Comida Salvadoreña
Casa Real dishes up traditional molcajete
Written By Brian Bushard
Photography By Kit Noble
Despite the quality dinners Mayra Escobar-Aguilar had tried at some of Nantucket’s high-end restaurants, there was something missing in the island food scene. So when the call came from her real estate agent about an off-market sale for the former Saltbox property, she jumped on it. She called it Casa Real, meaning “royal house.”
“We felt there was an opportunity for Mexican food,” said Escobar-Aguilar, who owns the restaurant with her husband, Salvador Aguilar. “The people that come in are grateful to have a place open to come and enjoy a good meal. There’s a language barrier for a lot of people in our community. They like that they can come and order in Spanish, in their own language. And from the whole community, we’ve had a lot of support.”
The menu includes Mexican staples like tacos and fajitas. It also features pupusas, a savory stuffed flatbread popular in El Salvador. “A lot of people here are from El Salvador,” Aguilar said. “The El Salvadorian community is pretty big and we wanted to add the pupusas.” Casa Real shared a recipe for another popular dish with
N Magazine: the meat-filled molcajete, a volcanic rock mortar traditionally used with a pestle for grinding spices and making guacamole.
INGREDIENTS
•Skirt steak, or your favorite cut of steak
•Boneless chicken breast
•Large or jumbo peeled shrimp
•Longaniza or chorizo (sausage)
•2 red onions
•2 jalapeño peppers
•2 tablespoons Panela or Cotija cheese, crumbled
•Limes (for garnish)
FOR THE MARINADE
1 red onion
•1-2 garlic cloves
•1 bunch cilantro (reserve some for salsa and garnish)
•Chicken bouillon, to taste
•1 dash vegetable or olive oil
•1 dash Worcestershire sauce
•Salt and pepper, for seasoning
FOR THE SALSA
•10 large tomatoes
•½ red onion
•1-2 garlic cloves
•1 chile de arbol, dried
•1 guajillo chile, dried
INSTRUCTIONS
•Season the chicken, steak and shrimp with salt and pepper.
•Make the marinade. Mix the onions with garlic, some of the cilantro, chicken bouillon, vegetable oil, a dash of Worcestershire sauce, salt and pepper in a blender. Divide marinade in half, adding half to the steak and the rest to the chicken (if using), and marinate meat for at least one hour (the shrimp only require salt and pepper).
•Grill or sautée the red onion and jalapeños along with the chicken, steak, shrimp and sausage until tender. (Add shrimp last.) Set aside.
•Make the salsa: Sautée whole tomatoes, red onion and garlic cloves until they change color, 2-3 minutes. Set aside. In a separate pot, combine the chile de arbol and guajillo chile in water and boil for 5 minutes. Remove from pot. Combine all salsa ingredients with some cilantro, and mix together in a blender.
•Heat the molcajete upside-down on the stove on low-medium heat until very hot, up to 20 minutes. Carefully remove the molcajete from the stove and line it with Panela or Cotija cheese. Pour salsa into the center of the lava bowl, on top of the cheese. If the molcajete is hot enough, it will cause the salsa to sizzle and melt the cheese.
•Add grilled chicken, steak, shrimp and/or longaniza or chorizo into the sauce inside the molcajete, along with grilled jalapeño peppers and onions. Top with remaining salsa.
•Serve with rice and beans, as well as a salad of lettuce, cucumbers, tomatoes and red onion.
Latest Stories
