Rick Makes Pupusas (Fried Corn Fritters)

[upbeat music]

Superheros!

Right. So I guess we'll make some pupusas.

So pupusas are basically a fried corn fritters.

The one that we are gonna make today

is actually a combination of re-fried beans and cheese.

We're gonna do a refried red bean,

which is very common in El Salvador

and I think the combination just really works well together.

I've found that

if you really char the hell out of an onion

you get that really intense flavor

and it almost becomes meaty.

It just feels very substantial.

It plays well with the creaminess of the beans.

So we're gonna actually, like, break up this onion.

I want to essentially char the petals of this onion.

Like, and I mean really char.

It's gonna be really messy.

It's gonna make a lot of smoke

but it's definitely worth it.

So now I'm gonna go to the stove and fry this onion.

You want this to be really, really hot.

I'm gonna put the oil in and

we're going to wait.

Practice sandwich, what is that?

Breakfast.

Oh, breakfast.

There's nothing practice about it.

You just had a smoothie,

I thought you were not...

He's a growing boy.

I had a smoothie

and now I'm having a [beep] breakfast sandwich.

I don't understand Morocco and his eating habits anymore.

I'm sorry, give me a pupusa

and then I'll stop eating other stuff.

I'm going to feed you,

like clearly you need some more nourishment.

You're like wasting away.

He is getting thin.

I know.

I'm fine.

This is not turning into a frigging after school special.

[somber music]

All right.

[sizzling]

That is the sound that you want to hear.

They're going to dance around.

And you're going to want to pull them, but don't.

And you also want to stand back, because they will pop.

You want it much darker than that.

You can actually like,

you can get a lid to a pot,

and then just use it as a shield.

Basically this oil that we're charring this onion in

is going to be used to refry the beans,

after we puree them.

All right, that's kind of what we're looking for.

We want really really char.

Onions can actually take a lot of char.

It's going to add a really nice

depth and richness to the beans.

These are small red beans.

So these are small red beans.

Depending on the brand you get

they're going to have different names.

Sometimes they're referred to as Salvadoran

sometimes they're just Latin American.

Not drained, we're going to use the liquid in there.

The liquid is actually going to add flavor,

a little bit of salt and some of the viscosity

that you want to have as you're blending this.

We want this to be pretty smooth.

Start low, and then you can increase the speed.

If your blender is straining, you can add a little water

this is a quarter cup of water.

It's just going to help the blender do it's job.

So even if you have to put more than

a quarter cup because your blender can't take it.

It's fine.

It looks like one of Morocco's smoothies. Mmmm.

So now we're going to refry the beans

in the oil that we charred the onion in.

Yes.

We just want to cook this down for about five minutes,

we just want it to thicken up.

Get rid of some of the moisture content.

Concentrate the flavors.

You might need to season this,

it's really going to depend on the brand of bean.

Because some of the beans tend to be a little salty

and also we use the liquid.

So just season to taste, but season after you've

evaporated a lot of the liquid.

Because if you season now, and then concentrate the flavor

you might end up with very salty beans.

You don't need to stir it that often

but just give it a good scrape every now and then

to make sure that it's not sticking to the bottom.

So you can see it's thick but it's not quite

the consistency we want.

There is not a lot of salt in that at all.

So I'm going to go ahead and salt it.

All right, so I'm going to turn the heat off,

and just let it sit in the pan.

It's going to get a lot thicker than this

as it sits, and that's totally fine.

So now we really are going to make the dough.

Okay, so this is a super simple

masa or dough, pupusa dough to make.

So this is maseka which is dried nixtamalized corn.

It's important that you actually mix it.

So you can do it in a stand mixer,

which I find to be a lot easier but you can

actually also do this by hand.

It's important to actually get in there

and really knead or mix the dough quite a lot.

You're not developing any gluten

but you are hydrating the corn

and you are also pulling some of the oils out of the corn,

and that will emulsify with the water

and actually then create some structure

and hold everything together.

And then you're going to start on low,

and you might even need to pulse it

just to make sure it doesn't splatter at you.

You don't need to, like you know,

increase the speed to anything crazy.

