Papadzules

I came across this dish whilst watching a documentary about the inspirational Diane Kennedy, an English woman who wrote several popular Mexican cookbooks in the Seventies. She mentioned Papadzules, a regional Mayan egg dish which caught my attention. 

Unfortunately I had never even heard of the dish before we visited the Yucatan. It was only on the flight home did I watch the programme! Anyway, it was the first dish I wanted to make when I got home. 


Ingredients
(serves 4)
1 litre water
2 sprigs of fresh epazote (which I substituted with 10g thyme sprigs and 200g spinach) 
320g pumpkin seeds
12 corn tortillas, 5 to 5 1/2 inches (13-14cm) in diameter
16 large hard-boiled eggs, shelled, roughly chopped, and salted

for the salsa
20 tomatoes
1 habenaro chilli (or milder)
10g dried thyme
1 onion finely chopped
2 garlic cloves

Method

Begin by hard boiling your eggs. My latest preferred way is drop the eggs into a saucepan of cold water. Bring to a boil, and once it reaches temperature remove from the heat and leave for about 15 minutes. Then run under cold water to cool them down quickly. 

Roughly chop 12 of the eggs, then place in an ovenable dish and put into an oven on a low heat to keep warm. 

With the other 4 eggs, seperate the yolk from the white, then chop them individually. Set aside for garnishing the dish. 

Next bring a saucepan with about a litre of water to a boil. Drop in a few tomatoes at a time. Give them a small incision at the base to help the skin fall off. Keep an eye on them and once the tomato skin begins to seperate from the flesh remove them with a slotted spoon. Set aside to cool before removing the skin and deseeding them. 

In a small saucepan on a medium to high heat, pour in a splash of veg oil before adding the onion and garlic cloves. Cook gently for a few minute until the onion has softened before adding the chilli. A few minutes later add all the pepared tomatoes and dried thyme and turn the heat up. Bring to a boil before turning the heat back down to low and simmer for 15 minutes.  Add a pinch of salt and taste. Adjust the seasoning by adding more salt or chillies if required.

Meanwhile, with the tomato water that remains add the epazote (or in my case the thyme and spinach [just for the green colour]) and bring to a simmer. Cook through on a low heat for 15 minutes.

In the meantime, toast or roast the pumpkins seeds, either in a dry frying pan or in the oven on a low heat, taking care not to brown them too much. When they begin to release their oils and start to smell amazing set aside to cool.

Put the seeds into a spice/(coffee) grinder blitz, not too finely. 

Now you could extract the oil from the ground seeds which is very traditional but if you want to keep it simple skip this step.

To extract oil spread the ground seeds onto a plate and add a little of the cooking water. Gradually add until it's a bit like breadcrumbs, then with your hands, squeeze the pulp and hopefully you'll see some green oil be released. Tip the plate and collect this oil for later. 

Once done put the pumpkin seeds paste into a blender and gradually add the cooking water, removing the thyme sprigs before you do so [but you can keep the spinach for the colour]. Blend until its smooth, adding more water to reach your desired consistency. 

Pour out into a frying pan and put on a low heat to keep warm. Stir often to keep the sauce from sticking. 

Now you're ready to assemble.  Warm the tortillas in the oven (or in a dry frying pan) then dip into the pumpkin seed sauce. Spoon about one eggs worth of chopped egg onto the soaked tortilla and roll up. Place on a warmed plate. Repeat the step for another two tortillas. (Three per serving) 

Then pour over more of the pumpkin seed sauce. 

Garnish the dish with a stripe of spicy tomato sauce down the centre then sprinkle over the chopped egg white, and then some chopped egg yolk. 

You can also sprinkle over some chopped ezapote leaves (or thyme), chopped chilli or very finely chopped onion. And if you bothered to extract the oil (I didn't!) then drizzle the green stuff all over to serve. 

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As I never even eaten Papadzules before I don't really know what it should taste like but the next time I cook this I would certainly try and fix a few things. 

The pumpkin seed sauce was a little too thick and definitely too green! I didn't have any fresh epazote, (not even any dried), so next time I would have to reduce the amount of spinach.  Although being dark green, with red of the tomato and the white and yellow of the egg it was the perfect colours of the Mexican flag!

I would also definitely use hotter chillies! I didn't have any habaneros so I used a jalapeno. The combination with the creamier pumpkin seed sauce allows for a spicier tomato sauce.