What Piquín means
Piquín is a Mexican ingredient name of Nahuatl origin meaning "tiny wild chile". It comes from chīltecpin: chīlli (chile) + tecpin (flea). It is pronounced pee-KEEN, and it is most associated with northern Mexico.
The Nahuatl name means flea chile, for its size. Spanish piquín looks like it comes from picar, to sting, but it is more likely a reshaping of the tail of chiltepín.
Piquín is one of the many Mexican food words formed in Nahuatl. Spanish borrowed it, and in several cases English borrowed it again from Spanish. See how Nahuatl builds words and the full list of Mexican food names.
This is a site about what Mexican words mean, so there is no recipe here. For the name itself: The words that appear inside dish names: the chiles (ancho, guajillo, pasilla, chipotle), the corn words (nixtamal, masa, tortilla, elote), and the tools (comal, molcajete, metate). Learn these and most menu items decode themselves.
