Chenchén

Ingredients

• 400 g cracked corn / cornmeal, coarse grind
• 2 tins full-fat coconut milk
• 600 ml water, hot
• 1 onion, finely chopped
• 3 garlic cloves, crushed
• 1 red pepper, diced small
• 3 culantro leaves, chopped
• 2 tbsp coconut oil
• 2 tsp salt, plus more to finish
• 1 tsp dried oregano, rubbed between the palms — optional

Method

1. Wash and soak the corn

   Rinse the cracked corn in three changes of cold water until the water runs clear, then leave it to soak for twenty minutes and drain. The rinsing carries off the loose starch dust; skip it and the pot thickens into paste in the first ten minutes, long before the grain itself is cooked, and you spend the rest of the hour adding water to a scorching pan.

   20 min

2. Build the sazón

   Warm the coconut oil in a heavy caldero over medium heat and sweat the onion, red pepper, garlic, culantro and oregano for six or seven minutes, until soft and fragrant but not coloured. Chenchén has no stock and no meat to lean on, so this base is the entire savoury spine of the dish.

3. Add the corn and the liquid

   Stir the drained corn through the sofrito for a minute so every grain is coated in fat, then pour in the coconut milk and the hot water and add the salt. Adding cold water here drops the pan below a simmer and the grain sits in tepid liquid swelling unevenly; hot liquid keeps it moving.

4. Simmer low and stir often

   Bring it to a bare simmer, then drop the heat as low as it will go and cook for thirty to thirty-five minutes, stirring up from the bottom every few minutes with a wooden spoon. Coconut milk and corn starch both catch, and a scorched layer at the bottom perfumes the whole pot with burnt sugar in under a minute — there is no rescuing it once it happens.

   35 min

5. Check the grain, not the clock

   Taste a few grains: they should be tender all the way through with a slight chew left, and the mixture should hold a ridge when you draw the spoon across the pan. If it is still chalky at the centre, add a splash of hot water and give it another ten minutes — undercooked cracked corn does not soften once it cools.

6. Rest and serve

   Pull it off the heat, check the salt one last time and let it sit covered for five minutes so it sets to the soft, spoonable body it is meant to have. Serve it under chivo guisado or any stew with plenty of sauce; chenchén is built to soak.