Chenchen

Pronounced "chinchin," this is a treat that I first tasted at the 9th day funeral/wake celebration. It is a dense, moist cornbread or a polenta of sorts. It can be made as a sweet or savory dish. I have only tasted the savory version. Begin with cracked corn, like Jimmy... Anyway, do your best to find cracked corn or crushed corn, not corn meal, the pieces of corn are bigger.

Wil soaked about 2 cups of corn while he was assembling some of the other ingredients.

We grated the other half of the coconut and used it plus the 1/2 cup left over. Wil added some water to the coconut.

He then squeezed the coconut in his hands pouring the water into a large hot pan that had 2-3 T oil, 1/3 of a chopped onion, and 1 bouillion cube.

Wil then added more water to the coconut and squeezed it out again. He only added a little of the grated coconut to the pot. Wil then added about 3 cups of water to the pot.

Soaking the corn. Pretty exciting stuff! Wil added about 5 cups of water to the pan, plus 1/2 bouillion cube, and 1 t salt.

Wil then drained the corn.

Add the corn to the pan and stir. Wil ended up adding another cup of washed corn. He then covered the pot for about 5 minutes.

After the 5 minutes, he stirred and scraped the mixture.

Wil added another 1 1/2 cups of cold water to the pan.

Wil continued to stir and scrape every few minutes.

And stir and scrape!

Boil, boil, toil and trouble...

As the mixture begins to dry a bit, add 1 1/2 -2 cups of milk.

Stir the milk into the mixture.

Then sprinkle 1/2 cup of the finest corn meal (like flour) over and stir in.

Then add 3/4 cup of the finest corn meal and stir in. The only way that I can describe how Wil was stirring at this point is, "fast and sharp movements" in the center of the pot. add 1/3 cup butter (they call margarine butter here, so we used margarine) and again stir with the fast and sharp movements.

When the chenchen becomes thicker and is not boiling as much, place it in a hot oven (maybe 400-425) for up to 1 hour. He uncovered it after about 20 minutes.

It's beginning to look so golden!

Traditionally, and still at celebrations where they can cook outside, this dish is cooked over fire. So it usually has a browner top; this is served as a special treat. Because of our oven, our crispy brown treat was on the bottom of the pan.

We dug in to get the crust!

Chenchen is served with pork (or other meat) and beans poured right over the top. Sometimes it is also fried up quickly the next day and served under beans or meat.