The sauce in Mexican food and especially in tacos is considered as the soul, this is because if you have a truly tasty sauce it can elevate and complement the flavors of the stew and give you the perfect dish. Even someone described it with this wise phrase: “...the sauce is so effective that elevates the category of good, corrects the insignificance of mediocre and hides the ordinariness of bad...”
Although sauces are the backbone of Mexican cuisine, we can find spices from all over the world such as garlic, cilantro, onion, pepper, etc. However, there are 2 ingredients that cannot be missing in the preparation of a sauce, which are very Mexican. Of course, one of them is some variety of chile, which can be in different states such as fresh, dry, with or without seeds, roasted, fried, or however you like, the important thing is that it must be there to give that spicy touch that a sauce needs.
The second ingredient that accompanies the chile is a fruit that has been present in Mexico and its culture since the Aztecs. This is the xiomatl or translated into Spanish the jitomate -red tomato- or the tomatillo, which is a green tomato with a sweeter and more acidic flavor at the same time, which sadly is not so easy to find in Europe.
Just as it was mentioned before that chiles can be in different states, the sauce can also be made with different methods. Some prefer to make raw sauces simply by grinding the ingredients in a molcajete - which is a stone mortar - or to cook them and blend them, but this depends on your tastes or the specific use of the sauce, as we have dishes that are usually served with a particular one like barbacoa with the “drunken sauce.”
There are countless sauces, although the most common are red sauce and green sauce, and even within these 2, each Mexican household's recipe can vary a bit. Most people believe that all sauces are spicy, but that's not true since they can be made with many chiles or with varieties of them, less or more spicy depending on what is desired. Now that you know this, you can imagine the great variety of existing sauces and those yet to be created, as there are some that even have peanuts, pulque -fermented alcoholic drink- or even ants in them, the trick is to get creative!
Here I will leave you some recipes so you can prepare your red and green sauces and experiment with the drunken sauce and some barbacoa tacos.
Raw Green Sauce
Yields 250 ml
- 6 tomatillos, cut into quarters
- ½ medium onion, cut into quarters
- ½ cup of cilantro
- 4 chopped serrano chiles
- salt
- Place all the ingredients in the blender, add a little water and salt to taste until you get a thick mixture. If you have a molcajete, you can also use it to grind all the ingredients and get a more traditional chunky sauce.
Red Sauce of tree chile
Yields 250ml
- 6 tree chiles
- vegetable oil
- 1 medium tomato
- 1 clove of garlic
- ¼ medium onion
- salt and apple cider vinegar
- Roast the chiles on a comal/skillet, or fry with a little oil.
- Blend everything and add water gradually until a liquid mixture is obtained.
- Cook the mixture in a pot with a little oil for 3-5 minutes or until it thickens.
- Add salt and a few drops of vinegar and serve.
- To finish, you can add chopped onion and fresh cilantro leaves to the sauce.
Drunken Sauce
Yields 250 - 350 ml
- 6 dried ancho chiles
- 1 dried pasilla chile
- 2 tablespoons of vegetable oil
- ¼ cup of white pulque (alternatively red or white wine or dark beer)
- 1 clove of garlic
- ¼ cup (50ml) of orange juice
- 50 gr of grated aged cheese
- salt
- ½ medium onion chopped, for garnish
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Roast or fry the chiles in oil without burning them, for approx. 3-5 minutes over low heat until they are crispy and remove the seeds.
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Grind the chiles with the pulque, garlic, and orange juice in the blender or molcajete until a homogeneous mixture is obtained.
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Place in a container and add the cheese and salt to taste. Garnish with chopped onion.
