The Hot Sauce Cookbook (6 page)

3 large tomatoes, quartered

½ onion, sliced in rings

2 cloves garlic, peeled

2 jalapeño chiles, stemmed and halved lengthwise

1 tablespoon freshly squeezed lemon juice

½ cup chopped fresh cilantro

Salt

Prepare a fire in a grill using mesquite charcoal.

Place the tomatoes, onions, garlic, and jalapeños in a grill basket and grill for at least 10 minutes, turning several times until wilted and well charred. (Or alternately char in a dry skillet on the stove top.) Remove some of the charred skin from the tomatoes and chile peppers, then transfer the tomatoes, onions. and jalapeños to a
molcajete
or food processor. Add the lemon juice and grind or process so the mixture remains chunky. Transfer to a bowl and add the cilantro. Season with salt and stir. Use immediately as a table sauce or tortilla chip dip, or refrigerate for up to a week.

Pico De Gallo

PICO DE GALLO

———
Makes 2½ cups
———

Salsa cruda is usually made in a blender or
molcajete
, while pico de gallo is chopped by hand. To take this recipe to the next level, use heirloom tomatoes, very sweet onions (such as Texas 1015, Walla Walla, or Vidalia), and the very best sea salt. Soaking the onions in the lime juice “cooks” them the same way it cooks the fish in ceviche.

3 tablespoons freshly squeezed lime juice

½ cup chopped sweet onion

2 cups chopped, very ripe tomatoes

2 tablespoons minced
jalapeño chiles
,
serrano chiles
,
chile pequíns
, or
poblano rajas

½ teaspoon salt (preferably good-quality sea salt), plus more as needed

½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper, plus more as needed

2 tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro

Dash of olive oil

Combine the lime juice and onions in a bowl and allow to marinate for 20 minutes or up to an hour.

Combine the tomatoes, onion mixture, chiles, salt, pepper, cilantro, and olive oil in a mixing bowl and mix well. Adjust the seasonings to taste. Refrigerate for at least 30 minutes. Serve cold.

Mexican Shrimp Cocktail

MEXICAN SHRIMP COCKTAIL

———
Serves 2
———

Shrimp cocktails have all but disappeared from American restaurant menus, but they are as popular as ever in Mexico. If you’ve ever vacationed at a seaside resort in Cancún or Acapulco, you are probably already a fan of this famous appetizer. Known as
coctel de camarones
on the Pacific Coast and
coctel de Campechana
on the Gulf Coast, this is everybody’s favorite Mexican seafood dish. When it’s hot outside, you’ll want to make it extra spicy. It is perfect on a hot day with margaritas or
micheladas
. Cholula is a favorite Mexican hot sauce in Texas and in the Southwest; it is made with chile de árbol and chile pequín.

½ cup ketchup

¼ cup freshly squeezed lime juice

About ¼ cup Cholula hot sauce or
Homemade Pepper Sauce

¼ cup olive oil

Pinch of salt

Freshly ground black pepper

½ cup
Pico de Gallo

½ avocado, cut into small chunks

10 jumbo shrimp, shelled, deveined, and steamed

2 cilantro sprigs

Saltines, to serve

Tortilla chips and salsa, to serve

Combine the ketchup, lime juice, hot sauce, and olive oil and stir. Add the salt, pepper, pico de gallo, the avocado, and the shrimp. Stir gently to combine. Spoon into two chilled cocktail glasses or beer schooners. Garnish with the cilantro sprigs. Serve with saltines, tortilla chips, and salsa.

MICHELADA

———
Makes 1
———

Michelada means “my cold beer” in Spanish. It’s a cold beer with hot sauce in the mug and salt on the rim. The chile de árbol flavor of Cholula is a favorite for this.

½ lime

Coarse sea salt

2 dashes Worcestershire sauce

1 teaspoon Cholula hot sauce or
Homemade Pepper Sauce

1 (12-ounce) bottle Dos Equis Lager, Corona, or other Mexican beer

Salt the rim of a chilled beer mug by rubbing it with the lime and dipping it in the coarse salt. Squeeze the lime into the mug. Add the Worcestershire and Cholula hot sauce. Pour in the beer and serve.

