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Hidalgo and Tlaxcala's drunken salsa, built on smoky chile pasilla and fresh pulque, crowned with crumbled queso añejo and raw white onion. The pulque belt distilled into a molcajete.
Salsa borracha is from the altiplano, the high central plateau that runs through Hidalgo and Tlaxcala and reaches into the state of México. This is pulque country. The maguey plant grows in long rows across the dry highland soil, and the men who harvest its sweet sap, the tlachiqueros, have been doing the same work for centuries. The salsa is named drunken not because it makes you drunk but because it is built on pulque, the fermented agave drink that the conquest tried to erase and that refuses to disappear.
The chile is pasilla. Not ancho. Not guajillo. Pasilla, the long, wrinkled, near-black dried chile that smells of dried fruit and tobacco when you toast it. Pasilla is what gives this salsa its color and its smoke. A small amount of guajillo can be added for brightness, but the pasilla is non-negotiable. Without it, you are making something else.
This salsa belongs on barbacoa de borrego on a Sunday morning in Actopan, on mixiotes pulled out of their maguey paper wrappers, on grilled meats laid out on a tabla. The queso añejo on top is dry, salty, and sharp. The raw onion cuts through the pulque's sweetness. The olive oil ties everything together. Cada estado, su propia cocina, and the altiplano made this one.
My mother did not make salsa borracha. She was from Jalisco and pulque was foreign to her kitchen. The first time I tasted this salsa was in a tiny pulqueria in Apan, Hidalgo, sitting next to a woman who had been serving barbacoa for forty years. She watched me take the first bite and waited. Then she said: you do not eat salsa borracha. You drink it. Saber cocinar es saber vivir.
Salsa borracha emerged from the pulque-producing haciendas of Hidalgo, Tlaxcala, and the state of México during the 18th and 19th centuries, when the pulque industry was at its commercial peak and supplied a daily beverage to laborers, market vendors, and urban consumers across central Mexico. The use of pulque as a salsa ingredient predates the conquest in form, as the Mexica and other altiplano peoples had long used fermented maguey sap, known then as octli, to dress meats and stews. The dish's traditional pairing with barbacoa de borrego is no accident: both the lamb pit and the maguey plant share the same dry highland geography, and the maguey leaves themselves wrap the meat as it cooks underground.
Quantity
8
stemmed and seeded
Quantity
2
stemmed and seeded, for color
Quantity
3
unpeeled
Quantity
1/4 medium
Quantity
3/4 cup
fresh and unflavored
Quantity
1/4 cup
from naranja agria if available, or orange with a squeeze of lime
Quantity
2 tablespoons
Quantity
1 teaspoon, plus more to taste
Quantity
1/3 cup
finely crumbled
Quantity
1/4 medium
finely chopped
Quantity
2 tablespoons
Quantity
for serving
sliced
| Ingredient | Quantity |
|---|---|
| dried chile pasillastemmed and seeded | 8 |
| dried chile guajillo (optional)stemmed and seeded, for color | 2 |
| garlic clovesunpeeled | 3 |
| white onion | 1/4 medium |
| pulque naturalfresh and unflavored | 3/4 cup |
| fresh orange juicefrom naranja agria if available, or orange with a squeeze of lime | 1/4 cup |
| olive oil | 2 tablespoons |
| kosher salt | 1 teaspoon, plus more to taste |
| queso añejofinely crumbled | 1/3 cup |
| white onion (for finishing)finely chopped | 1/4 medium |
| olive oil (for finishing) | 2 tablespoons |
| pickled chile serrano or chile en escabeche (optional)sliced | for serving |
Heat a dry comal or heavy skillet over medium. Toast the pasilla and guajillo separately, pressing them flat with a spatula for about 20 seconds per side. The pasilla is thin and turns bitter the second you look away, so watch it. The skin will puff slightly and the kitchen will smell like a dry, sweet smoke with a hint of raisin. That smoke is the pasilla's signature. It is what gives this salsa its name and its character.
On the same comal, roast the unpeeled garlic cloves and the quarter onion over medium heat. Turn them every couple of minutes until the garlic skins are charred in spots and the cloves inside are soft, about 8 minutes, and the onion has dark spots on both cut sides. Peel the garlic once it is cool enough to handle. The char is flavor, not waste.
Place the toasted chiles in a heatproof bowl and cover with hot tap water. Hot, not boiling. Boiling water cooks the skin and turns the salsa bitter. Let them soak for 15 minutes, until soft and pliable. Drain and discard the soaking water. The flavor you want is locked in the flesh, not the water.
Transfer the drained chiles, roasted garlic, charred onion, pulque, orange juice, olive oil, and salt to a blender. Blend until smooth but with a little texture. You want body, not a puree as smooth as a sauce. The pulque will foam slightly as it spins. That foam is alive. Pulque is a living ferment and it brings its own funk, sweet and yeasty and faintly sour, that no other liquid can replace. No me vengas con atajos, this is the ingredient that defines the salsa.
Pour the salsa into a molcajete or a clay cazuelita. Let it sit at room temperature for at least 15 minutes. The pulque needs time to settle into the chile and the salt needs time to find its level. Taste now. It should be smoky, deeply red-brown, slightly sweet from the pulque, with a bright sour edge from the orange. If it tastes flat, add more salt, a quarter teaspoon at a time. If the pulque is dominant, a few more drops of orange juice will pull it back into balance.
Just before serving, scatter the crumbled queso añejo across the surface. Top with the finely chopped raw white onion and drizzle the finishing olive oil over the top. Do not stir it in. The cheese, the onion, and the oil are meant to sit on top and get scooped up with each bite. Serve in the molcajete with warm hand-pressed corn tortillas, or alongside barbacoa de borrego, mixiote, or grilled meats. Así se hace y punto.
1 serving (about 68g)
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