Tamale Pie (no, really)

I still remember when I first got Two Cooks and a Suitcase, the Lupe Pintos cookbook that effectively launched my journey into authentic Mexican food.

Near the beginning Doug Bell and Rhoda Robertson wrote "if you make only one recipe from this book, make tamales or tamale pie". I made both on the same night.

Now, "tamale pie" isn't something I remember eating as a kid. In California we mostly have norteña style tamales with a savoury filling, wrapped in a corn husk and steamed.

But the amazing thing about tamales is that they have about a million variations throughout Mexico.

One of those variations is a kind of tamale pie called Muk-Bil Pollo, typical of the Yucatán.

(The Yucatán is one of the regions where Doug Bell and Rhoda Robertson lived in Mexico; Two Cooks and a Suitcase is teeming with Yucatecan recipes.)

So this year, for día de los muertos, I decided to make a tamale pie as a kind of simplified version of Muk-Bil Pollo.

With limited success.

The main issue with anything tamal-related is time, because you but only have to mix up some tamal dough, but also make a filling, and then the dish will need 45 minutes to an hour's cooking time.

For the pie version, you can dispense with the faff of rolling the tamales into corn husks, but this doesn't save as much time as I'd hoped.

The other issue I had in particular was the filling itself. I read a traditional recipe for Muk-Bil Pollo and found it was another of these achiote-marinated fillings, which I've been eating a lot of recently.

I simplified the dish by omitting the pork (Muk-Bil Pollo is traditionally a combination of chicken and pork) and the banana leaves (again, traditionally you would wrap the pie in a banana leaf before baking it).

Even so, I was cooking for several hours.

The finished dish was good. But it wasn't really great. It was certainly not the best thing I've ever put into a tamal.

However, the kids loved it (I made them a chile-free version); my four-year-old ate about twice as much of it as she usually does of things I cook.

I just kind of ended up wishing it was filled with pollo en salsa verde.

Definitely not pollo en salsa verde

If you want too make this, you'll need to make the filling first.

I poached some chicken breasts with a quartered white onion, 3 cloves of garlic, 10 black peppercorns, and a teaspoon of Mexican oregano.

Then I shredded the chicken and reserved the stock for the tamal dough.

I roasted some red, yellow and green bell peppers on a hot dry frying pan until they blackened a bit, then cut them into strips (rajas).

I made a sauce by reconstituting two chiles guajillos and blending them with one recipe of recado rojo, adding enough of the chiles' soaking water to make it a loose, pourable sauce.

Then I diced half a red onion and sweated it for a few minutes in a frying pan over medium high.

Then I added the rajas and fried them a few minutes more.

Then I added the shredded chicken and fried it until the chicken took on some texture.

Then I added the sauce and continued cooking until everything was heated through.

For the tamal dough, I sifted 300 g of masa harina with 1/3 tsp of baking powder.

Then I poured in 150 g of melted butter (you can also use pork lard) and mixed it gently until it was fully incorporated.

Then I gradually poured in 250 mL of chicken stock, mixing all the time, until I had a soft dough.

Then I greased a casserole dish, lined the bottom and sides with dough about 5 cm thick.

Then I added the filling and covered it with the remaining dough. This is hard, because if you pat the dough down too hard the filling will squidge out.

Cover the dish and bake at 180° C for 45 minutes.

I sold this to my kids as "Mexican cornbread", and it does have a "breadier" texture than steamed tamales, verging on being too dry. It's possible I overbaked it slightly, or perhaps if I'd used the banana leaves I could have preserved some of the moisture.

In any case, I have to admit I still prefer steamed tamales, especially considering that tamale pie isn't much less work.

If you're going to spend three straight hours in the kitchen you might as well have classic tamales.

I served the tamale pie with some salsa verde I got from La Costeña, which was very good and the perfect complement to the richness of the filling.

On the side I whipped up a "winter salad" of watercress, avocado, sliced radish, satsumas, and pomegranates, with a dressing of lime juice, extra virgin olive oil, and minced shallot. Delicious!

This was the highlight of the meal.

