Sounds like a tongue twister!  Pupusas are delicious to eat and fun to make and ideal to submit to the Tamale Open roundup co-hosted by Ben of What's Cooking? and Courtney of Coco Cooks.  With Cinco de Mayo approaching, Ben and Courtney decided to celebrate with a roundup featuring masa harina, the corn flour used to make tamales and other similar dishes.  To participate, you can prepare any dish of your choosing as long as it is made with a corn based dough. 

Pupusas are homemade, thick, stuffed tortillas.  They differ from a quesadillas in that the tortilla is made from corn flour and the filling is placed in the raw dough before being cooked.  The stuffed pupusas are cooked oil free in a cast iron griddle or grill pan until they are browned and blistered resulting in a nicely charred flavor.  For my filling I continued the charred theme by roasting 6 different types of peppers over my gas burner until charred black.  When cool, I removed most of the charred skin (keeping a bit for flavor) and chopped them up with the simple addition of salt. 

The resulting pupusas were extremely flavorful and spicy due in large part to the habanero chili!  I served some guacamole on the side to cool the spiciness of the roasted peppers and to complete our meal, a refreshing jicama, orange and apple salad. 

Charred Pepper Pupusas

Note: Visit my page Masa Bread a.k.a. Tortillas for tips and tricks in working with masa harina.

Papusas

2 cups masa harina
1 tsp kosher salt
1 ½ cups water +/- depending on the environment

small amount of oil

filling (recipe below)

Pour a little peanut or olive oil in a small bowl; set aside.

In a large bowl, whisk together the masa harina and salt, stir in the water until a nice dough forms, adding additional water if necessary.

Form the dough into balls, roughly 1/4 cup in size.  Stick your thumb into the ball and form a "bird nest" shape.  Place a heaping teaspoon of filling into the "nest" and bring the masa harina together to form a ball again.  Dip your fingers in the oil and rub a light coating over each ball.  Place the balls on a plate or baking sheet and cover with plastic wrap until ready to use.

Heat a griddle or grill pan (ideally cast iron) over MED heat.

Cut open a storage/freezer bag by cutting off the top zipper part and the bottom, then cut down one side. Open the bag and place a stuffed dough ball on one side, folding the other side over the dough ball. Use a little frying pan to flatten the ball into a disk, being careful to not flatten it so much that it becomes hard to handle. 

Peel off the top layer of bag and gently remove the disk from the bottom plastic, flipping it onto your hand. Place the disk on the heated pan and let cook about 2 minutes. It's kind of like cooking a pancake, you can see the edges start to firm up then you know it's time to turn it over. The second side cooks faster.

Serve and enjoy your warm pupusas!

Roasted Pepper Filling

1 poblano pepper
1 red bell pepper
1 yellow bell pepper
1 anaheim chili
1 red jalapeno
1 habanero chili
salt

Roast the peppers over an open flame. Place the hot peppers in a large glass bowl, cover with plastic wrap and allow them to steam.  Once cool, remove most of the charred skin (keeping some for flavor) and discard the stem and seeds.  Chop all the peppers and season with salt.

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Jicama, Orange & Apple Salad

Jicama, Orange & Apple Salad

1 medium jicama, peeled and julienne
2 large navel oranges, zested and segmented along with juice
1 apple, julienne

2 large carrots, peeled and grated

1/2 red onion, sliced into thin crescents
1 lime, zested and juice
juice of 1/2 lemon
2 T fresh mint, chopped
1/2 bunch cilantro, chopped

1/2 tsp Kosher salt

freshly ground black pepper

Toss to combine in a large bowl.