Happy National Pupusa Day! This is a great rainy day (or any day, for that matter) recipe that you can do with your children or other less-experienced cooks. Pupusas, also popular in Honduras, are the national dish of El Salvador. If you’ve never eaten one, or made one, they are light and fluffy corn-rich cakes that you stuff and cook on a griddle like a plump pancake. You can stuff them with meat, cheese, vegetables, refried beans, chichárron...whatever you like. Traditionally, they are served along with curtido (a cabbage slaw) or salsa roja (spicy tomato sauce). I decided to make mine stuffed with chorizo and Oaxaca cheese along with salsa roja.
The recipe is simple to follow and the few ingredients really make this dish shine. The key is to use instant corn masa, or Maseca. Once you open that bag, you can just smell a beautiful, fresh corn tortilla. I like to use warm water as it helps enhance the corn flavor and aroma. The dough can be mixed/ kneaded very easily by hand if you don’t have a stand mixer and should be a tacky, mealy (but cohesive) texture. For those of you who have children, think: “kinetic sand”. Once the dough is made, you roll them into meatball-sized portions and let them rest. To assemble, you’ll pat them out like mini-pizzas, stuff, and close the surrounding dough and pat into a thick mini-cake. Place them on a griddle for a few minutes and you’ll soon have various hands grabbing them off of your serving platter.
Pupusas stuffed with Chorizo and Oaxaca
Extra-virgin olive oil
Small red onion
¾ lbs chorizo
Oregano, 2 sprigs (or ¼ tsp dried)
Apple cider vinegar
½ lb Oaxaca cheese
2 garlic cloves
White onion
1.5 lbs fresh tomatoes, rough chop
Large serrano pepper (or 2 small)
2.5 cups maseca
2.5 cups warm water
Preheat a non-stick skillet, over medium heat, with 1 tbsp of evoo. Dice your onion and sauté with a pinch of salt. Petite dice your chorizo and mince one garlic clove. When the onion has softened, add the garlic and chorizo, stirring to incorporate. Stir in the leaves of 2 oregano sprigs and a splash of apple cider vinegar. Set aside to cool.
While the meat is cooling, add 2 tbsp of evoo to a small saucepan along with a smashed garlic clove and preheat over medium-high heat. Large dice your white onion, tomatoes and serrano and add to the pot, stirring with a heavy pinch of salt. Once the tomatoes have released some juices and it has begun to simmer, use an immersion blender to emulsify the sauce until slightly chunky. Cover and heat over medium-low heat for about 30 mins.
Meanwhile, in a large bowl of a stand mixer, fitted with the paddle, combine the maseca with a tsp of salt. Mix on low speed to incorporate and pour in the warm water. Once the water has been absorbed, increase the speed to medium-low until the dough comes together on the paddle or into a ball and no wet dough remains on the side/bottom of the bowl (1-2 minutes). Portion the dough into balls and set aside to rest for about 5 minutes.
Grate your Oaxaca and add to the cooled chorizo and onion.
After the dough has rested, pat a dough ball into a thick disk and using your fingers, flatten out the dough, as you rotate it in your hands. Then, with the worked dough still on your hand, place some of the filling onto the dough, leaving a border. Start cupping the dough into a round and pinch the excess dough to cover the top and gently press into a stuffed cake form. Place on a baking sheet, sprayed with cooking spray and repeat the process until you have 4 ready to cook.
Preheat a skillet over medium heat and spray with cooking spray. Place the prepared corn cakes onto the griddle and cook for 3 minutes per side. Meanwhile prepare more stuffed cakes. Repeat with the remaining pupusas. Serve with curtido and or salsa roja and minced fresh parsley or cilantro.
Copyright 2020, Brendan McCann, All Rights Reserved.
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