You can see how wet and loose this is right now,

and then you're just going to let this sit

and what's going to happen is the individual

grains of the masa are going to swell up,

and it will start to hold it's shape.

It's thickened up a lot.

And it's still a little bit tacky and sticking to my hands

but as it sits, and the corn sucks up all that water

you'll get less of this.

Let it sit uncovered for 15, 30 whatever the hell.

Whatever you want.

I'm so in love.

What's that?

This is a salsa roja.

Yeah, for the curtido.

These are the accoutrement.

You want to taste?

Yeah, can we taste.

I'll put a pasue on my cereal.

Yeah [laughs].

So these are the accoutrement for the pupusas.

Whenever you're served pupusas

you always, always have a salsa roja and the curtido.

The curtido is basically a slightly fermented

cabage slaw situation.

It has a little bit of heat, not too much.

I tend to, you know, put a little more

because you know whatever, it's me.

Because you're you.

Because I'm me.

And you just let it sit and ferment.

At room temp?

Room temp. Minimum 24 hours.

I like mine to go four to five days.

After four or five days you probably should refrigerate it.

How long has this one gone?

This is just 24 hours.

That is so good.

It's so good.

I love the oregano.

Yeah.

I'm not a big oregano fan,

but this feels like a great place to have it.

It's Mexican oregano.

That must be why I like it.

Obviously.

Spicy.

And what's in the roja?

The secret ingredient here,

and this is used a lot in Latin American countries,

chicken bouillon.

Yeah.

A square?

Or granules.

And you basically just puree everything together

and then fry it, until it gets this consistency.

[speaking behind camera covered by background noise]

The bouillon.

Yeah, it has this weird, like umami.

Sorry [mumbles].

Do we say umami a lot?

Apparently, yeah.

I said it once yesterday and like, you know.

One too many umamis.

The umami police came and got me.

That's yummy.

This is the consistency you want.

So we just let them cool down in the pan

and you can see, it like, it reduced.

This is a nice paste like consistency.

So I'm just going to scrape this into the bowl.

So you want a really nice melting cheese.

You can use queso, it's probably a little more common

if you go into a Latin American grocery store

you can actually find the Salvadoran cheese

that's typically used for the pupusas.

[off-screen mutter]

No, no the beans are cool so it's not going to melt.

I mean if you put the cheese in there

while the bean were hot, it would have melted.

But right now, the beans are thick and room temp.

So nothing's going to happen.

Now were going to make our lube.

So this is actually a technique

that I saw some women at one of the diners that

we went to, who were making the pupusas, that they use.

They don't really use gloves.

What they did is they just took some water

and some vegetable oil, and they just put the two together.

And then right before they started forming the pupusa,

they just stuck their hands in this.

Kind of rubbed it around.

And then nothing sticks to their hands.

So definitely a trick that I wanted

to include in the recipe.

All right.

[Unseen Male] Still rolling.

Still rolling, okay.

So now we're going to form the bowl.

So what I'm going to do is, I'm going to scoop this out.

Basically what we're going for is 12 equal sized balls.

Ice cream scoop is actually one of my favorite kitchen tools

because I use it for cookies, I use it for meatballs.

This little extra dough, I'm going to save

and if there are any little holes that form

as I'm making the pupusa, then I can use that

to kind of patch it up.

And we don't need to make these into pretty balls yet.

I'm going to cover it with a damp towel

just to make sure that they don't dry out.

I'm going to lube up my hand.

And then you want to take the ball.

Kind of gently roll.

It's a really, really soft dough.

So you want to make sure that you

don't put a lot of pressure on it.

And because your hand

has lot of oil on it

you're going to end up coating the surface of the ball

which is great.

That's going to help you out.

Then take your thumb, push down to the center.

You're basically making a little nest.

And then use your index finger and your thumb

to pinch the sides, just working around.

Doesn't have to be exact.

And it's like I said, it's really, really soft

so you don't want to pinch too hard.

So if you're lucky enough to have a set of

measuring cups that have an eighth of a cup.

That's exactly what you need.

Otherwise just use two tablespoons.

You can eyeball it,

but I think it's just easier to do this.

We want to put the bean mixture in there.

And this is where it gets a little messy,

and this is also why you want to make sure

that you're nicely lubed up.