Next year I think I'll opt for pumpkin and chorizo tamales. Can't go wrong with that!

By the way: if you wanna have a go at this but don't wanna use the same filling, try poaching the chicken and prepping the rajas as above, but fry them in salsa verde (store-bought or homemade) instead of the achiote sauce. You can even loosen it up with a bit of crema or sour cream. Simple but delicious.

And on a final geeky note, in Spanish, the singular of tamales is tamal, but in English tamale is an acceptable singular. 

KANKUN tacos al pastor

Tacos al pastor means "shepherd's tacos". I would expect British readers to have visions of mince and peas and carrots topped with mashed potato.

But "shepherd's tacos" has nothing to do with shepherd's pie. In fact, I don't think it has anything to do with shepherds, really.

Whereas in the US tacos have been corrupted by Taco Bell into a ridiculous (usually stale) U-shaped crispy thing nearly always stuffed with the same hardly Mexican ground beef filling, in Mexico a taco is usually a fresh (soft) corn tortilla which can be filled with just about anything.

There's even a verb, taquear, which means "to put (something) in a taco".

And yet despite this endless possibility, there are some fillings which are so popular they can be put on a Top Ten Favourite Tacos list. If tacos al pastor is not top of that list, it's got to be pretty close.

But that doesn't mean you can get them outside of Mexico.

I myself first heard of them in the book Fiesta en la madriguera. And a lot of Mexpat food bloggers complain of how much they miss them.

So what are they? Tacos al pastor are pork and pineapple tacos in a spicy sweet and sour sauce made of chiles and achiote paste (recado rojo).

I've read one recipe that uses chiles guajillos for the chile element, but my preference is for chipotles.

And one of the best - and most authentically Mexican-tasting - chipotle sauces you can buy is from KANKUN.

Now, before we get to the recipe, I have to warn you: these are "al pastor-style" tacos, rather than literal tacos al pastor. The reason for this is that there's more to these tacos than the sauce.

Normally you'd expect Mexican pork tacos to use fried pork or slow-cooked carnitas. You wouldn't expect this:

Again, I'm sure my British readers are thinking "Kebabs!"

And indeed, these most popular of Mexican tacos were apparently first developed by Lebanese immigrants! Which just goes to show that Mexico, home of one of the world's first "fusion cuisines", remains adventurous and open-minded even it comes to food.

However, this also means that in the absence of a spit-roaster you can't make proper tacos al pastor at home. The flavour will be right, but the texture of the meat will not be quite the same.

One Mexpat blogger, Mely from Mexico in my Kitchen was driven to extremes to replicate the authentic texture:

That's one hell of a piece of kit, Mely!

Perhaps we could all get together and ask the UK's kebab shops to add tacos al pastor to their menus. Who's with me?

KANKUN pastor-style tacos

Ingredientes

500 - 750 g pork shoulder for carnitas
Half a pineapple, diced (I actually used tinned pineapple)

1 red onion, diced

1 recipe recado rojo (about 50 g)
4 tbsp KANKUN Chipotle Sauce
90 - 100 mL pineapple juice
A few pieces of diced pineapple

Tortillas and some extra KANKUN (to serve)

Procedimiento

First make carnitas: trim the gristle from your pork, rub it with some ground spices like black pepper, allspice, a dash of cinnamon and a pinch of cumin, put in a casserole dish, cover with about 500 mL of water (taking care not to wash off the spices), cover and roast at 180° C (160° fan) for 3 - 5 hours.

When it's done, shred it and leave it to one side.

This recipe works really well with leftover carnitas. Or, you could dice the pork shoulder, marinate it in the sauce (see below) for at least an hour (preferably overnight), then brown it in a frying pan along with the red onion, then cover and stick it in the oven at 160° C (fan) for an hour.

Now make the sauce. Blend the recado rojo (achiote paste) with the KANKUN Chipotle sauce and a few chunks of pineapple. Then add the pineapple juice a bit at a time until the sauce is thin but not watery. If you're using diced pork shoulder, this is what you use as a marinade.