Los Big Shots:
La Fisheria, a Mexican seafood restaurant in Houston, serves “Los Big Shot,” a beery version of the Mexican seafood cocktail. To make one at home, mix up a michelada and then stir six boiled shrimp and/or raw oysters into it. First you eat the spicy shrimp with a spoon and then you drink the seafood and hot sauce–flavored beer.

Sikil Pak

SIKIL PAK

———
Makes about 3 cups
———

In the Mayan language,
sikil
mean “tomato” and
pak
means “pumpkin seed.” This addictively delicious dip explains a lot about the Mesoamerican agricultural trinity of squash, corn, and beans. While the corn and beans always made sense, I could never figure out why squash was such a big deal. You don’t see a lot of people eating squash in Mexican restaurants these days.   
+  
Eventually, I learned that it wasn’t the squash itself that was valued so highly, it was the seed. The green inner kernel of the squash or pumpkin seed is high in nutritious oils and tastes wonderful when roasted and ground. The mole sauce called pipian is one illustration of how the seeds can be used—sikil pak is another.   
+  
The satisfying density of the dip might remind you of a pumpkin seed hummus. You can make it in a blender, but you may need to add some water to get the blades going. The old-fashioned way to make it is to roast the pumpkin seeds and tomatillos and grind them with the chile and garlic into a fine paste in a
molcajete
; a lot of people insist the texture of sikil pak made in a
molcajete
is unbeatable.     
+
Personally, I prefer the ease of a heavy-duty high-speed blender (such as a Vitamix or Blendtech). You just dump everything in the jar, hit the accelerator, and whiz the whole thing into a paste.

2 cups (8 ounces) hulled pumpkin seeds (the green inner part)

4 tomatillos

1 clove garlic

1 to 2 habanero-type chiles, stemmed and halved

¼ cup olive oil

¼ cup freshly squeezed lemon juice

Water

A few whole pumpkin seeds, for garnish

Tortilla chips or crackers, to serve

In a large frying pan over high heat, dry roast the pumpkin seeds until they begin to pop, shaking and turning frequently, about 5 minutes. Transfer the roasted seeds to a bowl to cool.

Husk the tomatillos, rinse them well, put them in the hot frying pan along with the garlic, and roast for a few minutes or until the tomatillos and garlic are lightly charred.

Combine the roasted seeds, tomatillos, garlic, chiles, olive oil, and lemon juice in a
molcajete,
adding water as needed until the mixture turns into a smooth paste, about 15 minutes. Or grind in a food processor into a smooth paste, adding water as needed to get the mixture turning. The finished dip should be about the consistency of chunky peanut butter.

To serve, put the paste in a bowl or
molcajete
and garnish with a few whole pumpkin seeds. Use as a dip with tortilla chips or crackers.

XNIPEC

———
Makes 1½ cups
———

This habanero-flavored pico de gallo is used throughout the Yucatán.
Xnipec
is the Mayan word for “panting dog.” The name describes the tongue-hanging-out reaction to eating something very hot—eat some of this sauce all by itself, and you’ll see what they mean. It’s much tastier as an addition to other dishes like
Ensalada de Nopalitos
.

1 red onion, minced

Juice of 4 limes

4 habanero-type chiles, stemmed, seeded, and minced

1 tomato, finely diced

Salt

Water (optional)

Soak the onion in the lime juice for at least 30 minutes or up to 1 hour. Add the chiles and tomato and season with salt to taste. Mix well. Add a little water if you like a thinner sauce. Serve chilled with tortilla chips.

ENSALADA DE NOPALITOS

———
Makes 6 servings
———

Nopales
are the pads of the prickly pear, or
nopal
, cactus. They are sold both whole (scraped of their thorns) and canned. If you buy them fresh, cut them into small strips for cooking. Mexican queso asadero is a mild white cheese found in specialty stores.

2 to 3 cups fresh nopales strips or 1 (16-ounce) jar nopalitos, drained and rinsed

1 tablespoon
Xnipec
or to taste

1 small red onion, sliced into thin rings

1 large tomato, diced

¼ cup sliced black olives

2 teaspoons chopped fresh cilantro

1 tablespoon olive oil

1½ tablespoons red wine vinegar

2 ounces freshly grated queso asadero or Monterey jack cheese

If you are using fresh nopales, bring a pot of salted water to a boil, then add the nopales strips and simmer for a few minutes until they are soft. Drain and rinse the nopales.