My (Not So) Traditional Salvadorian Pupusas

The other day a friend of mine walked into work with a traditional Salvadorian Pupusas made by his mother. Oh my goodness!!! It was fabulous. So here goes the 3 day search and outcome of that search for making these Pupusas. The amount of information I found was quite incredible and quite simple.......so I thought.  

I decided that I wanted a very flavorful brisket in my Pupusas, so I set out on my adventure. This post is long and a little graphic intensive, but here it is.

I started out by roasting a large Pablano Pepper and a red Bell Pepper on the stove, I did not fully roast them, just enough to get a little char on them and have them soften up a little.

The brisket went into a foil pan, with onions, garlic, white pepper, olive oil, a dried ancho chile, the peppers, salt and pepper. 

 

The brisket cooked on 350 for about 5 hours. And delicious it was all by itself. I did shred half of it and added a fresh chopped jalapeno.

Next was the cheese:

Shredded Cheddar and Monterrey Jack

Mexican Fresco

Green Chiles

Filling is done!

Now to tackle the masa. 

5 cups Mescata (Masa)

4 cups warm water

chili powder

Cumin

Mix into a dough, knead for 1 minute and let rest for 5 minutes

Roll into egg sized balls and press an indention in the middle to hold the filling

Take another ball about the same size, flatten it out to be just a little bigger than the bottom layer.

At this point you can either flatten it out by hand or do like I did and line with wax paper and press it in between 2 cast iron skillets until it is about half an inch thick. 

Put them on an oiled griddle for 3-5 minutes on each side or until browned and done all the way through.

 

Traditionally, these are thinner, smaller, and filled with just cheese or cheese and refried beans. But I am not traditional....so this is what I ended up with. And let me tell you...it was good. I threw a few extra slices of meat on there, and some of the roasted veggies. 

Afterwards I had some vanilla ice cream with Banana Nut Bread Jam....and it was yummy too!!!! I will be spending a lot of time on the treadmill tomorrow!!!