Salsa Roja de Molcajete

Tortillas on the comal 27 recipes

• It puffs. On the second turn the tortilla lifts into a dome as the trapped water flashes to steam and splits the two faces apart; a tortilla that never puffs was pressed too thick, cooked too cool, or turned too often.
• Freckled, not blackened: small brown spots across a pale field. An evenly browned tortilla has been on too long and will be a cracker by the time it reaches the table.
• It folds without cracking while warm, and still folds after five minutes under a cloth. A tortilla that splits along the fold has lost too much water on the comal.
• The edges are unbroken and roughly round, with no ragged fringe: a fringed edge means the masa was too dry when it was pressed, and no amount of heat will fix it afterwards.
• It smells of toasted corn rather than of scorch or of raw lime. Raw lime means the nixtamal was under-rinsed; scorch means the comal was above the working heat.

Where it goes wrong The masa was too dry or the comal too cool. A dry masa cracks at the edge on pressing and cannot generate the steam that puffs it; a cool comal dries the tortilla through before the water can flash, so it leaves the heat stiff, pale and already stale.

Charring over open flame 31 recipes

• The surface met the fiercest heat available (flame, a broiler, or bare hot metal) with nothing between them, and it shows as true blistering and blackening rather than gentle, even browning.
• The char matches the surface’s fate: where it will be eaten, black sits in patches over deep colour with every face having had its turn, and where the skin is to be peeled away, it may go to an even black, because the char there works on the flesh below and then leaves with the skin.
• It smells of smoke and toasted surface with no acrid edge that stings the nose: acrid means it went past, and acrid does not cook out.
• Just under the char it is cooked (softened, steaming, collapsed, or puffed, whichever the dish wants) because the flame did the surface and the trapped heat did the rest.
• A taste carries the smoke without mouthfuls of ash: the black that flakes away is a seasoning, not a layer.

Where it goes wrong It was left on one face too long or held too close, so one side carbonised to ash while the rest stayed raw, and the smell turned acrid, which follows the dish through every later step and cannot be seasoned away.