Mar 27 2008
Mote pillo or hominy with eggs
Published by Laylita at 9:31 am under All, Breakfast and brunch, Comfort food, Kid friendly, Quick, Sides, South America, Vegetables
Mote pillo is a dish of hominy fried with scrambled eggs; it is the perfect breakfast or brunch dish. Mote pillo is a typical dish from the highlands or Sierra region in Ecuador, the city of Cuenca (and the whole province of Azuay) claim this dish as their specialty. To me this is really a comfort food, like many other dishes from the Sierra it warms me up inside when I eat it. Mote pillo is very easy and quick to make, the mote or hominy is sautéed with onions, garlic, achiote, eggs, milk, chives and cilantro or parsley, it is almost always served with hot black coffee and slices of fresh cheese. Mote or hominy is dry corn that has been peeled and then boiled until soft, it is very easy to find it already prepared and canned in most grocery stores, usually in the canned vegetable section or in the ethnic section.
Ingredients:
1 lb cooked mote or hominy (can use canned hominy)
2 tbs butter
4 eggs
1 cup of chopped leeks (white part only) or white onion
2 garlic cloves, crushed
¼ tsp ground achiote
¼ cup milk
2 tbs chopped chives
1 tbs finely chopped cilantro or parsley
Salt to taste
Serve with: Queso fresco slices and black coffee
Preparation:
- Heat the butter over medium heat in a large sauté pan, add the chopped leek or onions, crushed garlic, achiote and salt to make a refrito, cook until the leeks are soft, about 5 minutes.
- Add the mote or hominy, stir in well and cook for another 2 minutes.
- Add the milk and cook until the milk is almost all absorbed by the hominy.
- Whisk the eggs and add them to the hominy, stir well and cook for about 3-5 minutes.
- Stir in the chives and cilantro and add additional salt if needed.
- Serve accompanied by queso fresco slices and hot black coffee.
Save me a space at the table! This looks delicious! Here in Peru, it is common to eat corn & cheese for breakfast, but I have never seen them combine it with eggs to anything like this. It is choclo con queso at a whole new level!!!
Wow. I just found your blog and must take a bit of time to poke around. This looks absolutely amazing. I love hominy and am always looking for new ways to prepare it. And great use of achiote. I am bookmarking this for later. great post.
Amy @ http://www.weareneverfull.com
“…Mote or hominy is dry corn that has been peeled and then boiled until soft…”
Hmmm.
That hardly describes hominy, does it? Perhaps a short note on how one would “peel” a dry corn kernel would have been in order…
Pam Am - The dry corn is peeled by soaking and cooking the corn with Calcium oxide, also known as cal in Spanish or quicklime in English, it is very long process, my mom used to do it when I was very young, but now most people buy the hominy either already prepared and cooked, usually fresh in Ecuador and other South American countries, and canned in the US and Europe.
Thanks, Laylita — I already knew that.
You also made my point. You replaced:
“…dry corn that has been peeled…”
with:
“… [t]he dry corn is peeled by soaking and cooking the corn with Calcium oxide…”
I just thought that should have been in the original entry.
BTW: hominy was also traditional comfort food on the maternal side of my family, but called “lye corn”, or “blé d’inde lessivé”. Weird ol’ man Kellogg flattened it and called it Corn Flakes (to make a story short).
Thank you Laylita - I am so excited to have found this recipe, I was fortunate enough to have tried Mote Pillo during a recent visit to Cuenca Ecuador and have been craving it ever since. I can’t wait to make it here at home. (US) I must agree fully that this is most definitely a comfort food, at least for me. How something so simple can be so captivating I don’t know, perhaps I have simply associated it with a wonderful trip but either way, Mote Pillo (and hopefully another trip to Cuenca) are in my future.
Great pictures! Mote Pillo looks so good that my mouth is watering!
Muchas gracias por la receta he estado buscando una site con recetas Ecuatorianas hace mucho tiempo!!
Does anyone know where to find dried hominy corn?
Hi Willis - I can find the dried hominy corn at some of the Latin/Hispanic supermarkets, it’s usually with in the same section as the pigeons peas, lentils or beans and the only one I’ve found is by Goya.
I grew up in the “grits belt” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grits), eating scrambled eggs and hominy for breakfast, but I’d have never thought about mixing them together. This looks like an interesting variation that I’ll be cooking this weekend. I wonder where I can buy achiote?
Achiote is also called annato and can be found at most Latin/Hispanic supermarkets in the spice section, it comes either already ground or in whole seeds or sometimes in a paste mixed with other seasonings.