If you're using carnitas, heat some oil in a pan and sweat the onion. Then fry the carnitas until they take on a bit of texture. Now add the sauce and continue cooking until the pork is completely covered and heated through. Then add the pineapple and continue frying a few minutes longer. 

Serve with warm tortillas (preferably homemade corn tortillas, though I once made this into a burrito) and a little extra KANKUN Chipotle sauce on the side.

The combination of the inimitable achiote paste with the smoky chipotle heat and the sweet and sharp pineapple is unbelievably addictive. I can really see why these are so popular.

Mrs MexiGeek called it a kind of Mexican Sweet and Sour, and there definitely is something "Asian" in the flavour profile, which isn't surprising considering the origin of these tacos.

If you've never tried tacos al pastor, you really need to. It's one of those things that will re-educate you about the flavours of Mexican food. And maybe some day we'll even get them from kebab shops!

Also, my mom sent me some jicama, so I whipped up a "Mexican raita" out of jicama and cucumber in sour cream and lime juice, sprinkled with some tajin of course, and served on the side. I "julienned" the jicama but peeled, seeded, and diced the cucumber. The tacos al pastor are pretty spicy, so it's good to have a "cooling" constrast dish on the side.

This recipe uses a fair bit of KANKUN (nearly 100 mL). Obviously I went for "hot". They make a mild version as well, if you're not such a heat freak. However I should warn you that it's Mexican mild, which is still pretty hot. For Edinburgh locals think of the so-called "mild" curries at Kebab Mahal.

One of the many reasons I love this sauce!

Spicy KANKUN Cochinita Pibil

Lookin' for some hot stuff, baby, this evening?

As a fan of Mexican salsas, extremely hot chile sauces, and KANKUN in particular, I was excited to get a couple bottles of their 85% Habanero sauce in the post.

I repeat, "a couple bottles".

85% habanero is, as they say, muy picante, so this supply will last me a while.

While I'm a big fan of pouring hot chile sauces on everything I eat, I have also been trying to think of ways to use this salsa as an ingredient. And because habaneros are typical of the Yucatán, this seemed like the perfect opportunity to make cochinita pibil.

I last wrote about Yucatecan pit-cooked (pibil) dishes when I made pollo pibil (pibil-style chicken). And ever since I've been looking forward to making the equally popular pork version: cochinita pibil.

To recap, the pibil dishes are meant to be cooked in a Yucatecan cooking pit called a pib (it's a Mayan word). You dig a hole, line it with hot stones and ashes, lay your food in the pit (wrapped in a protective covering like a banana leaf), and bury the lot.

Then let it slow-cook to perfection!

Well, I don't expect you to dig a hole in your back garden (if I tried this at home, Mrs MexiGeek would pit-roasting me in it).

Instead, you can compromise by slow-cooking cochinita pibil in the oven.

What you CAN'T compromise on, though, is the seasoning, which here means achiote paste.

Achiote paste or recado rojo is made with the hard red seeds of a tree native to the Americas. It is quite easy to make, lasts months in the fridge, freezes well, and is useful for other Yucatecan dishes (so don't be afraid to make a big batch).

Even better, recado rojo is made of easy-to-find ingredients, except for the achiote itself, which is available from specialist shops and on-line suppliers (it is often sold as "annatto", the Brazilian name).

Homemade achiote paste and the molcajete it was made in.

These same suppliers often sell ready-made recado rojo, so you can use that and save yourself a step.

The other thing a pibil dish requires is the juice of Seville (or bitter) orange. These are available year-round in the Yucatán but are restricted to January in Europe.

I bought a big bag last year and froze the juice, so I'm sorted, but you can also make mock bitter orange juice by combining two parts grapefruit juice with one part orange juice, then adding a dash of lime juice.

You can get the orange and grapefruit juices out of a carton but I would definitely recommend using fresh lime.

All pibil dishes, whether cooked in an actual pib or not, are traditionally wrapped in a banana leaf, which not only keeps the meat soft and moist but also imparts a characteristic flavour.

