Chicken Hallacas / Ayaka di Galinja

Information

Ingredients

Stuffing :

• 6 lbs of Chicken.
• Bottle of capers
• Tomatoe Paste
• Oregano Seasoning
• 1 tablespoon of cumin
• 3 tablespoon of sugar
• Garlic powder
• Piccalilli
• Onions ( slice in rings)
• Garlic (cut smaller pieces)
• Green Pepper (cut in strings)
• Cellery
• Butter and Vegetable Oil
• Plums
• Cashews
• Slice of Ham, bacon or pork fat 
• Sliced Pickle
• Green Olives
• If desire, hot pepper
• Salt and pepper to taste.

Dough :

• 2lbs of yellow corn meal or flour
• 1.5 cups of milk
• 1.5 cup of water
• 1 teaspoon of salt
• 5 cups of chicked stock
• 1 cup of pork butter. (can by pork fat and fry this to get the grease. the grease will turn into butter when cooled)
• 1.5 cups of butter
• 1/2 cup of ground annato (ruku)

Banana Leaves :

• 1/2 cup of vegetable oil
• Banana leaves

Preparation

Stuffing (Chicken) :

1. Remove the skin and the bone from the chicken and cut the chicken in smaller pieces
2. Put the chicken in a cooking pot and season it with oregano, cumin, garlic powder
3. Add butter, chopped garlic,sugar and the celery.
4. Put the pot on medium high heat and cook the chicken, add a little vegetable oil if necessary, when chicken seems to be cooked, add tomatoe paste and sugar and let it cook a little bit more. Can add some water if needed.
5. Add salt and pepper to taste.
6. When done, remove from heat and let the chicken cool down 

Prepare Banana Leaves :

1. Wash the banana leaves thoroughly with water
2. Rub the leaves well with a wet towel and then dry them up using paper towel or dry towel
3. Needs to sort the leaves in two types :
   • A larger piece where the dough will sit. It should be about 12x12 inches
   • And a smaller piece that covers the folded larger piece. It should be around 10x8 inches
4. With a sizzor remove the hard center of the leave and cut out the sizes of the leaves. In some areas, you can already buy the leaves ready to use.
5. If you desired, you can boil the leaves for about 2 minutes to loose them up a little if folding is difficult.

Dough :

1. Put a pot on medium heat and add the butter and the annato. Allow the butter to melt and the annato to release its color in the butter.
2. Remove from heat and let it cool down.
3. In a large pot, add the corn meal or flour and slowly add the chicken stock to it on medium hight heat.
4. When the content starts to cook, slowly add the butter and the annato from the other pot into the larger pot.
5. Let the content cook for a little bit, keep adding chicken stock if content becomes to solid. Stir content with a wooden spoon.
6. When content is is fully cooked and has a consistancy of a bread though remove from heat. and let it cool down.
7. Make even size balls with the dough and let it sit. The dough balls needs to big enough to form 8 to 10 inch circle that are 1/4 inch thick  when you flat them out.

Put together :

1. Make sure banana leaves are dry.
2. Apply oil on the inner side of the larger banana leave
3. Put the dough ball in the middle and flat it down to a circle about 1/4 inch thick
4. Now add 1.5 cooking spoon of the cooked chicken and sauce
5. Add two onion rings,
6. 1 strip of green pepper,
7. 2 capers,
8. 2 green olives,
9. 1 teaspoon Piccalilli,
10. 1 plum,
11. 2 cashews
12. A piece ofr ham, bacon or pork fat
13. 1 slice of pickle
14. Add hot pepper if desired in some of them. Amount depends on how hot you like it.

Fold Banana Leaves :

1. Take the two sides and do like you are folding a paper in half. So meet the to sides in the middle causing the stuffing to be closed inside of the dough.
2. Make sure all the stuffing and contained inside of the dough.
3. Fold the two borders together like you are wrapping a gift .
4. Then fold the other two sides on top
5. Grap another banana leave, the smaller one, and put the folder hallaca on the edge. and roll the hallace into the outer leave like rolling up a carpet.
6. The width of the smaller leave should be around the same lenght of the hallaca.
7. Cut a cooking twine about 20 inches and tight the leaves together leaving tic tac toe pattern on the Hallaca.

Cooking :

1. In a large cooking pot, add enough water to cook them all and let the water boil
2. When it starts to boil, lower it to medium heat and put the hallacas in the boiling water.
3. If you are worried that water might get inside of the though, you can always use aluminum foil around the hallacas before adding the cooking twine.
4. Let it boil for 1.5 hours. Let them cool down and then you can refriderate them.
5. To reheat, boil them for about 20 minutes and then serve.