I've fallen love with burritos at some local restaurants. I would like
to find how to make the salsa that goes on them. At most of these
places you can self-serve additional portions of salsa. It's reddish
kind of fluid, in which you can see what appears to be small yellowish
seeds. It's fairly mild. It's not like the kind of salsa that's
served for scooping with corn chips; it's not like chopped tomatoes,
onions, etc. This is more fluid.


I'm just a dumb bachelor. Can't cook. Don't try much, but I'd like to
try this if I can. I've googled for recipes and just gotten myself
confused. I've even tried a couple that didn't turn out anything like
what I was looking for. Could some kind soul point me where to look or
suggest a recipe? Maybe I'm Googling for the wrong words. I've been
looking for "Mexican recipes burrito salsa".




E

Eldritch wrote:
I've fallen love with burritos at some local restaurants. I would like
to find how to make the salsa that goes on them. At most of these
places you can self-serve additional portions of salsa. It's reddish
kind of fluid, in which you can see what appears to be small yellowish
seeds. It's fairly mild. It's not like the kind of salsa that's
served for scooping with corn chips; it's not like chopped tomatoes,
onions, etc. This is more fluid.


I'm just a dumb bachelor. Can't cook. Don't try much, but I'd like
to try this if I can. I've googled for recipes and just gotten myself
confused. I've even tried a couple that didn't turn out anything like
what I was looking for. Could some kind soul point me where to look or
suggest a recipe? Maybe I'm Googling for the wrong words. I've been
looking for "Mexican recipes burrito salsa".




E
Without knowing your location it is difficult to predict what you may be
looking for. If you are in the San Diego area it may be a mixture of
chili japonese and olive juice like they serve in "betos" type places...

Could be a more sonoran style with oregano. Give us some more info...
resturant name and location would be perfect.

Eldritch wrote:

Could some kind soul point me where to look or
suggest a recipe? Maybe I'm Googling for the wrong words. I've been
looking for "Mexican recipes burrito salsa".

Yes, you are looking for the wrong thing. Wet burritos are covered with
red or green MOLE (or even enchilada sauce) to give them the appearance
of being a little "fancier" than the simple burrito that can be eaten
out of hand. Put a burrito on a plate, cover it with mole, put some
refried beans and cheese with a tortilla chip sticking in it, add
Mexican rice and some lettuce on the side and a humble taco stand
magically becomes a Mexican "restaurant" and can charge you $10.00 for
a $0.75 beef burrito ;-)

I'm not trying to put you down, as you are just beginning to learn
about Mexican cuisine. Burritos and tacos and tamales and enchiladas
are a form of Mexican *snack food* called "antojitos". Mexican cuisine
has much more to offer than that!

A "mole" is a mixture of chilis and spices and vegetables but the
texture is much finer than the chopped chip-dipping salsa the waitress
offers while you're waiting for your combination plate.

Try looking for "mole" instead of salsa. You may have been seeing
sesame seeds or you may have been seeing chili seeds that the cook
failed to remove from the chili pod. I would rather think you saw
sesame seeds, called "ajonjoli" in Espanol.

In the Mexican foods department of your local supermarket, look for
commercially-prepared mole, but go easy on it until you learn what your
"heat" tolerance is and learn the relative "heat" of the various chili
pods.

It's certainly easy enough to take fresh ancho and pasilla chili
peppers, split,
de-seed and de-vein them, fry them in oil and then boil them until
tender with chopped tomatillos, garlic and sesame seeds and some
Mexican sweet or bitter chocolate and run the mixture through a blender
to get a runny sauce. If you want a really red mole, you could use
canned tomatoes instead of green tomatillos. The tomatoes will make the
mole sweeter.

You can also use chipotle peppers to give the mole a smoky taste.
That's how they make mole poblano in Puebla.

I found some El Mexicano mole in the local supermarket. This particular
mole doesn't have chipotle peppers in it and that's just fine with me.
It was also made with sweet Mexican chocolate instead of bitter
chocolate. I don't particularly like the acrid taste of Olde Ashtray
that chipotle peppers lend to Mexican cuisine.

Chipotle peppers are smoked jalapeno peppers which do not lend
themselves to drying like anchos and pasillas.

