What is the best sauce for a barbacoa?
Photo by Laurie Smith
A reader asks in Spanish cual es la mejor salsa para una barbacoa casera? (What is the best sauce for a home-made barbacoa (slow-cooked marinated meat usually cooked in a hole in the ground?)
There is not one sauce. In the north, we would use salsa borracha (sauce made with beer, chipotle chile, avocado and sometimes aged cheese or a salsa martajada ( tomatoes, tomatillos, onions and garlic all slow roasted on a griddle and crushed in a molcajete) in southern Veracruz they would probably use a salsa macha verde or salsa de aguacate and in Oaxaca a sauce with maguey worms.
Here are a few:
Recipe: Salsa Borracha
Summary: This unusual and excellent table sauce from Santa María Guadalupe Armenta Guzmán, is so liquid you might be tempted to drink it –- I imagine it would make a great cold soup. Despite the name borracha – referring to the beer – it isn’t noticeably alcoholic. I tested this recipe in the winter when you can’t get good tomatoes anywhere in New York, and found that the flavor was much better when I griddle-roasted the tomatoes. In the recipe I follow Lupita, who simply boils them along with the dried chiles. (Her tomatoes are always as wonderful as the best ones we get in summer.) But you may prefer to use the roasting method (see page 000). The preferred vinegar in southern Mexico is usually pineapple or apple cider vinegar. I’ve taken to using a Swiss herbal white-wine vinegar ( inauthentic but delicious)Follow your preference, but in this case it should be a delicate, fairly low-acid vinegar.
Ingredients
- 1 large ripe tomato (about 8 ounces)
- 2 – 3 dried serrano or arbol chiles
- 1/2 teaspoon salt 2 teaspoons vinegar (see above)
- Juice of 1 orange, freshly squeezed 1/2 cup any preferred light (lager-type) beer
- 1 small white onion minced
- 10 sprigs cilantro, finely chopped
Instructions
- Bring a small saucepan of water to a boil and cook the tomato and chiles over high heat for 10 minutes. Drain and let sit until cool enough to handle.
- Peel the tomato and mash to a paste with the chiles, using a mortar and pestle (preferably a Mexican molcajete), or process for a few seconds in a blender or food processor
Number of servings (yield): 4
Meal type: hors d’oerves
Culinary tradition: Mexican
Copyright © Zarela Martinez.
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Recipe: Salsa Macha Verde
Summary: In San Andrés Tuxtla we were treated to a magnificent luncheon at La Caperucita, a magnet for good eating in the Tuxtlas area. (The name refers to the fairy tale of Little Red Riding Hood, “Caperucita Roja” and a brand name for a cheese.) Elodia Guevara Chávez and Juan Pablo Chávez Guevara, the mother-and-son team who built up the restaurant from its humble beginnings as a hamburger cart, had pulled out all the stops to welcome us and introduce us to experts on the regional cuisine. An epic meal featuring at least a dozen excellent seafood, meat, and masa specialties was accompanied by this fresh-flavored variation on the beloved Veracruzan salsa macha. This type of sauce is not difficult to make by hand in a molcajete or other large mortar. When using a blender or food processor, try to reproduce the chunky texture of the hand-ground version by stopping before the ingredients turn into a paste.
Ingredients
- 2 garlic cloves, coarsely chopped
- 1/2 small white onion, coarsely chopped 6 fresh jalapeño or serrano chiles, seeded (if desired to reduce the heat) and coarsely chopped
- teaspoon salt, or to taste
- Juice of 1/2 lime
Instructions
- Grind the garlic, onion, chiles, and salt to a rough paste using a mortar and paste, or place in a blender or food processor and process with an on/off motion just until roughly combined. Add the lime juice and grind or process just until the mixture forms a coarse textured sauce. Use at once.
Diet (other): Low calorie, Reduced fat, Reduced carbohydrate, Gluten free, Raw
Number of servings (yield): 2
Meal type: hors d’oerves
Culinary tradition: Mexican
Copyright © Zarela Martinez.
Recipe by on.
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Recipe: Salsa de Gusanitos
Summary: Recipe: Zarela Martínez, The Food and Life of Oaxaca, Macmillan, 1997 Perhaps you have seen a bottle of Oaxacan mezcal, the fiery liquor distilled from the agave or maguey plant, with a small object in the bottle that looks like a worm. It is. People in Oaxaca use every part of the maguey including the larvae of an insect that burrows into the roots and leaves. I have seen them being sold raw at the Etla village market in the Valley Of Oaxaca, to be eaten as is with tortillas and a squirt of hot sauce or wrapped in corn husks and seared on a clay griddle. More often I have encountered the little gusanitos (worms) dried, salted, and strung on threads at places specializing in herbal cures (they are reputed to be an aphrodisiac). I love the smoky flavor of the dried gusanitos, ground and used as a subtle seasoning for table sauces. As far as I know they are not imported now, but with the increase in Oaxacan products now being brought into this country, who knows? If you can travel to Oaxaca, be sure to bring back a string of them. They keep for a long time. This recipe, taken from my first book, is a fairly standard version of the useful salsa de gusanitos, I love it with seafood, boiled new potatoes, or Gorditas Infladas, but try it with any meat or vegetable. Go easy on the salt, since the maguey worms are already preserved with some.
Ingredients
- 1 pound tomatillos, husks removed 2 Oaxacan pasilla chiles or 2 dried chipotle chiles 1/2 teaspoon salt, or to taste 1 small onion, coarsely chopped 1 garlic clove, coarsely chopped 1 tablespoon dried Oaxacan oregano or 1 teaspoon dried Mexican oregano, crumbled 8 -10 dried maguey worms
Instructions
- Place the tomatillos, chiles and salt in a medium saucepan, cover with water, and bring to a boil over high heat. Reduce the heat to medium and cook, uncovered, until the tomatillos change color, about 5 minutes. Drain, reserving 1/2 cup of the cooking liquid, and let cool to about room temperature. Place the tomatillos, chiles, and reserved cooking liquid in a blender with the onion, garlic, oregano, and maguey worms. Process until smoothly puréed, about 1 minute. Taste the sauce and add more salt if desired. It can be stored in the refrigerator tightly covered, for 2 or 3 days. It will jell when chilled, but can be restored to the original consistency by running it in the blender. Yield: About 3 cups
Diet (other): Reduced fat, Reduced carbohydrate
Number of servings (yield): 4
Culinary tradition: Mexican
Copyright © Zarela Martinez.
Recipe by on.
Microformatting by hRecipe.
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