Making Sopes for the first time!
Sopes are one of many emblematic Mexican dishes, particularly reigning in street markets where they compete in prestige with the famous taco. Sopes are one of a long list of “antojitos” (Mexico’s finger food), along with huaraches, tlayudas, tlacoyos, chalupas, gorditas, flautas, tacos, and many many more. All of these corn-dough eatable surfaces exist in different shapes and sizes, with the purpose of supporting your favorite toppings on their journey from the table to your stomach. Despite their similar recipes, the cultural significance of each individual dish is of utmost importance to Mexican gastronomy.
One can buy all of these “antojitos” already pre-made at your local supermarket, you simply deep fry it, and top it up. However, homemade sopes made with the pulse and strengthen of hands that have been making them for decades obviously reign over any pre-made recipe. Mexican cuisine is extremely vast and complex, which is why a lot of culinary traditions are being lost amongst the newer generations. Many recipes are considered too time consuming, while sometimes this is not even the case; rather the availability of convenience simply wins over curiosity to cook from scratch.
I’ve discovered that making most “antojitos mexicanos” is actually quite simple, and requires only three ingredients – corn flower, water, and salt.
To make about 30 Sopes, use an entire 1kg bag of MASECA. To this, add 7 cups of water, and 2 tablespoons of salt.
Get your hands dirty and mix everything together until you have a homogenous, clump-free ball of dough.
Now, this is the hard part. You have to separate the dough into golf-ball size pieces, and quite literally play hot potato between both your hands, slapping the dough back and forth until you create a flat disk.
Once all the sopes are shaped into form, place them on a hot pan until they start to get a toasty color, then flip them over.
During this step, the dough is being pre-cooking in order for it to stay together at the time of deep frying later.
Remove the sopes from the pan, and before they cool down create a wall around the edges, and a soft twist in the middle in order to create some texture for the fillings to stay in place.
NOW, DEEP FRY !!
Finally, the fun part; toppings! Always start with a layer of refried beans, followed by your “protein.” I make mine meat-free, so usually use soy chorizo with potatoes, mushrooms, nopales (cactus), or sometimes just beans. Then, decorate them with all the fresh ingredients such as grated iceberg lettuce, pickled onions, cotija cheese which is a kind of like dry feta, and finally some homemade salsa.
Jessica
These look great! In Veracruz, we call them “picaditas.” My mom used to make these almost every weekend. I have been craving sopes/picaditas for a while, so I’m happy I stumbled upon your site. Thanks for sharing the recipe!
CookieG
Thank you Jessica! Que los disfrutes 🙂