One of the greatest pleasures of Mexican street food are sopes: bundles of masa fried and piled with refried beans, shredded chicken, salsa roja, and cotija cheese.
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00:00 How's it going everyone?
00:01 It's Justin here in the Delish Kitchen studios.
00:03 Sopes are kind of like a tortilla mixed with a bowl.
00:08 It's kind of like the waffle bowl
00:10 of nixtamalized corn products.
00:12 You can fill it with whatever you want.
00:14 Today we're gonna be making our own homemade salsa,
00:16 refried beans, and it's all gonna come together
00:19 relatively quickly and easily.
00:21 Let's get started.
00:22 If you've never made homemade roasted salsa,
00:24 it's super easy.
00:25 You can decide to roast or not roast
00:27 whatever vegetables you want.
00:29 In this case, we're just doing our tomatoes
00:31 and these are gonna go into a 400 degree oven
00:33 for about 30 minutes until they're blistery
00:37 and you know that they would break down in a blender.
00:39 We've taken our tomatoes out of the oven.
00:41 They're nice and blistered.
00:42 The skin is gonna fall off.
00:44 If I like stuck my finger in this or a fork,
00:46 it would immediately start to like melt away
00:48 and become almost a salsa.
00:49 So we're gonna place it in a blender
00:51 along with some white onion, some parsley,
00:55 some garlic, ancho chili powder, and some salt.
00:58 Then we're gonna just blitz it up
00:59 until it becomes a nice salsa.
01:02 It can be a little bit chunkier if you want.
01:04 You can blend it a little less.
01:05 If you want it smooth like I do in this case,
01:06 you can take it all the way.
01:08 All right, I think this looks good.
01:11 Let's have a gander.
01:12 Yes, this is what I'm looking for.
01:14 I like it to be thin with like a little bit of chunk.
01:17 I'm gonna taste it.
01:18 Really bright, really fresh.
01:22 With that roasted tomato, add some caramelization,
01:24 depth of flavor, really good.
01:26 This is gonna be delicious.
01:27 We made our first topping.
01:28 Now we're gonna make our first filling,
01:30 which is gonna be homemade refried beans.
01:32 You can buy the stuff that already comes in the can,
01:34 which is delicious,
01:35 but I do think there is something special
01:36 and really, really delicious about making them yourself.
01:39 And the real key and trick to doing so is your fat.
01:43 Not just the amount, which should be a lot.
01:45 Again, it's refried beans.
01:47 We're not like going soft on the amount of fat
01:49 we're putting in this, as well as the type.
01:51 You want a neutral oil.
01:53 And in this case, I'm actually using melted lard.
01:55 Lard is the fat of choice in much of traditional
01:58 Mexican cooking.
01:59 It adds a richness, like a fattiness,
02:02 which is crazy 'cause it is just fat.
02:03 But it is just like a different type of flavor
02:06 that I think is really awesome in this dish.
02:09 So, into a skillet, we're gonna go in with our melted lard,
02:13 as well as some white onion and some garlic.
02:16 We're gonna cook that until it's softened,
02:18 about like five minutes.
02:19 Then we're gonna go ahead and stir in our beans,
02:22 salt and cumin.
02:23 We're using pinto beans here.
02:25 Toss those all up until they're covered in fat
02:27 and they're starting to warm up, about five minutes.
02:30 The beans look a little blistery
02:31 and they've had some of the starch get released
02:34 and they're getting kind of coated.
02:36 This is a good time now that we are going to mash our beans.
02:39 And it kind of depends on how rustic you like
02:41 your refried beans, like how hard you wanna go mashing
02:44 or if you wanna get a ricer out or something.
02:46 I'm just gonna use a fork.
02:47 I'm gonna go in and I'm gonna just lightly start crushing
02:51 some of these beans and it should be nice and creamy
02:54 coming through the tines.
02:55 And that should be good.
02:57 And then we're gonna have our refried beans.
02:59 Let's get into our dough for the sopes.
03:01 It's largely made up of masa harina,
03:04 which you can find in most grocery stores nowadays
03:07 or online or in a Latin or Mexican grocery store.
03:10 It is essentially just ground nixtamalized corn.
03:12 Nixtamalized corn is just corn that has been soaked
03:15 for a long time in an alkaline solution.
03:17 Traditionally and historically,
03:19 lime water is what was used.
03:21 And it would reduce the amount of toxins in the corn
03:23 and actually raise the nutrients,
03:24 which is like a crazy alchemical process that is amazing
03:28 and leads to some of the most delicious Mexican foods.
03:31 This process couldn't be simpler.
03:32 All we're going to do is combine masa harina,
03:35 a bit of lukewarm water and some salt
03:38 and essentially just mix it together with your hands
03:40 until it becomes a dough.
03:42 It should be rather pliable and kind of like easy
03:44 to press your thumb into.
03:45 It'll come together super quickly.
