Salvadoran Filled Tortillas: Pupusas

If you've never had "pupusas," please give them a try. They are easy to make and they don't require any difficult to find ingredients or accompaniments. You can fill pupusas with meat, cheese, beans, vegetables or a little of each. For this article, I used refried beans and cheese to fill the pupusas. Salvadorans serve pupusas with "curtido," a type of pickled cabbage.* They are also often accompanied by hot sauce and crema, which is a kind of mild sour cream.** Besides making the actual pupusas, you can also make the refried beans yourself,*** or you can buy your favorite brand at local supermarkets or any Latino market, along with some "masa harina," a white corn flour.
   
Ingredients:

refried beans (homemade or 1 can)
1 cup shredded mozzarella cheese 
2 cups masa flour (masa harina)
1 2/3 cups hot water
1 tablespoon salt

Combine the flour, water and salt into a dough. The dough should not be loose, so if you need to adjust either the amount of flour or water, do so. Roll pieces of dough in your hands into rounds slightly larger than golf balls. Let the rounds sit while you make the filling for the pupusas. For the filling: This is tough now.... Mix the shredded cheese into the refried beans. Okay... maybe it's not so tough. You might want to put a little oil on your hands, then flatten and pat the dough rounds into about 4 to 5 inch diameter cakes. These are not supposed to be the thin tortillas most people likely think of, but rather they are thicker. Put a heaping tablespoon or two of the bean/cheese mixture in the center of the cake, then pull up the edges of the dough around the filling to close it off. I rolled the cakes back into rounds, then carefully flattened them again. I had a small amount of dough left over, which came in handy to "patch" a place or two in some of the pupusas  where the filling tried to come out. Add a little oil to a skillet (cast iron is great for this) or to a griddle, over medium heat. Cook the pupusas for "about" 3 to 4 minutes per side, or until they develop a little browning. You can serve them Salvadoran style with "curtido," as well as with crema or sour cream, and hot sauce.


* "Curtido" is also easy to make. Here is the link: https://pontificating-randy.blogspot.com/2019/03/salvadoran-spicy-pickled-cabbage-curtido.html

** You can find "crema," probably more as "Mexican Crema," in many supermarkets or Latino grocery stores. The tartness may differ slightly between Mexican crema and some other countries, but "creme fraiche" is essentially the same thing, and you can easily make it yourself, if you can't find "crema" near you, or just use some sour cream. Here is the link: https://pontificating-randy.blogspot.com/2017/07/make-your-own-creme-fraiche.html 

*** For the article on refried beans, here's the link: https://pontificating-randy.blogspot.com/2018/11/refried-beans-frijoles-refritos.html

The hot sauce is Mexican, but I'm sure Salvadorans won't mind ... and that's also some "curtido"

I pulled the pupusa apart ...

And with some crema ...

WORD HISTORY: 
Actual-This word is closely related to "act," a word of Latin derivation borrowed by English. It goes back to Indo European "ag/ak," which had the notion of "drive, move;" thus, "do some motion or process." This gave Latin "agere," meaning, "to act, to do an action," which spawned the noun "actus," meaning, "an act, an action, a deed;" thus also, "a performance." This provided Latin with the adjective "actualis," meaning, "relating to an action, pertaining to an ongoing action." This passed into Latin-based French as "actuel," meaning, "current, ongoing, up to date, in the present." This was borrowed by English in the first half of the 1300s, and the meaning extended from "ongoing, current," to "real." German, too, borrowed the word from French in the 1700s as "aktuell," also meaning, "current, in the present, real (presently, currently, as an adverb)."

Salvadoran Spicy Pickled Cabbage: Curtido

"Curtido" is a cousin to Korean "kimchi," as well as to "sauerkraut," because they are all types of fermented foods. In another sense, it is similar to coleslaw,* as it is a kind of slaw used as a topping for some Central American dishes, or as a side dish to accompany main dishes. While "curtido" has a strong connection to El Salvador, it is not uncommon in other Central American countries. I'm not a big fan of very sour foods, so I added a little sugar, and when I checked other curtido recipes, I found a few that added small amounts of sugar, although admittedly only 3 out of more than 20 I checked. While the amount of sugar is small, it does help to take a little of the sharp edge off of the high vinegar content. If you don't like "heat," you can reduce the amount of chili pepper, or just add a small amount of red chili flakes or a pinch of cayenne pepper, but "curtido" is meant to have a "kick" to it.

Ingredients:

1 bag cole slaw mix of shredded cabbage and shredded carrot (or you can shred your own slaw: 1 small to medium head of cabbage, cored and thinly shredded; 1 small carrot, shredded)
1 small white onion, chopped
1 hot chili pepper (like serrano or jalapeño, but use what you have or like), finely chopped
1 heaping tablespoon non iodized salt
1 teaspoon black pepper
2 teaspoons oregano (Mexican oregano, if you have it) 
2/3 cup cider vinegar
(optional) 1 teaspoon sugar
1/3 cup water

Use a non reactive bowl, like glass or stoneware. Add all of the ingredients to the bowl. Mix the ingredients together by hand, squeezing handfuls of the cabbage mixture, which will reduce the volume of the shredded and chopped vegetables. Make sure all of the mix gets bathed in the vinegary brine. In the picture below, the cabbage mix pretty much filled the bowl, at first, but some mixing and squeezing reduced it by about half. While you can't see it easily, most of the cabbage mix is in the brine. This slaw is best if covered with some plastic wrap and refrigerated for a few hours, or even better for about a day in advance of use.

* American coleslaw is a commonly offered side dish in many restaurants, diners and barbecue shops, but it is also made by many in their home kitchens. Most times, but certainly not exclusively, coleslaw is finely chopped cabbage and carrot mixed with a creamy sweet and sour dressing, with the creamy element usually coming from the addition of mayonnaise to the dressing. On the other hand, some individuals and restaurants use a vinegar-based dressing with no mayonnaise, that puts this type of coleslaw somewhat closer to "curtido." While coleslaw is most often used as a side dish or side salad, it is also added to various sandwiches as a topping.      

WORD HISTORY:
Tropic/Tropics-This word goes back to Indo European "trep," which had the notion of, "turn;" thus also, "change." This gave transliterated Ancient Greek "tropē," which meant, "turn, change, the times of year when the sun reaches farthest north or south; thus, solstice." This gave Ancient Greek the transliterated adjective "tropikós," meaning, "having to do with a change," "of or about the solstice," and this was borrowed by Latin as "tropicus," initially with the same meanings, but only the solstice meaning continued, and it came to be applied to the region around the equator. English borrowed the word from Latin in the second half of the 1300s.