Poc Chuc from the Tomb Raider Cookbook

Onto my next batch of recipes! Back in 2021, Tomb Raider: The Official Cookbook and Travel Guide was published. As a massive Tomb Raider fan and foodie, I was intrigued, so I preordered it along with the official Alien cookbook (which I'll cook through one day), and both arrived that Autumn.

The first recipe I attempted to make in it was Poc Chuc, a Mayan recipe for pork marinated in citrus juice and then grilled. “Poc” is “pork”, and “chuc” is “charred”, so it means “charred pork”. This recipe is served with a chiltomate (chili and tomato) salsa, which is made in either a molcajete/mortar and pestle, or food processor. I used the latter because I don’t have a big enough molcajete to make that in.

Pro tip: meat is better marinated in a plastic bag. I try not to use them as much as I can, but for marinades I think they’re necessary. They actually get to be submerged in the marinade instead of sitting around and on top of it like when you do it in a dish.

I already knew of the dish Poc Chuc, because of a sidequest in Shadow of the Tomb Raider. In the village of Paititi, you find a crime scene. The husband of an upper-class woman has been murdered, and when you speak to her, she states that she had gone to the market to get ingredients. She intended to make Poc Chuc, her husband’s favorite dish for dinner.

Traditionally, Poc Chuc is served with rice, refried beans, pickled onions, avocado and tortillas. I made this recipe soon after getting the book, and… it did not turn out well. At all. My fault. You’re supposed to pound the pork thinly, and I didn’t pound it thin enough, so it didn’t fully cook through. We caught it as we were eating and I had to finish cooking it, and I didn’t sear it as much as I’d have liked. Also, I pureed the salsa too much, my refried beans were too loose and poo brown, and I chose to cook plain white rice. Boring.

For my second attempt, I prepared refried black beans (which I have more often than pinto), pickled onion and Laura Vitale’s Mexican Yellow Rice with modifications. I got smaller, thinner pork chops and ensured I pounded them to equal thickness, seared them correctly, made a more textured salsa (although with the onions, which you add separately, chunkier than I intended). I didn’t have tortillas or avocados, so I didn’t serve them with this. I used a red onion with the salsa, when the recipe calls for white, because it’s what I had, but I didn’t use the whole onion in the salsa.

The book tells you to use a habanero pepper in the salsa. I can’t buy those except in bulk, and they’re too spicy for my guests, so both times I made Poc Chuc I opted for a jalapeno. I made a half batch of the salsa, and used the other half of the jalapeno in the rice, along with the (more finely chopped) rest of the red onion.

I was told I should cook the pork chops in a cast-iron skillet, but I used my griddle pan because I wanted grill marks on them. Not all of them were completely cooked, and so they needed a few minutes longer. The recipe tells you to cook them a minute per side. I knew that wouldn’t be enough and went longer, but not long enough at first. That’s not a problem with the recipe, it’s my inexperience with grilling. Over time however, I will get better at that.

In spite of that setback, the second attempt at Poc Chuc turned out much better, and much more flavorful! You can also tell that my presentation skills have improved since I last made the dish.

If you want to make this recipe for Poc Chuc yourself, you can find it in Tomb Raider: The Official Cookbook and Travel Guide. You can also find Laura’s recipe for Mexican Yellow Rice here. A more extensive article on the history of Poc Chuc can be read on Tomb Raider Horizons here.