>>13973How to make salsa.
I'm assuming you don't live in LATAM. Otherwise, you should know this shit. So I'm adapting ingredients to internationalize it.
Buy tomatoes. Buy a lot, because salsa is fucking awesome and you can put it in everything except deserts.
You probably want like 1/6 by volume of onion. The ratios are almost irrelevant.
Get some garlic cloves.
If you have any type of peppers, get some. The less sweet the better. If you find jalapeños, that's great. Poblano peppers, even better. You want to remove the seeds, especially if they are spicy. You want the peppers that are "meaty". Not the ones that have thin skin. They shouldn't be dried either.
Optional boss mode (also this is a secret technique, so pls don't share): buy zuccinni, you don't need a lot. maybe as much as the onion, perhaps less.Cook the tomatoes (don't cut them):
- in the oven
- on a skillet with a little oil
- BOSS MODE: directly on the fire on low setting, turning them over frequently.
Take them out, put them somewhere.
If you have peppers, do the same thing with them.
If you're going with the secret zuccini tecnique, do it with that too.They should be soft after this procedure.
Set them aside.
Now put some oil on a stove, cut the garlic, put it in.
After a short while, cut your oinion, and put some salt and put it in too. Start grilling them on low heat. You want to caramelize the onion.
Secret technique: if you sprinkle a pinch of sodium bicarbonate aka baking soda, you can speed up the caramelization process.Ok nigga, you're now ready to do this shit. You have two choices: both are easy:
Either mush it up with the bottom of a glass, a bottle, or something similar, or put it in the blender/food processor.
Put some salt on it.
If you have limes, squirt a couple of limes into it.
If you have avocado. Cut it into little squares and mix it in. (note: never bake, cook, or microwave avocado. you *will* ruin god's testicles and that is a tragedy.)
>>13980Ok you little shit:
You need salsa made of tomatillos, aka fresadilla, aka green tomato aka mexican husk tomato, aka tomato (green) aka tomate de cáscara (husk tomato), aka tomate de fresadilla (little strawberry tomato), aka tomate milpero (field tomato), aka tomate verde (green tomato), aka tomatillo (Mexico; this term means "little tomato" elsewhere), aka miltomate (Mexico, Guatemala), farolito (little lantern), aka simply tomate (in which case the tomato is called jitomate from Nahuatl xitomatl).
The salsa is the most fucking crucial part to get right because it is the base of the dish. But that doesn't mean you should neglect the other parts.
Next most important part is the totopos (aka corn chips). It is absolutely crucial that these are made from fried corn/maize tortillas. If your supermarket sells fried totopos, then you can buy them. Of course, if you make them yourself, your dish will taste much better. In which case, you are also left with the choice of buying or making non-fried tortillas. Making is obviously better. You need to first make the tortilla like normal (on a pan) and then fry it. For that you need nixtamilized maize flour aka maseca (a brand).
You put a bed about 1 cm thick of mashed refried beans on a plate. You can buy this in a store. You need to heat them up before hand. Heating them up on a stove is always better.
You want to completely cover the tototpos with the salsa. You can do this in a bowl or a pot. You do this quickly because you don't want them to get too mushy. This is more important than you think. If you're going to fuck it up, skip this step and pour the salsa at the end.
You then put a small portion on the plate with refried beans and you sprinkle shredded cheese (Chihuahua is good, but that doesn't exist outside Mexico. You want any cheese labeled as "mexican", but any melting cheese that isn't strong (like not swiss cheese) is good) and shredded chicken. You then put more of your drenched totopos and you layer more cheese and chicken. This isn't a lasgna. It's no supposed to look orderly. 2 layers should be enough. Then you sprinkle the remaining stuff on top. Then you put even more green salsa on top. The secret to good chilaquiles is a lot of good salsa.
On top, you can put some crumbled cheese. If you can find cotija, fucking nice. But you probably won't. You want a very dry cheese. The best "international" substitute is something like greek feta cheese.
You can also put thinly sliced raw onion slices on top and some cilantro leaves. I don't like either, so I omit that.
And fucking bam. You can also put some other toppings, like a sunny-side egg, some bacon. This is considered a breakfast food, so you should accompany it with a good coffee. The coffee shouldn't be too strong (like not an esspresso), more like diner coffee strength.
Couldn't find many good chilaquiles images on the internet.
There are many ways to skin a cat with chilaquiles. They are an awesome and delcious meal, that's super easy to make. The hardest part is getting good salsa (if you don't want to make yours) and good tototpos (making tortillas is an art I never acquired).