Taste so much better than they look Papadzules

The hostel we stayed at in Merida ran free cooking courses a couple of times a week and we were lucky enough to be able to enjoy learning how to make these delectable morsels one night. I had seen Papadzules at a few of the local street stalls and have to admit to thinking that they looked pretty average! But I should have remembered my lesson from Thailand, to not judge a food by its appearance, as they were delicious and something im very glad we didnt miss out on! 

Papadzules are basically a corn tortilla filled with diced scrambled egg, smothered in a green sauce made from pumpkin seeds (which resembles over-pureed guacamole, hence the not so desirable appearance) and then topped with freshly made tomatoe sauce. They are a little bit fidly because everything is made from scratch but a lot of it you could cheat with! Even managed to get the recipe for you this time!

Eggs

First things first, we need to boil the eggs with a little salt in the water. Depends on how many you want to eat but lets say one egg per person. Once thats done then its time to ...


Make the corn tortillas (or just be lazy and buy them)

1kg corn flour 
1 litre water
salt (a jamie oliver sized amount added to the water and stirred to disolve)

1. Pretty straight forward really, put the cornflour in a bowl and make a well in the middle. Add the water bit by bit and mix it together with your hands and knead it until it forms a ball. If it gets too wet just add more flour.
2. Put a dry pan on the stove and heat it to a medium temperature.
3. Take a ping pong sized ball and place it between two sheets of plastic or baking paper and put into the centre of a tortilla press and smush flat (or just roll out by hand if you dont have one).  
4. Place the tortilla into the hot pan and cook for 30 seconds on each side, or until its sealed (it will move freely around the pan) and then place on a tea towel folded in half on a plate. Repeat until you have enough tortillas or the mixture is all gone. 
5. By the time you have done this your eggs should be hard boiled. Take them out and cover them with cold water which will make them easier to peel later on

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Rolling ping pong balls

Smush it in the tortilla press

ready to cook

when it slides around the pan its ready to take it out

Tomatoe Sauce

This sauce is awesome and its so, so easy to make! I think that forever on this is going to be how we will make our pasta sauces and pizza base sauces. If you make too much just save it for later.

3 or 4 large tomatoes
1 onion, skin off and cut in half
3 or 4 cloves of garlic (or however much you like), skin off

1. Bring a pot of approx 1 litre of water with salt in it to the boil. Once its boiling place the tomatoes into the water and boil until the skins start falling off
2. Once the skin starts falling off, put the onion and the garlic into the pot (apart from cutting the onion in half you don't chop them up!) and boil for about 15 minutes more or until the onion is soft and translucent. 
3. Remove everything from the water (don't throw the water away!), take the skins off the tomatoes and throw the skin away before putting everything into a blender (or a bowl and use a hand blender). Wizz into a pulp. 
4. Put the puréed mixture into another pot and bring back to the boil. If you have bubbly white foam on the surface it means there is still a lot of water in the sauce and you should boil it until the foam is pretty much gone. 

The white foam you need to boil off

Pepita paste

the pepita sauce

Make the green pumpkin seed sauce "Pepita"

Im not actually sure whether the paste that is used to make this sauce is available in NZ or if I can make it from scratch so I'll have to investigate once we get back I think! If I understood our teacher right they grind the pumpkin seed and it turns into this green paste which resembles something like green playdough. good mental picture right!?

250g pepita paste
Left over water from the tomatoes mixture

1. Take the tomatoe water and add the pepita paste (approx 250g pepita to 1 litre of water)
2. Use a hand blender to mix the paste into the water to combine. 
3. Put the pot back onto the stove to bring back to the boil. 
   
4. Boil for 10-15 minutes, stirring constantly, until the mixture thickens to the consistency of a thick puree (also kind of like greek yoghurt thickness)

Finally time to assemble our delicious morsels!

1. Peel the eggs and finely dice the eggs in a bowl
2. Take a corn tortilla and place a little egg inside it, top with some of the green sauce and little tomatoe sauce.
3. Roll up and put on your plate. 
4. Cover with a little more green and red sauce and then devour!

Ours was served with a cabbage salad with a spicey vinagret dressing and a sweet nut desert but I dont have the recipe for those sorry! tastes just fine by themselves though!

MMMM NOM NOM!

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