Banana leaves are available from some Asian grocers (look for ones with Thai ingredients), but if you can't find any, just wrap the pork in parchment (en papillotte, as the French would say).

If you have a good quality casserole dish, you could even do without the parchment.

Or you could make this dish in a slow-cooker (whether you use banana leaves or not).

KANKUN Cochinita Pibil

Ingredientes

Marinade
1 recipe recado rojo (about 50 g)
90 - 100 mL Seville orange juice (or bitter orange substitute)
1 - 2 teaspoons KANKUN Habanero Sauce (or to taste)

Pork
1 - 1.5 kg pork shoulder or loin
A banana leaf or cooking parchment (optional)

Procedimiento

First I made the marinade.

In a bowl, I combined the achiote paste (recado rojo) and Kan-Kun with enough Seville orange juice to loosen it to a pourable consistency. This turned out to be about 100 mL, which covered the pork nicely.

Then I added the KANKUN Habanero sauce. I used just about two teaspoons. Normally I would taste in between to get the balance right, but I'm not sure if you should eat raw achiote paste, so I had to test it using sense of smell.

If the mainade is gritty (which is likely if you made it in a molcajete), blend it with a hand-blender until it's smooth.

The three amigos of the Yucatan: achiote, bitter orange, and habanero!.

Then I prepped the pork.

My partner in crime Wee Sadie had bought me banana leaves from a shop on Leith Walk ages ago. I started trying to unfold the leaves (they are HUGE) and cut two pieces large enough to line my casserole dish and wrap around the pork.

Please resist the temptation to steal banana leaves from the Royal Botanic Gardens.

You will have to wipe the leaves clean and cut off any edges that are starting to go brown or curly. Some people also recommend you pass the leaves briefly though a flame so they soften a bit, but I found the ones I used were malleable enough without this step.

Handle them carefully, though, because they do like to rip at the seams!

I lined a casserole dish with one of the leaves, laid the pork in the dish, and poured over the marinade. 

But don't just pour the marinade. Massage it in with your hands. Work that flavour!

After I washed my hands (do this frequently: achiote is also a powerful dye!), I covered the pork with the other leaf and tucked it down on all sides so the pork was wrapped fairly tightly.

Snug as a bug!

I put the lid on and left it to marinate in the fridge overnight. If you're not into waiting 24 hours to cook something, at least give it an hour or two. But the more time, the better.

When you're ready to cook (which is hopefully the next day), preheat the oven to 180° C (160° fan) and cook for 3 to 4 hours.

I had to leave this to the ever-capable Mrs MexiGeek, because I was at work. The pork went in at 17.30, as per my instructions.

I checked it at 20.00 (after 2 and a half hours). I was looking for the pork to be soft, moist, and tender, so I even peaked under the banana leave and gave it a bit of a "test shred". I deemed it should go back in until at least 21.00.

Now it's ready.

You'll need to use your judgement here, but your pork may need as much as five hours, depending on your oven and the size of your cut of pork. If you're doing the slow-cooker method, my estimate would be 10 hours on low or 2 hours on high followed by 3 hours on low. (This is based on successfully doing carnitas in a slow-cooker.)

When the pork is done, remove it and shred it like pulled pork or carnitas: it should fall apart easily. 

I then poured the remaining marinade and cooking juices from the dish over the shredded pork and gave it a good mix.

Like the greatest ever carnitas. The serving dish is hecho en Mexico too!

You can serve the shredded pork with warm tortillas and make tacos, or serve with a traditional Mexican rice dish.

I chose Mexican red rice, but I didn't use enough tomato, so it didn't come out very red. Also, I used diced chiles poblanos instead of peas. 

Still, it looked and tasted awesome:

And of course I added some extra KANKUN. Because some like it hot!

Another classic way to serve cochinita pibil is shredded on top of panuchos, which are Yucatecan tortillas stuffed with refried beans.

But whatever you choose, make sure you top the pork with Yucatecan pink picked onions (cebollas en escabeche) and serve some more Kan-Kun Habanero sauce for those who really want to crank up the heat!

