Holiday food from Ecuador

I came home to visit my parents in Brooklyn for the holidays, and was treated to homemade hayacas. Hayacas are a pastel-like food eaten in Ecuador around Christmastime. The way it's made in the province of Manabí, where my family is from, is a mixture of chicken, sliced egg, peanut sauce, raisins, onions, olives wrapped in cornmeal dough, bound within banana leaves with string (or aluminum foil) and steamed. My mom was up pretty late the night before cooking the chicken and preparing the cornmeal with the chicken stock. The next day, my dad helped her with stuffing the cooked cornmeal with peanut sauce, then the rest of the ingredients. The whole thing is wrapped in banana leaf, and either tied with a string, or bundled in aluminum foil, and finally steamed.



It's a delicious once-a-year treat. Unfortunately this was quite an effort I doubt I could replicate at home in Boston. The only Ecuadorian food I have been able to make successfully is ceviche, which though not uniquely Ecuadorian, is made in a particular style in my home province of Manabí. I wrote about it here, in case anyone wants a recipe.