Making Sikil Pak
Feb 26, 2025
Tags: recipe mexico cooking
Today I decided to make sikil pak, which I had never heard of until Catrena and I were at a winery in Valle de Guadalupe last winter for her birthday. It’s delicious, think of a hummus that was made with pepitas and no tahini. Lots of great Central American flavors and seemingly a straightforward cook? I’ve been threatening to make it ever since. Tee up today, I cleaned and reorganized our spice counter and the place “to the right of the stove” which gets all oily and nasty and covered in coffee grounds and stuff and I just like ignore it until I do a day like today. I turned that motivation up (use it or lose it, right?) and did a few more things in the kitchen. There was a great deal on whole chickens at the store, $8! I haven’t seen a whole chicken for under 10$ in at least 2 years, they are normally like 4.99/lb making a whole chicken live around 14$ somewhere.
Spin Me Right Round
For the chicken, peppercorns, garlic cloves, dried rosemary, fresh time go into the mortar and pestel. I think I’m finally ready to buy a spice grinder. I find myself getting lazy with the m & p so things don’t end up as smooth or small as they could. I salted the skin and added the rub and into the rotisserie it went. Somewhere in the cooking process the chicken legs fell down, despite being tied. This caused the tips of the legs to be raw, while the rest of the chicken was reading 175°. For a second, I was like “cut the tips of the legs off, problem solved” but quickly realized if I flipped it upside down and cooked it for 10-15 min it should correct its course. Which I did. And it did. So that’s sitting in the warm oven until dinner (thinking of making blue cheese cauliflower rice and maybe a lemon chicken gravy out of the drippings to go with it).
Get to the point
This feels like one of those recipe website we all love to make fun of and I do understand the desire to write about food but sometimes you want them to get to the point, or at least have a way to get there quickly. Luckily for me (and you!), reading my ramblings in the main goal of this website and buddy, you’re in for a treat.
I continued cleaning and organizing, moving on to the snack section where I delightfully found a bunch of dried fruit I think we pilfered form a craft service site. As I was transferring dried cranberries to a jar, I realized we were rich with pumpkin seeds! I had 3 different containers filled with them (2 shelled, 1 shell-on) and Catrena dared me to “make [her] that dip we had in Mexico.” All I remembered about it was
- We liked it
- Hummus but make it pepitas
We even had to look through our camera rolls to find the photo of the menu. Had I been a more industrious food traveller I would have written this in my eating journal, but I’m not. So I didn’t. Anyway, I quickly looked it up, Sikil Pak, and found out its roasted tomatoes and pepitas and maybe some spicy peppers of some variety. That’s all I needed to see. I had some grape tomatoes that needed to be used as well as two small romas that were also on their way out. I also had a shallot in there and, because I organized my spice counter, found a bunch of chiles that Catrena’s cousin had given us on our last visit.
Roast it all
I put everything on a 1/4 sheet and through it in the oven at 500°. I knew it wasn’t going to be in long so I wanted to go fast and loose with it, get some color on things. After about 10 minutes, I turned the broiler on and left in another 5. Everything came out perfect. The shallots (sliced thing) were cooked, the tomatoes had some color and were juicing, so into the food processor they go! I started with the toasted pepitas until it had a breadcrumb texture then added everything else, drizzling in some olive oil until smooth. And holy shit was this spicy. Catrena and I like spicy food, especially when balanced well so the heat doesn’t overwhelm the flavor, but jesus christ neither of us could eat this haha.
Unfortunately I didn’t have any sour cream or crema to add in, fat can curb the spiciness, give it some balance. What I DID have was cottage cheese. I think cottage cheese gets a bad wrap. Its creamy, salty, slightly sour, It’s pretty versatile and can be used in instances like this. I blended in a few spoon fulls and it was immediately beter. I continued to add little by little until I felt it would begin to overpower. It’s good and the cottage cheese definitely helped, but it’s still too spicy (haha). Will I make this again? Absolutely. I think I’ll be able to do it better especially if I’m not in the middle of reorganizing half of the kitchen. After all, I’m still flush with pepitas.
UPDATE
Went back in after some time in the fridge and it’s better cold! Plus, I made a batch of margaritas and that’s also helping. When in doubt, margarita!
