Pupusas

Yield: 15 Pupusas. Combine the cabbage and carrot and cover with boiling water. Allow to sit for 5 mins., then drain well. Add the remaining ingredients and refrigerate for at least 2 hrs. Blend together the tomatoes and onion until smooth, adding water to ease blending only if necessary. Heat the oil in a saucepan and add the tomato mixture. Boil for about 5 mins. During this time the color of the sauce will deepen slightly. Allow to cool and add ground chiles, salt and pepper. The sauce should not be too spicy. This isn't supposed to be a very spicy dish. Combine masa and water and knead for about 3 mins. Add more water a bit at a time, if needed, to achieve correct consistency. Roll a piece of masa in your hand into a ball slightly larger than the size of a golf ball. Flatten the dough into a circle about 1/4 in. thick. Put some chicharron or queso in the center and raise the sides of the dough around it and seal it at the top. Form into a ball again and the flatten the whole thing by patting it back and forth between your hands. Don't worry too much if some of the stuffing peaks through. The finished pupusas should be about 1/4 to 1/2 in. thick. Heat a comal or griddle with a light coating of oil and cook the pupusas. Turn a few times to prevent burning and to check if done. Lower the heat if the pupusas are burning before getting cooked and add more oil to the comal as needed to prevent sticking. They are cooked when the dough looks cooked, sort of how a hand made tortilla would look. Arrange hot pupusas on a plate for diners to cover with a thin coat of salsa and a mound of curtido. They are best eaten with a fork and knife. If you cannot find queso con loroco you have two choices. You can buy Monterey Jack cheese and loroco (usually found in the freezer section, although sometimes it can be found fresh). Grate the cheese and chop the loroco fine. Combine to taste and use this to stuff the pupusas, or you can use plain cheese without the loroco. If you cannot find chicharron for pupusas you can buy chicharron, chop it fine in a food processor, add some tomato and onion, pulse until combined, and stuff this into the pupusas. If you can't get chicharron, you can try cooked bacon prepared as above, but it will have a different flavor because the chicharron isn't smoked. Or, you can just make all cheese pupusas.