An 8-ounce jar of El Mexicano mole only cost $2.18 and the stuff was
concentrated! I used half of it to prepare a turkey breast for
Thanksgiving. I boiled the turkey breast for 1.5 hours and then I put
it in a greased frying pan and stirred in 4 ounces of mole and kept
stirring until the turkey breast shredded. It was juicy and delicious.

Yesterday, I boiled 3 pounds of turkey legs until they fell apart. I
don't like tough roasted turkey legs anyway. I used 2 ounces of the
concentrated El Mexicano mole
and added a tablespoon of sesame seeds. If I had roasted the turkey
legs and finished them in mole, I would have sprinkled the sesame seeds
onto the sticky sauce.

Dona Maria also makes mole, in the same small sized jar. I don't know
if they use chipotle peppers or not.

I can buy almost any fresh chili pepper you can imagine locally, from
the mild California chilis, through the intermediate ancho and pasilla
chilis and the hotter chipotle and jalapenos, to the fiery habaneros
since the Mexican population here outnumbers the gringos by 2 to 1.

But I can also buy handy commercially-prepared ready to use chili
sauces like Knorr's guajillo, pipian, and chipotle sauces for only
$1.00 each. When I see them on sale I stock up.

The Knorr guajillo and pipian would be just fine to drown your burrito
in, you might want to use less of the Knorr chipotle sauce. I made
roasted chipotle chicken thighs once with the Knorr chipotle sauce. I
just microwaved a pound of chicken in 8 ounces of sauce for half an
hour. They were delicious, the juices were sealed inside the chicken
skin, and the chipotle sauce was on the outside.

I still had half the chipotle sauce left over in the microwaveable
bowl, so I added a little bit of it to my Mexican omelettes every
morning for the next week.

I also buy Juanita's chili colorado sauce, red enchilada sauce, and
Hatch's huevos rancheros sauce and Hatch's tostada sauce. The latter
are both green sauces. The biggest bargain I found was gallons of Salsa
Verde (green sauce) for only $1.00 apiece.

What would I ever do with a whole gallon of salsa verde?

Shrimp is wonderful drowned in salsa verde. I buy a pound or two of
cooked shimp, put it in the microwave covered with salsa verde and the
shrimp flavor still comes through.
Yummy.

I shall search for fresh langostinos to smother in salsa verde.
Langostinos are lobsters without claws. Langostinos in salsa verde in
the microwave for twenty minutes, and then I will feast.

I prefer Ranchero sauce on my burritos. Google for it.

I've been looking for "Mexican recipes burrito salsa".

Well, I don't think you are going to find many , as burritos aren't
really mexican food.
You guys have to understand that usually mexican salsas with a very few
exceptions are not devoted to a dish in particular. There are too many
salsas recipes (and any taco stand owner can be creative and invent
their own) made with to many different chiles (serranos, jalapeños,
pasillas, chipotles, de árbol, habanero, cuaresmeño, poblanos,
anchos, guajillo, cascabel, etc, etc, etc, etc.). And you can use them
in any way you like. Better search just for salsa recipes and try some
until you find one you like.

wrote in message
ups.com...
I've been looking for "Mexican recipes burrito salsa".

Well, I don't think you are going to find many , as burritos aren't
really mexican food.
___________________________

Sure they are. Common in Sonora. They became quite popular when introduced
into AZ and CA by field workers who brought their lunches that way.

Charlie

"Eldritch" wrote in message
news:hjwjf.2098$w74.1048@trnddc03...
I've fallen love with burritos at some local restaurants. I would like
to find how to make the salsa that goes on them.

Your description sounds a lot like a common table sauce in many Cal-Mex
restaurants I've been in. I find it somewhat like pico de gallo. It is
inexpensive, so purchase a bottle of mild Pace Pico de Gallo and see if it
comes close. It is pretty good anyway so it won't be a total loss if you
don't like it.

Charlie

Sonoran Dude wrote:



Without knowing your location it is difficult to predict what you may be
looking for. If you are in the San Diego area it may be a mixture of
chili japonese and olive juice like they serve in "betos" type places...



I'm in Oxnard, CA, which is next to Ventura and 40 miles south of Santa
Barbara.




Could be a more sonoran style with oregano. Give us some more info...
resturant name and location would be perfect.


