I am having some friends for dinner, we are having tacos and I made three types of salsas for them to nibble with some tortilla chips and also to add to their food. Continue reading “Trio de Salsas (Three Salsas)”
Category: Sauces
Salsas / Sauces
Salsa Macha (Morita Chilli Oil Salsa)
There are many types of spicy salsas in Mexico, we obsess with chillies that we seem to have a big imagination to create a new salsa every day. I have to confess that I am one of those people and I love spicy salsas and my favourite is this salsa with morita chillies. Continue reading “Salsa Macha (Morita Chilli Oil Salsa)”
Salsa de Aguacate (Avocado Salsa)
Today I am cooking “Beef Birria” at home, it has been raining all afternoon and the hubby and I fancied something wintery, so I remembered this very nice recipe for a birria and to have with it, I did this very easy spicy avocado salsa recipe that my dad used to make at home.
My dad was the king of the salsas in my family, when he was alive, there was always a spicy salsa on the table in time for lunch. So I hope you like this quick and easy recipe.
Serves 4
Prep 5 min
Ingredients
- 2 ripe avocados
- 1/2 peeled onion
- 2 fresh jalapeños
- 100 gr fresh coriander
- Juice of 1 lime
- 4 tbls water
- Salt to taste
- Pinch pepper
Method
- Place all the ingredients in a blender.
- Add the water and blend until getting a smooth consistency.
- Serve and eat inmediately to avoid the salsa turning dark.
- Have it with some birria tacos, get the recipe to make Beef Birria click HERE
Listo!
Provecho!
Macarela con Pipían Verde (Mackerel with Green Pipian)
Pipían or Pepian, as some people call it, is a type of Mexican sauce which the main ingredient are pumpkin seeds, in Spanish these are call “pepitas” that is where the word “Pipian” comes from.
The sauce has a similar consistency to mole, you can get Pipian sauce already made, but nothing beats the fresh homemade one, it is not a difficult recipe to make and the flavour is amazing.
Usually pipian is eaten with chicken, but I used mackerel and had a salad with it to make it a bit lighter, traditionally chicken Pipian is served with Mexican rice and refried beans.
Serves 4
Prep 15 min
Cook 20 min
Ingredients
- 4 mackerel fillets
- 30 gr green pumpkin seeds toasted
- 10 gr roasted sesame seeds
- 1 tbsp maseca flour
- 2 poblano peppers or green peppers deseeded and roasted
- 1/2 small onion
- 1 or 2 Serrano peppers
- 3 fresh or tin green tomatillos
- 1 peeled garlic clove
- 50 gr fresh coriander
- 1 cup chicken stock
- Salt to taste
- 3 tbsp rapeseed oil
- A bag of watercress salad
Method
First roast the pumpkin and sesame seeds on a frying pan on medium heat for 5 min.
Then roast the poblano or green peppers on the stove top burners until completely blistered and charred all over. Wrap the peppers with a tea towel and place them in a plastic oand let sit for around 8 min, this will make the peppers sweat, making the skin peeling easier. Peel the charred skin and remove the seed and stem.
In the meantime cook the tomatillos and serrano chillies in a medium saucepan with just enough water to cover them (if you are using tin tomatillos, only cook the Serrano chillies). Then place the peeled roasted poblano peppers, tomatillos, Serrano chillies, onion, garlic, cilantro, green pumpkin seeds, maseca flour, sesame seed, and chicken stock into a blender and puree until smooth.
Then heat a frying pan on medium heat and add 2 tbsp of oil, pour in the sauce, add salt to taste stir from time to time and cook for around 15 mjn until the sauce has a consistency of heavy cream. If it’s too thick, add more chicken broth until you get the desire consistency, turn the heat off and set aside, ready to be serve with the mackerel fillets.
While the sauce is cooking, fry your mackerel fillets. Heat a frying pan on medium heat and add the oil, once the oil is hot, place 2 mackerel fillets at a time, skin down, push the fillets down with a spatula (this will avoid the fillet to curl up), fry them 3 to 5 min on each side.
Serve some watercress salad on a dinner plate, place one mackerel fillet on top of the salad and pour some green Pipian on top of the fish.
Tips
- You can get fresh tomatillos and poblano peppers from cool chile, they sell them when the tomatillos and poblano peppers are in season.
- If you can’t find these ingredients fresh then get the tomatillos in a tin, you can find them in www.mexgrocer.co.uk and use green peppers instead of poblanos.
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Provecho!
