Belizean salbutes
I gave you the recipe for Belizean stew chicken as well as rice and beans, so I’m now giving you something where you can use up any of that left-over chicken.
How about some Salbutes?
This kind of thing is fairly common in this corner of the world. If you head to Mexico you’re bound to come across tostadas, a bit of a cousin to salbutes.
Rather than toasting or frying up tortillas until shatteringly crisp as you do for tostadas, Belizean salbutes are made by frying discs of fresh masa dough (spiked with achiote) until cooked, but not crunchy.
The texture is soft, a little chewy, but kind of crisp at the same time. In other words, they don’t shatter and fall apart as soon as you sink your teeth into them.
Any kind of cooked chicken is fine, even plain old roast chicken. The main thing is that it’s shredded, but adding some sauce that the chicken was cooked in is a flavour bonus – hence me using my stew chicken.
The other thing that makes up a salbute is picado – a salad that’s cabbage-based and dressed in fresh lime juice. I’ve gone with red cabbage as I love my colours, but regular white is perfectly fine. Other fresh ingredients enliven the palate, like coriander leaves, onion and chilli.
These things really are delicious!
Adapted from here
Read about my recent trip to Caye Caulker, Belize here!
| Servings |
servings
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- 290 g masa harina (2 cups)
- ½ tsp salt
- 1 tsp achiote paste or recado rojo, dissolved in 2 tbsp water
- 180 ml water (¾ cup)
- 1 litre cooking oil for frying
- Stew chicken shredded (recipe link below)
- Red cabbage finely shredded
- red onion very finely chopped
- tomato finely chopped
- Coriander leaves chopped
- Fresh lime juice
- salt to taste
- Red chilli and jalapeño to taste
Ingredients
Tortillas
Topping
Picado
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- Place the masa harina and salt into a mixing bowl. Using your hands, rub the achiote water through the masa until it's no longer lumpy. Gradually add the water, mixing with your hand until a dough forms.
- Divide the dough into either 12 or 24 pieces, then roll these into perfect balls. I've used the smaller size, as pictured. Flatten each ball between two pieces of plastic, using a tortilla press. I don't have a press so I used two plastic bags and a flat-bottomed saucepan, pressing down evenly to form 10 cm disc with a 3 mm thickness.
- Heat the oil in a large skillet over a medium flame. When hot enough, drop 2 to 3 pastry discs into the oil and let it cook for about 2 minutes before flipping over. Drain well on kitchen towels as you cook the rest.
- Measurements aren't all that necessary with the picado, as you can regulate the ratios as you please; depending on your tastes.
- Simply toss all the pieced ingredients together and make sure the lime and salt flavour is well balanced.
- Simply lay the fried tortillas on a plate or board, top with some of the shredded chicken, and make sure it's moistened well with the gravy. Top this with with the picado, then eat!
