Chalupas

Small masa boats with a hollow pressed in by thumb, dropped into hot fat rather than griddled, and sauced the moment they come out.

Pork. Not vegetarian — contains cheese whose rennet the source does not name, lard, pork.

Ingredients

the boats

• 400 g masa, as on its own page
• ½ teaspoon salt
• oil or lard, for frying, about 2 cm depth

to finish

• 250 ml salsa verde, as on its own page
• 250 ml salsa, as on its own page
• 300 g pork shoulder, poached and shredded
• ½ small white onion, finely chopped
• 100 g crumbly white cheese

Method

1. THE HOLLOW IS PRESSED IN WITH THE THUMBS BEFORE IT GOES INTO THE FAT. A small oval of masa, and both thumbs run down the middle of it to leave a shallow trough with a raised lip all round -- a boat, which is what the name means. It goes into the oil shaped. Fried flat and hollowed afterwards it simply breaks; the masa is rigid once it has crisped and there is nothing to press.
2. IT IS FRIED AND NOT GRIDDLED, WHICH SEPARATES IT FROM EVERY OTHER CAKE ON THIS LIST. Two centimetres of hot fat, shallow-fried a couple of minutes a side. The surface goes properly crisp and a little puffed, and it stays crisp long enough to be sauced, which a dry-griddled base does not.
3. THEY ARE SAUCED HOT AND SERVED IMMEDIATELY, and this is the part that is usually got wrong. The salsa is spooned into the trough the moment the chalupa comes out of the fat and it is eaten within a minute or two. The whole pleasure is a crisp shell with hot sauce in it; sauced and left to stand five minutes it is a soggy one.
4. TWO SALSAS, AND THEY GO ON SEPARATE CHALUPAS. Half the batch green and half red, served together on one plate. Mixed on the same boat they make a muddy brown that tastes of neither.
5. THE OIL IS AT A MODERATE HEAT, NOT A FIERCE ONE. Too hot and the outside hardens in seconds while the masa in the thick lip is still raw. A cube of masa dropped in should bubble steadily and take about a minute to colour.
6. The pork shoulder poached in salted water 1½ hours until it shreds, drained and pulled apart with two forks. Kept warm.
7. The masa kneaded with the salt and divided into 12 small balls.
8. Each rolled to a short oval and flattened between plastic to about 8 cm long and 8 mm thick.
9. BOTH THUMBS pressed down the middle of each to form a shallow trough with a raised lip all the way round.
10. The fat heated in a frying pan to 2 cm depth over a medium heat, until a scrap of masa bubbles steadily.
11. The boats fried 2 MINUTES, hollow side up, then TURNED and given 1 to 2 minutes more, until crisp and pale gold.
12. Lifted out, drained for a few seconds on paper, hollow side up.
13. AT ONCE: six filled with hot salsa verde and six with the red salsa, the shredded pork laid on, then the onion and cheese.
14. Taken to the table immediately. They do not keep.

Our own recipe. This one was written for this site rather than taken from anywhere, so there is no source to point you at. The quantities and the order of the steps are choices, not the only way to do it.

Filed under Mexico · All recipes