Salsa de Chile Puya (Puya Chilli Salsa)
Puya is a chilli similar to guajillo, but a bit more spicy. I would say that is a combination of guajillo and arbol chilli, in fact, a lot people get confused between these two, as Puya looks very similar to arbol chilli, but Puya is a bit thicker than arbol. Puya or Pulla, as some people call it, has more fruity and intense flavour than guajillo.
It goes very well with chicken, pork or beef. It is a good chilli to make salsas.
This recipe was given to me by my sister Sonia, who kindly share it with me, she told me that is a salsa from Acapulco, Guerrero, it was given to her by her sister-in-law. My sister Sonia is an excellent cook just like my other siblings. The ingredients are very simple and similar to other salsas, but you use oil to fry it. The combination of the ingredients with the oil make a more silky salsa.
Makes around 150 ml Puya salsa
Prep 10 min
Cook 15 min
Ingredients
- 5 dried, clean and deseeded Puya chillis.
- 2 medium tomatoes cut in chunks
- 1/2 white onion cut in chunks
- 1 medium garlic clove peeled
- 1/2 cup vegetable oil
- Salt to taste
Method
Put the chillies on a hot frying pan to toast for 3 min making sure to turn them around to avoid burning them.
Then put the chillies, onion, tomatoes and garlic in a blender and blend very well, in the meantime, heat the oil, with low heat, in the same frying pan where you toasted the chillies and add the salsa you just blended. Add salt to taste and cook for 15 min.
Have it with your breakfast, tacos or any other Mexican dish!
Tips
- If you can’t find Puya chillies in the UK, you can use arbol chillies, which are widely available in the Mexican online shops.
Listo!
Provecho!
Mole Negro con Cuitlacoche (Cuitlacoche Black Mole)
As I mentioned in my recent post quesadillas with Cuitlacoche this Mexican ingredient is consider a delicacy in Mexico and I had found out that this fungus that grows in maize is very common not only in Mexico, but in other countries like France and China, but we, Mexicans, are the only people that eat it.
So, I had some Cuitlacoche left and I wanted to cook something very special with it, but I didn’t know what, therefore I decided to do some research in the very handy Internet and I found this amazing recipe from Yuri Gortari, that I believe it does Cuitlacoche justice and also sounds very posh, fancy, interesting and, have I mentioned it is utterly delicious as well?
If you have never tried “Mole” before, well, this is your chance, and the good thing, it is very easy to make that YOU can make it yourself and impress your mates or girlfriends with a fancy Mexican dinner on your next gathering.
But, you might be asking yourself! What a heck is Mole??? Well, when somebody in England ask me what Mole is, I always tell them that it is like curry, the Indian dish, because it has the consistency of a sauce, but what it makes mole different from curry are its ingredients. The word Mole comes from the Nahuatl (the language from the Aztecs) Mōlli, which in Spanish means sauce. In Mexico, there are different types of Mole made, each one made with different ingredients, but the most popular is Mole Poblano, this type of Mole, created in Puebla, is made with lots of ingredients and is very well known internationally.
But this recipe is very simple with very little ingredients.
So, come on! Give this recipe a shot and see what you think!
Makes around 1 litre of fresh Mole
Prep 5 min
Cook 30 min
Ingredients
- 150 gr Cuitlacoche or Huitlacoche*
- 4 pasilla chillies, washed and deseeded
- 1/2 white onion peeled and cut
- 1 clove garlic peeled or 2 if they are small
- 1 1/2 tbsp maseca
- Salt to taste or an organic chicken stock cube
- Pinch of Dried epazote (optional)
- 250 ml boiled water
- 2 tbsp rapeseed oil
Method
Put the pasilla chillies to cook with 250 ml boiled water for 10 min.
Then put them in a blender with just half the water where they were boiled, the raw onion and garlic and blend, pass the sauce through a sieve to eliminate any skin from the chilli. 
Put the oil to heat at low heat in a saucepan, add the chillie sauce and start cooking it.
In a bowl put the maseca and add some hot water and stir until you get a runny consistency with no lumps and add it to the chillie sauce to thicken it, then blend the Cuitlacoche with the chicken cube or salt and add it to the chillie sauce, add the epazote and cook for 15 min at low heat and stirring from time to time.
Before turning the heat off, check if it is well seasoned.
Have it with grilled chicken breasts and Mexican style rice.
*A lot of people know it as “Huitlacoche” but both words are correct to use.
Listo!
Provecho!
Salsa de Molcajete (Molcajete Salsa)
The Molcajete is one of the most iconic Mexican kitchen utensils of all times. It has been used for thousands of years since the Aztecs and Mayans. It is the Mexican version of pestle and mortar. It is used mainly to make salsas, but people give it different uses. It is such an icon in the Mexican kitchens because it gives food a unique flavour.