The thing I love about the pibil dishes, and really all Yucatecan food, is that it's a million miles away from the stodgy Tex-Mex cuisine that people sometimes assume is real Mexican food. 

These flavours are vibrant, fresh, and yet deep and complex. 

In particular, the pibil pork (as opposed to the chicken dish) is rich, but the citrus of the bitter orange (and the cebollas en escabeche) cuts through it nicely, which the achiote paste adds deep, complex undertones. 

And of course, the KANKUN. I used just about two teaspoons in my marinade, and the flavour (and heat) of the habanero sauce was present throughout the whole dish. It was not too spicy, though. I'd say I hit upon just the right amount. 

(Mrs MexiGeek found it scrumptious as well.)

And again, habaneros, with their characteristic fruity flavour, are the perfect chile to complement this dish. 

And this is a serious habanero sauce. KANKUN use true habaneros for this sauce, not Scotch bonnets (which are related to habaneros, but not really the same thing). This commitment to using the authentic chile is important, because you need that true habanero flavour in a dish like this.

Of course, habaneros are one of the hottest chiles; some of them can reach 350,000 Scoville Heat Units, I think. They're certainly over 100,000. So for readers who think they might not be able to cope with that, I have some final advice. 

I added KANKUN's new habanero salsa to the marinade, but many cooks make the marinade without any chile, instead serving some chile salsa on the side.

This approach works well if you or the people you're serving people don't like too much chile heat, as each diner can take as much or little extra salsa as they choose.

So if you or any of your guests are a bit wary of the fiery habaneros, feel free to halve the quantity of KANKUN, or even leave it out of the marinade and just have a bottle of KANKUN on the table, for the hardcore chileheads.

Recado rojo (Yucatecan achiote paste)

One thing I love about Yucatecan food is the achiote seasoning paste (recado rojo), which is, among other things the basis of the marinade used in the famous pibil dishes.

Achiote paste is made from the hard, red seeds of a native tree.

You can buy birth the whole seeds and pre-ground achiote from on-line suppliers and specialist shops (like Lupe Pintos). It's often sold as "annatto", which is the Brazilian name for it.

These same shops and suppliers usually sell a pre-made recado rojo (El Yucateco is a good brand), in case you wanna save yourself some work.

But being MexiGeek, I actually enjoy doing it the hard way, which is grind it yourself in a molcajete (mortar and pestle).

However, I do but pre-ground achiote, because those seeds are so hard even a spice-grinder needs a few minutes to cope.

(And you can, of course, do the whole thing in a food processor.)

Ingredientes

There is no one set recipe, but there are a few essential ingredients plus a few likely "extras". And there is a typical ratio of amounts to get the flavour balance right.

The essentials are:

1 tbsp achiote
1 tsp Mexican oregano
1 tsp black peppercorns
1 tsp allspice berries
1 tsp cinnamon (canela)
1/2 tsp cumin
5 cloves garlic
1-2 tbsp cider vinegar

You can also embellish this with:

1/2 tsp cloves
1/2 tsp coriander seeds

You may also need to add an extra tablespoon or two of plain flour at the end if the paste is too loose.

Procedimiento

Keeping in mind that I use pre-ground achiote, I'm writing this in "grinding order".

(If you're using while achiote seeds, grind them separately in a spice-grinder.)

Peel the garlic and grind it down to a paste in your molcajete.

Crumble a one-inch stick of (preferably) Mexican cinnamon into the molcajete and grind it down.

(In Mexico they use canela or "true cinnamon", as opposed to the cassia bark we use in Europe.)

Add the allspice (and clove, if using) and continue grinding.

(The cinnamon won't break down completely until the end.)

Add the peppercorns and continue grinding. When they have broken down add the cumin.

Add the coriander seeds (if using) once the cumin has broken down; add the oregano and "mix" it in with the pestle.

Now add the achiote and grind it in until it looks well incorporated.

Now add the vinegar a little at a time and continue "mixing" with the pestle. If the paste is too loose, add some flour.

You should let this paste stand in the fridge overnight if you want it to really rock.