So just push the filling into the pupusa.

And then use this hand to kind of

cradle and cup the dough around the filling.

And then use this hand to just kind of seal it up.

And you can just kind of push with one finger,

or two fingers, the dough around the filling.

And then just seal.

You just start patting it down.

And if you see like little tears open

just kind of rub the dough to seal them up.

You'll see cracks around the edges

and that's totally fine.

You want it to be about a third of an inch thick.

Which is about that.

Okay, like right there.

So lets says that that happens

weher you see a lot of exposed bean.

So see how that's kind of torn and exposed.

Just take a little piece of dough, about that big.

Kind of flatten it out, with your other hand

and just patch it.

And then you can just kind of smooth it over.

If you need to add a little bit more, just do that.

And the other great thing about using the

oil trick on your hands, is that you're creating

a non-stick surface so that when we put these on

the griddle, they won't stick to the griddle as well.

So this is a good hack for cast iron skillets,

In this case a griddle.

Or you can even use this for a grill.

You just take a piece of heavy duty aluminum foil.

Wad it up into a little ball.

And then it becomes your grill cast iron brush.

But since it's this hot, I'm just going to

go ahead and season it.

So this is a good way to do that.

If you have a really screaming hot pan.

You can just continue to wipe oil on it.

I'm not that sensitive to heat anymore,

so I can do this and not be affected by it.

But like, if I'm doing this on the grill

which I do for grates, you can actually just get

an old towel and you know.

So you want a well-seasoned, either cast iron skillet,

heavy skillet or in this case I'm going to do a griddle.

Just because I want to make multiple pupusas at once.

And then just lay them down.

We're going to let these go for a few minutes.

You're going to get some brown spots on the other side.

I want a little bit more color on these,

I want more of this kind of color,

so I'll flip them back.

In a minute or two.

But I would recommend, like for your very first one,

treat it like a pancake.

If you're using a skillet do one.

Even though you might have room for two or three of them,

just to get a feel for it, and see what they look like.

This is probably more the color that you want.

You want some of those darker,

kind of charry bits on the corn.

And the outside will feel kind of solid.

It kind of has like an encasing, holding everything in,

and that's how you know it's done.

Let's go eat pupusa.

So yeah, we've got our cheese and red bean filled pupusas.

We have our curtido which is like a

slightly fermented spicy slaw.

And then our almost refried salsa roja,

which is tomatoes, onions, garlic

a little bit of heat and some chicken bouillon.

[Voiceover] Oh yeah.

[Female Voice] There it is.

Perfect.

That's pretty good.

But like I say, it has that nice,

sort of earthy corn flavor.

And them beans.

And then this curtido really cuts through it.

It's a little bit acidic, a little funky.

Totally good.

Thank you.

So good.

Right, I have to go to a meeting.

That was awesome.

Thank you, Rick.

Thank you.

The Adam Rapoport seal of approval.

My day is made.

Wow okay.

Tell me what it is.

[Rick] Pupusa.

[Gaby] Pupusas!

Are they gluten free?

Gluten free?

Yeah.

[Male Voice Behind TheCamera] Camera] Come on down.

Thank you so much.

You are so welcome.

Thank you.

You just made my day brighter.

Aww thanks.

I think a lot of people really love pupusas

but they're intimidated by them

and they think they're really difficult.

And to be honest when actually I started

developing this recipe, I thought they were

going to be harder than they actually are.

It's literally like making cookie dough.

You put a ball of dough in your hand.

Make a whole in it.

Fill it with some smahsed canned beans.

And, like, just put them on a griddle.

It's really, really, super easy.

This is also really easy.

If you can make coleslaw.

You can leave this on your counter

and let it ferment and get really nice and funky.

And this is a blender salsa that you throw

in a skillet until most of the liquid cools down.

It's a really simple dish.

You need to try it.

That's great.

Camera cuts.

I am so glad.

I wanna actually take your camera and, like, film you.

Like, just to show people what I get to look at

for eight or nine hours.

[Male Behind Camera] All they get is

random bits of my hand.

[ Different male Voice] Rick, what do you see

when you look into the lens?

[laughs] I see my reflection.