Salsa Macha Oaxaqueña con Chile Cascabel

Ingredients

Equipment Needed

• •Heavy 2-quart saucepan or small clay cazuela
• •Wooden spoon
• •Slotted spoon
• •Volcanic stone molcajete or food processor (no blender)
• •Clean glass jar with tight-fitting lid, 16 ounces or larger

Instructions

1. 1

   Prepare the chiles

   Wipe the cascabel, pasilla oaxaqueño, and chile de árbol with a dry cloth. Stem the cascabel and the árbol. Stem and seed the pasilla oaxaqueño, this one is smoked over wood in the Mixe sierra and the seeds carry too much harsh heat for a steeped salsa. Tear the larger pasilla pieces in half so they fit in the pot. Do not rinse the chiles. Water on a dried chile bound for hot oil is a kitchen accident waiting to happen.

   Chile cascabel is a small round chile that rattles when you shake it, that is where it gets its name. If yours does not rattle, the seeds have absorbed humidity and the chile is past its prime. Find a fresher batch.

   The pasilla oaxaqueño is not the pasilla you find in most US markets. It is smoked, wrinkled, and brick-red, grown almost exclusively in the Mixe region of Oaxaca. If you cannot find it, leave it out. Do not substitute regular pasilla. The smoke is the whole point.
2. 2

   Bloom the garlic and peanuts

   Pour the oil into a heavy 2-quart saucepan or small cazuela and warm over medium-low heat. The oil should be just hot enough that a single sesame seed dropped in floats and sizzles gently, around 250°F. Add the whole garlic cloves and the peanuts. Cook for 4 to 5 minutes, stirring often, until the garlic turns pale gold and the peanuts smell toasted. Pull both out with a slotted spoon onto a plate. Burning the garlic now ruins the entire batch. Watch the pot.

3. 3

   Steep the chiles in warm oil

   Lower the heat slightly. Add the cascabel, the pasilla oaxaqueño, and the árbol to the warm oil all at once. They should sizzle quietly, not violently. Stir and submerge them with a wooden spoon. Cook for 2 to 3 minutes, no longer. The chiles will swell, deepen in color, and release their oils into the oil. The kitchen will smell like a Oaxacan market the morning the chile vendors are unpacking. That smell is the recipe.

   If a chile turns black, the oil was too hot. Burnt chile is bitter chile and there is no fixing it. Pull everything off the heat, throw the batch out, and start again with the oil cooler. Asi se hace y punto.
4. 4

   Toast the sesame off the heat

   Pull the pan off the burner. Add the sesame seeds directly to the hot oil with the chiles. The residual heat will toast them in 30 to 45 seconds, you will see them turn golden in the oil. Toasting them off the heat is how you keep them from scorching, since sesame goes from raw to burnt in seconds. Let the whole pan rest, undisturbed, for 20 minutes so the oil pulls flavor from everything in it.

5. 5

   Grind, do not puree

   Return the cooled garlic and peanuts to the pan. Pour the entire contents into a molcajete in batches and grind to a coarse, rubbly texture, or pulse in a food processor with short bursts. You want a salsa with body, not a smooth paste. The chiles should be in shards, the peanuts in halves and quarters, the sesame intact, the oil rust-red and glossy. A blender turns it to baby food. Do not use one.

   Salsa macha is defined by its texture. The crunch of the peanuts, the chew of the chile, the slick of the oil, all in one spoonful. Lose the texture and you have lost the salsa.
6. 6

   Season and rest

   Stir in the vinegar, salt, and grated piloncillo while the salsa is still warm. Taste it. It should be smoky, nutty, sharp at the edges from the vinegar, with a slow heat that builds and stays. Adjust salt. If it tastes flat, add another half teaspoon of vinegar. Transfer to a clean glass jar with a tight lid. Let it sit at room temperature for at least 24 hours before you eat it. The flavors marry overnight. The salsa you taste tomorrow is not the salsa you taste tonight.

7. 7

   Serve cold, never cook it

   Spoon salsa macha over quesadillas, memelas, tlayudas, fried eggs, beans, grilled meat, or a wedge of queso fresco. Do not cook with it. The chiles and the sesame are already toasted, and reheating turns the oil bitter and the texture grainy. This is a finishing salsa. The cook does the work once, and the jar earns its place on the table for weeks. Recetas probadas y garantizadas.

Chef Tips

• •The chile pasilla oaxaqueño is non-negotiable for the Oaxacan version. It is grown in the Mixe sierra, smoked over wood, and sold under names like pasilla mixe or pasilla de Oaxaca. Tienda Mexicana mail order or a serious Latin grocery is your best chance outside Mexico. If you cannot find it, you are making salsa macha veracruzana, which is also good, just call it what it is.
• •Use a neutral oil with a clean flavor. Olive oil overpowers the chiles. Sesame oil fights with the toasted ajonjolí. Safflower, grapeseed, or a quality vegetable oil lets the chiles speak.
• •Store in a glass jar with a tight lid. Refrigerated, it keeps for two months easily. The oil will solidify cold, just pull the jar out 20 minutes before serving. Never store it in plastic. The chile oil leaches the plastic and the salsa picks up the flavor.
• •Always use a clean, dry spoon when scooping from the jar. Water and crumbs introduce bacteria into a low-acid oil and that is how a good jar of macha goes bad.

Advance Preparation

• •Salsa macha is a make-ahead by design. It needs at least 24 hours at room temperature for the flavors to settle and is at its best between days 3 and 30.
• •Refrigerated in a clean glass jar, it keeps for up to 2 months. The oil will solidify cold; bring to room temperature before serving so it spoons cleanly.
• •Do not freeze. Freezing breaks the oil emulsion and dulls the flavor of the toasted seeds and chiles.

Frequently Asked Questions

Nutrition Information

1 serving (about 38g)