North America

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Making My First Salsa Molcajeteada

After a lot of hard and probably excessive work on my part to cure my molcajete, today was finally the day to try to make a salsa in it. I opted for salsa verde because it’s my favourite and the ingredients are inexpensive enough that if my curing failed and the salsa turned out gritty, then it wouldn’t be a huge waste.

First up was to roast the veggies I was going to use. I don’t know if I ever mentioned this, but I had the propane tank regulator changed a few months ago and it completely changed my life. My range went from barely adequate to incredible as it now gets up to proper temperature! So I can use the comal that came with the range to generate the Maillard reaction in a range of delectable things. You can see here tomatillos, a Serrano pepper (the smaller one), a jalapeño (top right), and half of a white onion.

Once everything was beautifully charred and softened, I transferred the tomatillos to the molcajete, but I did some additional prep on the chiles and onion to make them easier to salsify, cutting them into chunks. I also still have some tastebuds left, so I removed the seeds and white pith from the chiles, knowing that I was going to get plenty of heat just from the tasty flesh. You can see some cilantro peeking through, and there’s also garlic at the bottom. I added salt, the juice of half of a large lime, and a little water. I was just going off various salsas I’d seen made and ingredients on the bottle of my favourite brand (Herdez), not following any particular recipe.

I started to grind. It was work!

The sauce started to liquify. I wanted it a little chunky, so this was about perfect. I ground maybe a minute more, but you could still pick out all the ingredients.

Taste test was astounding — no grit and no seasoning adjustment needed! But it was hot — just at my limit of tolerance for food coming out of my own kitchen!

After I devoured some of the sauce with a packet of Salma crackers (they taste almost exactly like corn chips, but are healthy!), I shredded a pork chop onto my hot comal and added some Chihuahua cheese until both were browned and caramelised. A wheat tortilla heated up on the other side. I piled my hot pork and cheese onto the tortilla, added a generous portion of my salsa verde, and topped the whole lot with a dollop of sour cream. Delicious!