Pupusas

My favorite food here is still pupusas. Last week, our Spanish maestra taught us how to make them. She sent me the recipe, which I translated into English and am posting here along with some instructional pictures!

Pupusas

·      Masa de maiz (corn flour, can be bought at the supermarket I think)

·      Water

·      Cheese

o   Here they buy 2 types of cheese – really soft and bland queso fresco and really hard and sharp queso duro (shredded), and then mix them together with their hands till they are completely blended. This way the cheese is soft, but has the sharp flavor of the hard cheese. In the US, the best comparison would probably be to buy mozzarella cheese and then kneed in some shaved parmesan

o   Also, here people often add to their queso chopped loroco (the national flower - its buds are a common seasoning). Loroco barely has any flavor so leaving it out will not harm the taste of the finished product.

·      Filling

o   Most common filling here is fried pork skin and refried beans. Pork skin is not my thing, so I prefer to leave it out and just use refried beans. You can buy refried beans, or make them yourself! (If you buy the refried beans, make sure you heat them up a little on the stove with some oil so that they are warm and malleable when you start forming the pupusas)

·      Vegetable oil

Mixing cheeses (Kara is mixing dough in the background)

Pupusa ingredients [top left: dough, botton left: cheese; top right: loroco; bottom right: beans]

Directions

·      Mix 2 cups of masa and 1.5 cups of water. Mix until a soft dough is formed. Wet hands, and form a small ball of dough (a little bigger than a golf ball). Poke a hole in the dough, and add a little bit of cheese and a little of beans. Re-roll into a ball, with the filling in the middle. Flatten the ball into a fat tortilla.

o   The only thing I can compare making pupusas to is how Mio makes rice balls. Therefore, as you can imagine it is really really hard for me (since I still haven’t mastered rice balls after 22 years).

Making the pupusas

·      Heat a little vegetable oil in a fry pan over medium high heat. Place pupusas in fry pan and cook, flipping occasionally. Cook until browned and cheese inside appears to be slightly bubbling

Cooking our pupusas. They usually don't look this messy

Salsa Roja

·      Large (roma) tomatoes

·      Green pepper, chopped (optional)

·      Vegetable oil

·      Onion, chopped

·      Garlic cloves, chopped

·      Cilantro

·      Salt (as needed)

·      Hot pepper such as jalapenos (optional)

Amounts will vary depending on how much salsa you’re making

Directions:

·      Blanch tomatoes in boiling water, remove and place in bowl. Remove skin of tomatoes; blend (in blender or food processor) with chopped pepper, cilantro, hot pepper (if using – people here usually don’t use it, but I prefer it!).

·      In saucepan, heat oil and cook onion and garlic till slightly brown. Add tomato mixture and simmer for about 10 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add water and salt as necessary

·      [Salsa here is very liquidy (resembles tomato soup) and is served hot over the pupusas] 

Tomatoes and peppers in the blender

salsa and beans on the stove

Curtido

·      Shredded cabbage (not too fine)

·      Sliced onion (not chopped)

·      Sliced carrot

·      Green beans (cut in half)

·      Beetroot (optional)

·      Cauliflower, cut into small pieces

·      Vinegar

·      Water

·      Oregano (optional)

Directions

·      Mix all ingredients together (should be ¾ vinegar, ¼ water) in a big bowl, put in the fridge. You should have about equal parts all veggies, although more cabbage than anything else. Not sure on exact measurements, but should kind of look like coleslaw.  Here, they use a vinegar made of fruit, but I don’t think it matters what kind you use as long as there is no specific flavor to it

Veggies for salsa and curtido

Curtido   

Eating

Salvadorans usually peel their pupusa in half (so they have 2 round tortillas with filling on top) and then put curtido and salsa on top of these halves, tear them into chunks and eat with their fingers. I prefer to tear my entire pupusa into chunks (so the filling remains in the middle) and put curtido and salsa on top and eat it all with my fingers. This way, I am able to keep molten cheese from sticking to my fingers and burning me (most of the time).

[Note: pupusas are NEVER eaten with a fork. That would be sacrilegious]

Finished product!