Making Pupusas in El Salvador with Marielena

Marielena, who works for Bess and Ethan, showed us how to make pupusas our second morning in El Salvador. Pupusas are one of my favorite uses of masa - basically they're extremely thick tortillas filled with a combination of cheese, meat and/or vegetables. The standard 'classic' filling is chicharron paste, made from pork and spices. They sell it pre-made, in chubs, at the supermarket:

Another key ingredient is cheese. The standard Salvadoran pupusa cheese is a fresh cheese called quesillo that has a texture somewhat similar to ricotta. It is sold in blocks or as pieces at the lacteos shops:

The last ingredient is beans. A black bean and cheese combination is available almost everywhere pupusas are sold. Marielena prepared the beans ahead of time (see above) and had them ready to be added. The black beans are pureed and thinned with water to the desired consistency. For the pupusas they are thick. For breakfast we had black beans that were almost as thin as gravy.

Marielena prepared the masa (to a much softer consistency than tortillas) ahead of time and kept a bowl of cold water out to make handing the pupusas easier.

She grabbed a small handful of the masa. Working quickly, she formed a thick 3-4" diameter cake with her hands and then filled it first with cheese, then beans:

She then folds over the pancake to form a semi-circle and pinches the ends together, using water as 'glue'. She fills in gaps with extra masa:

She then begins the process of carefully, slowly, forming the filled masa cake into a flat pancake. The seam is at the top as she presses down:

Once the pupusa is the right size, she places it on an oiled griddle to cook:

The cheese bubbles out, the tops get brown and crisp. Jenny and I both take turns making pupusas:

We fill the entire griddle up with bean and cheese pupusas:

The perfect pupusa:

I take an 'arty' food shot, just to show the thickness (yeah, right). Usually pupusas are served with a mild Salvadoran sauerkraut, which we didn't have at home. I made do with Marie Sharp's habanero sauce from Belize:

So good.

Comments

[colby]

i love marie sharpe's hot sauce from belize! not sure i'd like the pupusas, but anything doused in marie sharpes is good. great to see you had such a good time in el salvador!