Salsa Borracha de Pasilla y Mezcal

Ingredients

Equipment Needed

• •Cast iron comal or heavy skillet for toasting chiles and charring aromatics
• •High-powered blender (or a metate, if you have one and know how to work it)
• •Small clay cazuela or heavy skillet for frying the salsa
• •Barro negro or barro rojo cazuelita from Oaxaca for serving

Instructions

1. 1

   Find the right chile

   Before you turn on the comal, look at your chiles. The pasilla oaxaqueño is not the pasilla you find in most US markets. That one is the long, wrinkled chilaca dried, grown mostly in central Mexico. The pasilla mixe is shorter, wider at the shoulder, with a deep brick-red skin and the unmistakable smell of wood smoke. It is dried over fires in the Sierra Mixe by farmers who have been doing it for generations. If your chile has no smoke smell, you have the wrong chile. No me vengas con atajos. Find the right one or do not make this salsa.

   In Mexico City, the chile vendors at Mercado de La Merced or Central de Abastos in Oaxaca will sell you pasilla mixe by the kilo. Outside Mexico, look for online vendors who source directly from Oaxacan cooperatives. Do not accept regular pasilla as a substitute. The smoke is the recipe.
2. 2

   Toast the chiles on the comal

   Heat a dry comal or heavy cast iron skillet over medium. Open each chile flat and press it onto the hot surface for about 10 seconds per side. The pasilla mixe is already smoke-dried, so it does not need long. You are waking the oils, not cooking the chile. The skin will give off a deeper smoke smell and turn slightly more pliable. If it puffs and starts to brown, pull it off immediately. Burn this chile and the salsa turns acrid. There is no fixing it later.

3. 3

   Roast the garlic and onion

   On the same comal, place the unpeeled garlic cloves and the half onion cut side down. Let them char for 8 to 10 minutes, turning occasionally, until the garlic skins are blackened in spots and the cloves inside are soft, and the onion has dark blistered patches on the cut face. This roasting is non-negotiable. Raw garlic gives you a sharp salsa. Charred garlic gives you depth. Asi se hace y punto.

4. 4

   Soak the chiles

   Place the toasted chiles in a heatproof bowl and pour the hot water over them. Hot, not boiling. Boiling water cooks the skin and pulls bitterness out into the soak. Hot water softens the flesh and lets the smoke flavor stay clean. Cover the bowl with a plate and let the chiles soften for 15 minutes. They should bend without cracking. Reserve the soaking water. You will need most of it.

5. 5

   Grind the salsa

   Peel the charred garlic. Tear the onion into rough pieces. Drain the chiles, saving the soaking water. In a blender, combine the chiles, garlic, onion, orange juice, lime juice, salt, oregano, and 1/2 cup of the chile soaking water. Blend until you have a thick, textured paste, not a smooth puree. The classic version is ground on a metate and the texture should still hint at that, with the chile flesh visible in the salsa. If your blender struggles, add another splash of soaking water. Just enough to move things along.

6. 6

   Fry the salsa in lard

   Heat the manteca in a small cazuela or heavy skillet over medium until it shimmers. Add the chile paste all at once. It will sputter. Step back, then stir. Cook for 5 to 7 minutes, stirring often, until the salsa darkens by a shade and you see the fat beading at the edges. La manteca es el sabor. This step rounds the salsa out and gives it the body that makes it cling to a piece of barbacoa instead of running off the plate.

   Some Oaxacan cooks skip the lard and serve the salsa raw from the molcajete. Both are correct. The fried version travels better, keeps longer, and is what you want next to slow-cooked goat. The raw version is brighter and is what you put on the table when the barbacoa is being pulled off the bone.
7. 7

   Add the mezcal

   Pull the cazuela off the heat. Pour in the mezcal and stir. The residual heat will burn off the sharpest alcohol but leave the smoke and the agave perfume in the salsa. This is what makes it borracha, drunk. Use a real mezcal joven from a small palenque, not a mass-produced bottle. The smoke of the pasilla mixe and the smoke of a good espadin are cousins, and that is the whole point of the salsa. Cheap mezcal will taste like solvent. Use what you would drink.

   If you do not drink alcohol or are serving children, the salsa works without mezcal. It is no longer borracha, it is just salsa de pasilla, and it is still excellent. Do not substitute tequila. Tequila is not mezcal and the agave profile is wrong for this dish.
8. 8

   Rest and adjust

   Let the salsa rest for at least 30 minutes before serving. The flavors need time to settle. Taste it then. The salt should be assertive, the smoke should be the dominant note, the orange should round it out, the mezcal should hum in the background, never shout. Adjust salt and a few more drops of lime if needed. If you are serving it within the hour, finish with a final splash of fresh mezcal right before it goes to the table.

9. 9

   Serve in clay

   Spoon the salsa into a small clay cazuelita, ideally barro negro from San Bartolo Coyotepec or rojo from Atzompa. Top with crumbled queso fresco and the finely diced raw white onion. Set it next to barbacoa de chivo, mixiotes, or grilled meats with hot tortillas and a copita of the same mezcal you used in the salsa. The pairing is the dish. Saber cocinar es saber vivir.

Chef Tips

• •The chile is the dish. If you cannot find pasilla oaxaqueño, do not make this salsa with regular pasilla. Make a different salsa instead. A bad substitution here is a compromise the recipe cannot absorb. Online vendors who source directly from Oaxacan cooperatives are the most reliable option outside Mexico.
• •Use a mezcal you would drink straight from a copita. Mezcal joven, espadin from a small palenque, around 45 percent alcohol. Cheap mezcal tastes like industrial alcohol once it is in the salsa. The salsa is only as good as the mezcal you put in it.
• •If you have a metate and you know how to use it, grind the salsa there. The texture is different. It is the texture the salsa was born with. A blender works and most home cooks will use one. I will not pretend the result is identical, but it is close enough to honor the dish.
• •Salsa borracha keeps refrigerated for up to a week and the flavor deepens after the first day. The mezcal does fade with time, so if you are serving leftovers, freshen the bowl with a small splash of mezcal right before it goes to the table.
• •Do not serve this with tortilla chips. It deserves better. Hot corn tortillas, barbacoa de chivo, mixiotes, grilled cecina, or roasted lamb. That is its company.

Advance Preparation

• •The salsa can be made up to 5 days ahead and refrigerated in a glass jar or covered clay vessel. The flavor improves after the first 24 hours.
• •If making more than a day ahead, hold back half the mezcal and stir it in fresh on the day of serving. The first half cooks into the salsa and gives it body. The second half stays bright and gives it perfume.
• •Do not freeze. The chile flesh turns watery and the salsa loses the body that the lard fry built into it.

Frequently Asked Questions

Nutrition Information

1 serving (about 65g)