Salsa de Jitomate y Jalapeño para Enchiladas Potosinas

San Luis Potosí lives in this salsa, especially around Soledad de Graciano Sánchez, where enchiladas potosinas are not a restaurant trick. They are supper, market food, party food, and the thing a good cook can make with masa, chile, cheese, and a hot comal.

This is the warm jitomate and jalapeño salsa that goes over the finished enchiladas, not the chile sauce worked into the masa. Do not confuse the two. The masa gets its color from dried chile, usually chile ancho or chile colorado. This salsa gets its body from ripe jitomate guaje and its green bite from fresh chile jalapeño, softened until it tastes rounded, not raw.

I learned a version like this from a señora near the market in Soledad, standing beside a comal black from years of work. She did not drown the enchiladas. She spooned the salsa over them warm, just enough to shine on the red masa, with crumbled queso fresco and a clay plate on the table. Cada estado, su propia cocina.

The principle is simple to say and easy to ruin: cook the tomato until it stops tasting watery, fry the salsa in manteca until the color deepens, and salt it enough to stand up to masa and cheese. No me vengas con atajos. A raw blender salsa does not belong here.