Every home tent to have a Molcajete that it is given from one generation to another one. In my family my dad’s Molcajete was very famous and it was well used thousands of times, unfortunately when he passed away it got lost. Nobody knows what happened or at least that is what my mum says.
If you have the opportunity to get one, get it, because you will taste the difference that a Molcajete makes to your salsas.
Here is this simple recipe that probably every family in Mexico knows, but if you get it wrong, it won’t taste the same.
Serves 4
Prep 2 min
Cook 20 min
Ingredients
- 3 medium tomatoes
- 1/2 onion peeled
- 2 jalapeño chilies
- 1 garlic clove peeled
- Salt to taste
Method
Put a frying pan to heat, when it is very hot put the tomatoes, onion and jalapeños to roast, turn them from time to time, so they can roast all around.
In the meantime in a Molcajete or a pestle and mortar put salt and the peeled garlic clove and mashed it until getting a paste, then when the chillies are roasted all around transfer them in to the Molcajete and mashed, then the onion, but before putting it, first cut it and then mashed in the Molcajete, then add the tomatoes and mashed them until everything is mix and mashed. Taste for salt and enjoy!
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Provecho!
Salsa Básica de Jitomate (Basic Tomato Salsa)
Today I decided to make this recipe because I don’t have much in the fridge as we are flying to Mexico in two days and also I was very tired to got myself cooking something very elaborated.
So this salsa is a must know how to do salsa, what I mean is this salsa is very useful for many different dishes, just like the green salsa I made the other day.
So let’s start!
Serves 4
Prep 5 min
Cook 40 min
Ingredients
- 4 large tomatoes
- Half a raw onion
- 1 clove of garlic peeled and raw
- Water
- Half a tbsp of dried marjoram
- 1 tbsp tomato paste
- Salt to taste
Method
Covered the tomatoes with water and leave them to boil for 30 min or until very tender then put them in a blender and add raw onion, garlic, tomato paste, marjoram, salt and a bit of the water where you cook the tomatoes, blend for 2 min, taste and if it needs salt or more marjoram add some.
Use it for tacos dorados, flautas, tortas ahogadas, etc.
Tipa
- If you don’t have marjoram you can use oregano, use a little bit as it is very strong.
- If you don’t have tomato paste you can use tomato pureé with herbs, it gives a better flavour to the salsa
Listo!
Provecho!
Salsa Verde (Green Tomatillo Sauce)
There are some Mexican recipes that I categorised as important and this is one of them, it is the base for many Mexican recipes and it is so versatile that you could use it in many different ways, as a spicy salsa for your tacos or eggs, as a nibble with some totopos (tortilla chips) or as an ingredient for a main dish like enchiladas. Continue reading “Salsa Verde (Green Tomatillo Sauce)”
Salsa Tatemada de Chile de Árbol (Toasted Arbol Chilli Salsa)
Every home in Mexico have a just made salsa for the everyday food, my home wasn’t the exception, my dad used to make this salsa all the time, it is very tasty and if you are one of those brave persons to handle spicyness very well, this salsa is for you and if you are not very good with spicy food, you can also give it a try adding as many chillies you can handle.
The ingredient that makes this salsa special is the arbol chilli or tree chilli if we trasnlate the word. The arbol chilli is a small and potent Mexican chili pepper also known as bird’s beak chile or rat’s tail chilli.
The method we used in Mexico to make this salsa is called “Tatemar” which, according to Wikipedia, is a nahuatl origin word that means to toast something on fire, it is a method we use quite a lot in Mexico to prepare some of the most traditional dishes like, salsas, chiles rellenos, moles, etc.
Traditinally we put the vegetables on to a comal, a smooth flat griddle where we also cook tortillas or spices, but if you don’t have one, you can use a frying pan.
It is very easy to make and goes very well with tacos, burritos, beans or just as a nibble with some tortilla chips.
Prep 5 min
Cook 15 min
Ingredients
- 3 or 4 arbol chillies.
- 2 big tomatoes
- 1 medium onion peeled and cut in half
- 1 clove of garlic with skin on
- Salt to taste
Method
Put the frying pan on to high heat and when it is very hot put all the vegetables on it, except the chillies.No need for oil, as we want to toast them.
Make sure to turn the vegetables around when you see black spots. When all the vegetables are ready put them aside, making sure peeling the garlic. Then start toasting the chillies for a few seconds, they will toast almost straight way, specially if your pan is very hot.
Put everything in a pestle and mortar or in a blender, add salt to taste and mash or blend until getting a nice runny consistency.
Tips
*when you are toasting the chillies make sure to have a window open or the kitchen extractor fan on, otherwise you will cough a lot.
Listo!
Provecho!