our sauce.  Scoop out three cups of the water in which you cooked the chicken, and combine it with the cooked soup veggies, and the veggies from the frying pan, the tortillas.   In sum, everything but the chicken gets put together.

Now, put quantities of it into a blender, and puree it.   If you are a fan of cilantro, at this point, you should toss in a half cup or so of chopped cilantro.  Annalena left it out. You're going to get a fairly thick, green puree .  You won't be able to do this all at once.  Annalena needed to do three batches.   Taste it, and add salt if you need it, which you probably will.  Take the remaining stock out of the pot, and put your puree in.  Bring it to a simmer, and cook it for about five minutes, while you shred the chicken off of the bones.  No precision here,  kids, just get it off the bone.  Rough is better (it certainly is, isn't it?).  Then add that back to the puree, and cook for another five minutes.    Again, adjust the seasoning.

You have a whole lot of leftover broth here, so if you feel the thing is too thick, thin it.  Or, use it to make some rice , but essentially, you won't be using it in this recipe.  You should make some rice , however, to pour this dish over, and then sit down, and lap it up.

Gluten free, low in fat, and spicy.  Reminds Annalena of some of her friends, but that's her.

So,  with apologies for the less than cute title, Annalena gives you a dish out of your usual milieu (look it up)< and wants you to try it.  It's really, REALLY good.