Specifically, the restaurant is Tacos Mi Pueblo, but I believe it' is
not a chain. It seems to a stand alone restaurant operated by two
brothers, who tell me their recipes are from their Mexican village.
But I've seen similar (though not quite as good) salsas at Taqueria El
TApatio, which I believe is a small chain. I'd love to as the
brothers for their recipe, but that seems kinda tacky. ;-)


E

Nope, burritos are as mexican as chop suey is chinesse, as far as I
know, both were born in the L.A. area, then spread to some parts of
México and other parts of the U.S. What a mexican field worker would
eat is a taco. And what is a taco? ANYTHING inside a tortilla. If you
take a flour tortilla taco and make a "package" with it, well, you get
a burrito. Do you know why te call them burritos?

Eldritch wrote:

I'm in Oxnard, CA, which is next to Ventura and 40 miles south of Santa
Barbara.

Can I call you "homeboy"?

You're in the midst of a large Mexican population in Ventura county.
It's a shame you can't find anything better to "dine" on there than
what is called a "wet burrito". That's another term to google for.

I was born in Ventura, on land that was once part of Mission San
Buenaventura's rancho. My mother started me on authentic Mexican food
by taking me to restaurants that were actually the adobe homes of
Mexican pioneers. We used to see Leo Carillo riding in parades, dressed
in all his charro regalia on a horse dripping with silver regalia.

I don't remember for sure if it was Leo's house we ate at.

If you drive about 1/2 a mile west of mission San Buenaventura, you'll
see the Ortega adobe. Sr. Ortega bought the land after Mexican
independence and the secularization of the mission lands. If you ever
eat an Ortega chili, you can thank Sr. Ortega.

About 7 miles north of Ventura, you'll pass through the little town of
Casitas Springs, where the Spanish missionaries lived for a time after
an earthquake knocked down the original mission. Rancho Arnaz was
established there by the apple cider barn in 1842. I went to elementary
school with the great grandson of Sr. Arnaz. Later, I lived on a street
in Meiners Oaks that was named after Sr. Tico, one of the Spanish land
grantees in the Ojai valley.

Back down in Ventura, there is a storefront called Taqueria Vallarta
which is popular with the local Mexicans. Try the Birria de Chivo if
you want something authentically Mexican, but which is a step above the
common beef or chicken tacos, tamales and burritos. Birria de Chivo is
served on weekends. It's a lamb stew, served in a fiery red sauce.

The red sauce was so hot, I spooned the chunks of tender lamb onto
tortillas and ate it as soft tacos instead. I followed the Birria de
Chivo with a heavenly Mexican fruit cocktail called "Eschamocha". It
had every fresh fruit you can imagine, big chunks of it, in a blend of
papaya juice, milk, honey, and the magic ingredient, *salt* that brings
all the juice out of the fruit and strips off the capsaicin from the
chili sauce that still burns your tongue.

Though Taqueria Vallarta is "just" a taqueria, it packs the Mexican
church-goers and bargain shoppers in. There's a real sit down Mexican
restaurant a few doors down the street, with some really, really
authentic Mexican dishes on the menu in the window, but the place is
only open for dinner. I've never been there at dinnertime. But you
should try the place, just to find out what the alternatives to tacos,
burritos, enchiladas, and tamales are.

Like I said yesterday, all that antojito stuff is just snack food. You
need to look for the more authentic recipes that take longer to prepare
and are made with better cuts of meat, poultry, or sea food.

On 2 Dec 2005 06:39:49 -0800, wrote:

Nope, burritos are as mexican as chop suey is chinesse, as far as I
know, both were born in the L.A. area, then spread to some parts of
México and other parts of the U.S. What a mexican field worker would
eat is a taco. And what is a taco? ANYTHING inside a tortilla. If you
take a flour tortilla taco and make a "package" with it, well, you get
a burrito. Do you know why te call them burritos?


Hmmm, more than likely they ate tamales or tacos al vapor.

If anything inside a tortilla is a taco, then a burrito is a taco.
That is what you just said is it not? And that would go for an
enchilada is a taco too?

Dumb, man, really dumb.


jim

Yes , an enchilada is a taco, And why do you call me dumb? you are
talking about mexican food with a mexican, by the way, I discoverd that
thing you call burritos on a shopping trip to McAllen TX, in a mobile
food cart outside of the Globe Mall when I was maybe 8 yrs. old. First
time i saw such a thing I thougth "Damn gringos, what will they come
out with next?"

wrote in message
oups.com...
Yes , an enchilada is a taco, And why do you call me dumb? you are
talking about mexican food with a mexican, by the way, I discoverd that
thing you call burritos on a shopping trip to McAllen TX, in a mobile
food cart outside of the Globe Mall when I was maybe 8 yrs. old. First
time i saw such a thing I thougth "Damn gringos, what will they come
out with next?"

