Pepian 🇬🇹

Pepian - Guatemala's 🇬🇹 National Dish

Pepian was supposed to be my first stew of my trip. Appropriately, it is also one of Guatemala's national dishes. Before even trying this dish, it was cooked from scratch. I opted for a veggie version. Normally, Pepian is traditionally cooked with chicken. Here, chicken broth is used as base. I replaced it with a simple vegetable broth.

Ingredients

• 1.8 liters vegetable broth

• 500 grams green princess beans

• 1.5 kg potatoes

• 2 chayotes

• 150 grams sesame seeds

• 150 grams peeled pumpkin seeds

• a small stick of cinnamon

• 12 tomatoes

• 3 dried pasilla and guajillo chillies each

• salt

• 1 tablespoon achiote paste

• 3 white onions

• 1 bunch of cilantro (including stems)

Instructions

First, add the beans, chayotes (peeled like a pumpkin) and potatoes to the finished clear vegetable broth. Let them cook for about 20 minutes.

Afterwards, roast the cinnamon stick, sesame seeds, and peeled pumpkin seeds without oil in the same pan.

In the same pan, also roast the tomatoes, chillies (remove seeds and stems beforehand), and onions without oil.

Then, grind the cinnamon, pumpkin seeds, and sesame seeds into powder. For this, add the chillies, tomatoes, onions, achiote paste, cilantro, and a pinch of salt and blend until it forms a fine puree. This takes some time, repeat the process frequently to ensure the mixture is really smooth.

Once you're done with this, you're almost there. Now simply mix the paste into the vegetables including broth, so that it all combines.

Let it simmer together for another 10-15 minutes.

Since something was missing in the veggie version, I added some Guatemalan dark chocolate, which fit very well. I served the Pepian with white bread.

Enjoy your meal!