03:47 However, if it, for some reason, feels a little dry,
03:50 it could be your climate, how hot it is,
03:52 how cold it is in your room.
03:53 You could add a little bit of warm water,
03:55 like a teaspoon or two at a time
03:57 until you have the correct hydration levels.
04:00 This should have the texture of Play-Doh.
04:02 Like that's a very accurate comparison.
04:05 It should feel light.
04:06 And when you like press into it, it should have no give.
04:08 You should leave an indent on it.
04:10 It should feel like you can sculpt with it.
04:12 Make the dough into a ball
04:14 and then divide that into six equal portions.
04:17 Before we cook, we have to flatten these.
04:19 You could use a tortilla press,
04:21 but not everyone's going to have that.
04:21 So all we need is just a flat surface, like a pie plate.
04:24 We'll put down a piece of parchment.
04:25 We're going to place one of our dough balls
04:27 and then we're going to push down with equal pressure,
04:30 kind of on the sides, not in the middle,
04:32 until you have something that is about yay big in diameter.
04:36 You want to be applying equal pressure
04:38 so that you're not getting uneven sides.
04:40 And we're eventually then going to cook them,
04:42 par cook them, and then form them
04:44 into those little bowls that I was talking about.
04:46 Our pre-pressed soap base are sitting in this pan
04:49 under a wet paper towel.
04:51 These will dry out relatively quickly,
04:52 so we want to work fast,
04:53 but a wet towel or paper towel will help us greatly.
04:56 So I have a cast iron that's been preheating
05:00 over medium high heat.
05:01 We're going to go into a dry pan with three soap base.
05:05 You don't want to overcrowd.
05:06 And they're going to go right in.
05:08 This is a pre, like a par cooking
05:12 that we are doing on these soap base
05:13 because they're going to cook for a bit
05:15 and then we're going to form them
05:16 into the little bowls or boats that you're used to seeing.
05:19 They're going to go for about one to two minutes
05:21 on each side, just so you see a little bit of browning
05:23 and you can still pliably move around with them.
05:26 In this initial cooking process,
05:27 they're going to start to dry out on the surface
05:29 and form a skin that will resemble a tortilla.
05:32 That's exactly what we're looking for.
05:33 We want to see that on both sides.
05:35 Once you remove the soap base from the pan,
05:37 you want to work as quickly as possible.
05:39 You can let it cool a little bit,
05:40 but they should be still pretty warm to the touch.
05:42 And you're going to be able to make the border.
05:44 Basically, you're just going to use your fingers
05:46 to pinch up to get like a quarter inch
05:48 or a half an inch of a rim around the edges of the soap base.
05:52 These look awesome and they're going to fill really nicely.
05:53 We just need to do a second round of cooking and crisping.
05:57 This is going to be done in oil.
05:58 So you're going to get some more vegetable oil
06:01 or lard or whatever you're using
06:03 and make enough of a layer to kind of coat
06:07 the bottom of the pan.
06:08 That's what we're looking for.
06:09 These are going to go for about one or two minutes a side.
06:11 We want to give enough time for the inside
06:13 of the soap base to cook and for everything
06:14 to get golden brown on the outside.
06:16 Once they are nice and golden brown,
06:18 we're going to let them cool.
06:19 And then you can fill them however you want.
06:21 It's kind of beautiful that way.
06:23 If you have foie gras and caviar, you could use it,
06:26 but we're going to use some stuff that we made earlier.
06:28 We're going to use those homemade refried beans,
06:31 some rotisserie chicken we shredded,
06:32 some veg, lettuce, onion, radish.
06:36 Then that really bright, beautiful roasted tomato salsa.
06:39 And we're going to finish it with a little bit
06:40 of Mexican crema.
06:42 Just slightly different than regular sour cream.
06:44 I absolutely recommend that you add it to your pantry.
06:48 Oh, I almost forgot.
06:49 We're going to finish it with a bit of cotija cheese.
06:51 It's that crumbly, briny, salty cheese
06:53 that's really awesome to garnish with.
06:55 I'm going to say something very trite.
07:01 This feels like a party in my mouth.
07:03 There are so many different flavors, textures,
07:06 things going on, which is why the soap is
07:08 such an incredible vehicle for different foods.
07:11 I honestly think it's like, this is the ideal hors d'oeuvre.
07:13 Like, get out of here with the mini quiches
07:15 and like caviar on blinis.
07:17 This is genuinely what I want at a party,
07:20 especially when you pair it with a little beer.
07:22 You take a munch, you take a sip.
07:24 It's perfect.
07:24 These refried beans are the perfect base.
07:26 They kind of act like the glue
07:28 that holds everything together,
07:29 both from a flavor perspective
07:31 and from like an actual structural perspective.
07:33 I sincerely hope you make these
07:35 for your next big gathering of friends or like the big game.
07:38 It's really such a spectacular party food.
07:40 So for other incredible little bites,
07:42 just like this, stick around here on delish.com.
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07:48 (upbeat music)