I see......you are a Mexican. Where in Mexico do you live? I would guess
that you were not born in Sonora as the flour tortilla is common there. To
understand the history of the burrito in the U.S. you would have to know
something about the history of Mexican field workers in Arizona and
California. You are quite wrong about the history of the burrito.

Charlie

On 2 Dec 2005 14:54:09 -0800, wrote:

Yes , an enchilada is a taco, And why do you call me dumb? you are
talking about mexican food with a mexican, by the way, I discoverd that
thing you call burritos on a shopping trip to McAllen TX, in a mobile
food cart outside of the Globe Mall when I was maybe 8 yrs. old. First
time i saw such a thing I thougth "Damn gringos, what will they come
out with next?"


If enchiladas were tacos, then the real name would be tacos de
enchilada. Can you document that?

You are wrong unless every other Mexican food site, including those in
Mexico, included tacos in their enchilada sections.

Even some Mexicans are ignorant of their own food history. You seem to
be proving that case.


jim

ensenadajim wrote:

If enchiladas were tacos, then the real name would be tacos de
enchilada. Can you document that?

Anything in chili sauce is an enchilada. Any kind of meat in a chili
sauce is "enchilada", too, but the term has been shortened to "chili"
and people argue endlessly over whether "chili" is "chili" if it has
ground beef or beans in it and they will wisely proclaim that tortillas
dipped in chile sauce, filled with meat or cheese, covered with more
sauce and baked in an oven are the only real enchiladas.

I could dip bollilos or teleras in chili sauce and they'd be
enchiladas. But would they be "tacos"? The public's general impression
that tacos are anything that is eaten out of hand is widespread.

You are wrong unless every other Mexican food site, including those in
Mexico, included tacos in their enchilada sections.

Cookbooks and websites have to be organized according to popular
perceptions of what a thing is, but what *is* a taco, in reality? Could
it be other than a folded tortilla filled with meat, cheese, and
lettuce?

Even some Mexicans are ignorant of their own food history. You seem to
be proving that case.

I was with a group of tourists on Cozumel island and we were looking
for a good restaurant. They wanted to stop at a touristy taqueria and I
wanted a sit down restaurant. I was telling them that there were many
main course alternatives to tacos that were eaten by Mexicans deep in
Mexico. I got outvoted and we were stuck at the taqueria.

Fortunately, there were a few regional specialties on the menu and I
wasn't stuck eating a taco. The tourists asked the tour guide, who was
a pimply faced young kid what local Mexicans did eat. He said, "Oh, we
eat a lot of tacos."

I concentrated on enjoying my cochinita pibil, spooning the delicious
tender pork into a flour tortilla and eating it burrito style, mostly
because it was so spicy and the tortilla scoured the capsaicin away
from my tongue. The other tourists settled for the familiar tacos they
could have gotten at Taco Hell.

The tour guide claimed that "tacos" were basically anything you could
eat out of hand, like a taco or a burrito. I was satisfied with that
explanation for a long time. It seemed to make sense.

But, what does "taco" really mean? Webster's Spanish-English
English-Spanish says that a "taco" is a stopper, plug; heel (of a
shoe); wad; book of coupons; billiard cue...

Maybe that explains why tacos cause me such gastric distress ;-) Tacos
are tortillas folded to hold a *wad* of meat, cheese and lettuce, and
they *plug* me up until the cerveza arrives in the lower intestine to
flush it all out.

Or, maybe the origin of "taco" was something like the origin of "hush
puppies". The mother would be boiling a complex main entree and the
children would tug at her apron strings, begging for food and the
mother would throw some corn dough into a skillet and fry it in pork
grease and give it to the kids to "hush" them.

Perhaps the idea of a taco is to act as a plug or stopper to silence
the incessant begging of eternally hungry children and they grow up
thinking that's what they are supposed to eat. Such items become
"comfort food", reminding them of their mother
and the gift of love, a greasy taco that stuffs their gut, making them
fart and belch until it finally passes out the other end in a most
satisfying explosion.