Then you can make cochinita pibil!

Mexican things you can do with a Seville Orange

You know what's freaky about being MexiGeek?

I set out to make something complicated like pollo pibil, and this is my shopping list:

2 chicken breasts
2 onions (1 red, 1 white)
1 head of garlic
Tomatoes
Seville oranges

Everything else I already have on hand (with one exception, see below).

I must have a very Mexican store cupboard.

But before I get ahead of myself, let's introduce the star of this post: the Seville Orange.

The Seville orange is famous for two reasons:

1. No one in Seville eats them; practically the whole crop is shipped to the UK, where...
2. ...the Brits just use them to make marmalade!

(There are some French dishes that use them too.)

In Europe, including super-hot, practically North Africa Seville, these oranges are only in season in January.

In tropical Yucatán, Mexico, they are available all year round.

In Mexico they are called naranjas agrias ("bitter oranges") and, since being introduced by the Spanish, have become an integral part of Yucatecan cuisine.

So if you're tired of making marmalade, why not try making pollo pibil with cebollas en escabeche?

Pollo Pibil

Pibil means "cooked in a pib" (literally it means "covered"), and a pib (a Mayan word), is a "pit barbecue".

Basically it's a hole in the ground filled with hot ashes or stones. You put your food in it (wrapped in something like a banana leaf), then cover it with more hot ashes or stones and let it cook slowly for a long time.

Before you freak out, I don't expect you to dig a hole in your garden. I sure as hell didn't.

You can cook pibil-style food in an oven, a steamer, or even a slow cooker/crock pot.

What makes a non-pib version of this dish worthy of the name "pibil" is the marinade, a mixture of Seville orange juice with the famous Yucatecan achiote spice paste, recado rojo.

The other thing a pibil dish usually needs is a banana leaf.

I'm sure it is possible to get banana leaves in Edinburgh, but I haven't found out where yet. They are meant to be available from "Asian grocers", but I don't know what "Asian" means in that context.

I went to a Chinese grocer while members of my MexiGeek crew searched Leith Walk's exotic shops, but no dice.

Once upon a time I was going to put off making this dish until I had sourced banana leaves, but when I realized Seville oranges would only be in season until the end of January, I decided to bring my plans forward.

You can always "fake" some Seville orange juice by combining normal orange juice with some grapefruit juice - Seville oranges really do taste like a combination of orange and grapefruit (I ate one raw with my lunch) - but I didn't want to miss the opportunity to use the real thing.

So I had to go "French" and steam my chicken en papillote (i.e. wrapped in baking parchment).

There are actually two famous pibil dishes: chicken (pollo pibil) and pork (cochinita pibil).

Because I wanted to make panuchos (fat tortillas stuffed with refried beans) as well, I was strongly considering the pork.Cochinita pibil is served shredded, and panuchos are usually topped with shredded meat.

Pollo pibil is not served shredded, or on top of panuchos. Instead it is served as a meal in itself, usually in or on the banana leaf, if you've got one.

There is a Yucatecan shredded chicken dish called pollo en escabeche ("pickled" chicken), which I while make some other time.

But in the end I went with the chicken anyway because pork isn't "in season" yet, and chicken doesn't really have a season.

Obviously, when cooking Mexican food in the UK, you can only take seasonality so far, but as this meal started with a seasonal ingredient (the oranges), I wanted to keep up the theme.

How to cook pollo pibil

This is one of those multi-day affairs.

Day 1 (Two days before serving)

Make Yucatecan achiote paste (recado rojo).

Ironically, this is kind of inauthentic of me, because if I really lived in the Yucatán, I'd probably just buy some recado rojo from the markets, rather than make my own.

If you want to make this dish, but don't want to make the recado, they do sell pre-made stuff at Lupe Pinto's and from the Cool Chile Company (and some other places).

Some recipes don't even require recado rojo, calling for ground achiote (annatto), which is also available from Lupe Pinto's.

I have even seen some simplified recipes call for turmeric in place of achiote.

Achiote does indeed impart a vaguely "curry" flavour, so this is quite a clever substitution, but keep in mind your sauce will be yellow instead of red.

