When Rosa Cienfuegos travelled from Mexico City to visit her mother's family near Puebla, she knew molotoes would be on the menu.
These football-shaped fried masa pockets filled with chicken and served with cheese, lettuce and salsa was her aunt's specialty.
"I remember visiting my relatives in a town called Agua Fria and my aunt Luz making molotes for all of us," Cienfuegos says.
During her last visit to Mexico, she finally learned how to make them.
"You can find molotes in different parts of Mexico and they can be made with banana or seafood or mole, but this one is my family's recipe."
Cienfuegos explains that they're filled with chicken and made in a red sauce, but they're not spicy and they take a long time to make.
Molotes remind chef Rosa Cienfuegos of her family in Mexico. Source: Pat Stevenson
"I was born and raised in Mexico City and when I was going to see my mum's family, they always make molotes for us. They weren't rich people, molotes were filling and cheap. You can make a lot in one batch, enough to feed a large family."
Cienfuegos makes them in Australia because she missed her family. "My daughter and sister and dad would say, 'Do you remember the molotes from your aunt?' So the next time I went to Agua Fria I learnt how to make them."
The recipe for molotes is in Cienfuegos' recipe book, Comida Mexicana, and she recommends using "white or yellow masa flour since the contrast with the hot oil brings out the flavour of the masa".
You can make a lot in one batch, enough to feed a large family.
When it comes to Mexican cooking, the kind of masa you use is important, even though it's all made from corn.
"White masa is softer and the yellow one is harder, so it depends what you're using it for," Cienfuegos says.
"For tortillas, if you're eating them straight away for tacos you can use whatever masa, but if you want to keep them for later, use the white one because they are softer. The yellow could go too hard and they will break. But if you want to make tostadas, use the yellow ones because they are going to be fried."
The difference in texture comes down to the difference in the corn.
"The white one is more tender and younger and the yellow corn is more mature. The yellow corn has less flavour, it is very different from the yellow corn from Australia," Cienfuegos says.
"When I go back to Mexico and I try the local corn, the flavour is very neutral. If I have corn in Australia, the flavour is 100 per cent different. It's the way Mexicans have domesticated the corn, it's the main food for Mexicans so you have to find a neutral flavour to transform into a million things. There are over 600 recipes for corn."
As well as deciding on the colour of the masa you want, you then have to choose the texture, which can range from thick to fine.
"For tamales, I use the fine corn flour because it is going to be softer for longer. If I make it with thick masa you have to eat it straight away or it dries up. A lot of commercial tamales are associated with the thick one, because it is easier for commercial use," Cienfuegos says.
She has seen a growing interest in Mexican cuisine in Australia and says a lot of people come to her restaurants, Itacate & Mexican Deli in Redfern and Tamaleria & Mexican Deli in Dulwich Hill, and ask if she can sell them "a little bit of flour" to make tortillas at home.
Rosa Cienfuegos loves her aunt's fried masa-pocket recipes that involves filling the pockets with chicken and serving them with cheese, lettuce and salsa. Source: Pat Stevenson
"Tortillas are easy, just water, flour and maybe a little bit of vegetable oil. That's not a process you use in Mexico, they just use water. I use oil because it softens it, so if I want to make a million tortillas it helps to flip them and make them super easy," she says.
"You can use your hands to make tortillas, they will be thicker than if you use a press, or a rolling pin but even the tortilla press sales are impressive, people want to make it."
While she makes her own tortillas and is happy to see growing interest from the Australian community in making Mexican cuisine at home, she admits to also using packaged tortillas.
"I shouldn't be saying this, but I prefer the tortillas from La Tortilleria because you can really taste the corn," she says.
"In Mexico, the most common tortilla eaten every single day comes from a factory. People are not doing nixtamal (the process of using limestone to turn corn to masa) at home because it takes too long and it's easier to just use flour and water. To nixtamal, you have to boil corn, add some lime, mix it and grind it and then make masa."
Cienfuegos likens it to bread. Theoretically, it's easy enough to make our own because it's just flour and water, but we buy it because it's easier.
Rosa Cienfuegos recommends making molotes with white or yellow masa flour. Source: Pat Stevenson
"The texture, the flavour, the smell is different when you hand-make masa at home. My mum's family make enough for the week but it's a lot of work to nixtamal the corn," she says.
"It's why I prefer tortillas from the factory rather than doing it myself."
Photographs by Pat Stevenson
Molotes
Makes 20 molotes
Ingredients
Chicken salsa filling
- 3 tomatoes
- ½ onion, diced
- 1 garlic clove
- 1 tbsp table salt
- 350 ml chicken stock
- Pinch ground cumin
- 3 tbsp vegetable oil
- 1 small bunch thyme leaves
- 300 g shredded chicken breast or thighs
Molotes dough
- 500 g masa flour
- 600 ml warm water
- 50 ml vegetable oil
- Pinch table salt
- Pinch baking powder
- Vegetable oil for frying
Salsa roja
- 3 tomatoes
- ½ white onion
- 2 dried arbol chillies
- 1 garlic clove
- 1 tsp table salt
- 3 tbsp vegetable oil
- 2 bay leaves
Toppings
- 1 shredded small iceberg lettuce
- 150 ml thickened cream
- 200 g crumbled fresco cheese, cotija or feta crumbled
Method
- To make the salsa filling, place the tomato, onion, garlic, salt, chicken stock and cumin in a food processor and blend them into chunky salsa.
- Heat the oil in a frying pan over medium heat, add the salsa and cook stirring frequently for 7 minutes or until reduced and thick. Add the thyme and cook for a further 5 minutes, then remove from the heat and allow the salsa to cool to room temperature. Stir through the shredded chicken and set aside.
- For the molotes dough, combine the masa, warm water, salt, baking powder and oil in a bowl until you have a soft and non-sticky dough, once it's ready, roll 50 g of dough into a ball, use your thumb to press it down to make space for the chicken filling, add 1 teaspoon and fold the dough over the filling to enclose, then roll the dough into an oval shape with pointy ends. Repeat until using all the dough.
- Fry them using a small saucepan and 500 mL of oil, turn them over until light golden colour.
- For the salsa roja, place the dried chillies in a small saucepan. Cover them with 100 mL water and bring them
- Cook for 3 minutes until the chillies are soft. Set aside and let them to boil over high heat, cool for 5 minutes then remove any stalks.
- Place the tomatoes, onion, garlic, table salt and chillies in a blender and mix them until
- consistent sauce.
- Cook the salsa in a saucepan with the oil and bay leaves. The salsa is ready when the colour
- changes to a dark orange. Serve the molotes covered in red salsa and top them up with
- lettuce, cream and cheese.
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