Being a MexiGeek, I like making my own recado.

As usual, I took the recipe from Rick Bayless, but the basic idea behind Yucatecan recado rojo is 1 tablespoon of achiote plus a bit more than 1 1/2 tablespoons of garlic (say, 5 cloves) and 2 tablespoons of cider vinegar.

To this, add a pinch each of "the usual Yucatecan spices", which are black pepper, allspice, cinnamon, and Mexican oregano, and, if you like, half a pinch each of cumin and coriander seed.

If the paste is too runny, and a teaspoon and a half of white flour.

This needs to sit in the fridge overnight.

Day 2 (The day before serving)

Mix the juice of two Seville oranges with your achiote paste (or just mix achiote, black pepper, allspice, cinnamon, and Mexican oregano with the Seville orange juice) and some blitzed habanero to taste.

I used dried habanero, but fresh is also good if you've got it. Be careful, though, cuz it's fecking hot!

If the marinade looks gritty, put it in the blender until it's smooth.

Smear this over two chicken breasts and leave to marinate in the fridge overnight.

By the way, achiote is a natural dye, so wash or at least rinse everything it touches ASAP, unless you're happy for it to remain that shade of red forever.

Day 3 (The Big day! So exciting!)

Slice some white onion and tomato about 5-7 (no more than 10) mm thick.

Lay two slices of onion and two slices of tomato on each of your banana leaves (or baking parchment, in my case).

Then put one chicken breast in each leaf/sheet, on top of the tomato slices.

Cover the chicken breasts with the remaining marinade.

Top each breast with two more slices of onion and two more slices of tomato.

Wrap the parcels up tightly (I used a "French seam") and steam on high for 30 minutes.

When it was done, I opened the little parcels and carefully placed each chicken breast - onions, tomatoes and all - on top of what I originally meant to be a panucho but ended up being a variation of a tortilla doblada (more on that in a future post).

I swear there's a chicken breast under that tomato!

Then I tipped the remaining sauce into a frying pan, added more Seville orange juice, and fried it until it reduced a bit. (Frying sauce like this is very common in Mexican cooking).

I served the extra sauce in a jug on the side. It was fairly hot from the habanero, but Mrs MexiGeek and I agreed it could have gone a shade hotter.

We're just hard like that.

Cebollas en escabeche

The other thing you can do is make Yucatecan pink pickled onions (cebollas en escabeche).

I've written about these before, but it's worth repeating.

Recently I saw a recipe for these in Good Housekeeping or somewhere, which is amazing in a way, but they left all the seasoning out!

Yes, the basic idea behind pink pickled onions is thinly sliced red onion, boiling water and red wine vinegar. The magazine recipe got that much right.

But once again, you need some Yucatecan spices: allspice, Mexican oregano, and a pinch of cumin, for example.

Also, I would add a habanero, either finely chopped fresh habanero or, to tone down the heat, drop a whole fresh or dried one in as the onions pickle and then take it out before serving.

These flavours impart that special yo no se que (je ne sais quoi) that make food taste Yucatecan. Also, except for the oregano and chiles, these spices are readily available in all British supermarkets, and you can substitute normal oregano for the Mexican variety, and Scotch Bonnet peppers for the habaneros.

The onions should pickle for four hours. Then strain the liquid and cover the onions with a couple tablespoons of Seville orange juice.

I still say this the best condiment in the world ever.

Here they are again on top of a fried tortilla.

Altogether this makes one of those meals that can really open your eyes to the diversity of Mexican food.

We're a million miles away from the rich, earthy cuisine you get further north, and nowhere near stodgy Tex-Mex.

This dish is bright, zesty, citrusy, and surprisingly mild in the chile department (unless you overdo the habaneros). The red colour looks menacing but comes entirely from the achiote, which is not "hot".

I still need to try it with actually banana leaves though.

Maybe I'll do the cochinita pibil when pork comes into season.

The Seville oranges will be off by then. Fortunately we juiced the rest of them and popped it in the freezer!