Exploring rich flavours of El Salvador in Waterloo region: Jasmine Mangalaseril

El Salvador's cuisine may share many ingredients found across Latin America, but its earthy and sprightly dishes reflect the small Central American nation. 

Melding flavours and techniques developed by Indigenous people and brought by Spanish and African cultures; it's rooted in home cooking.

"People ask me about Salvadorian food and what I always say is Salvadorian food is just so simple," chef Denis Hernandez said.

Hernandez has worked in kitchens across southern Ontario and was executive chef at Cambridge's Blackshop Restaurant. He recently launched Casa de Sabor featuring the foods he grew up with.

On a Salvadoran pantry tour at Kitchener's Rincon Latino, a Latin grocery store, Hernandez listed some key cultural ingredients like rice, beans, tomatoes, peppers, garlic, onions, and achiote, as well as plantains, corn, and yuca.

Proteins include beef, chicken, pork, and seafood harvested off El Salvador's Pacific coastline.

It's all about the masa

For 9,000 years, corn has been a regional staple. Tamales and tortillas are made from masa (corn flour dough). It's also key to El Salvador's national dish, pupusas which are like stuffed griddle cakes.

Hernandez's pupusa dough uses two types of white corn flour (branded as Maseca and Ceratex) to ensure its softness.

"If you've ever had a hard pupusa, it's probably because it hasn't been mixed with Ceratex."

Pupusas can be stuffed with meat, beans, vegetables, or quesillo. Since that cheese difficult to find here, mozzarella, Monterrey Jack, havarti, or Oaxaca make good substitutes.

"Quesillo is almost like a mozzarella … it just adds that nice fat content. It adds that nice stringiness. It adds that texture," Hernandez said.

Other cheeses used in Salvadoran cuisine include queso fresco (soft and a bit salty), queso duro (a hard cheese) and cojita (crumbles well).

Crema is like sour cream or crème fraiche, and can be a topping or drizzle, or mixed into soups and sauces.

Cooking with vegetables

Banana leaves wrap and impart flavours to foods like tamales, riguas (sweetened corn kernel patties), or even meats, before baking or steaming.

Hernandez recommends using dried beans. He cooks them with onions, garlic, and bay leaves. The cooking liquid can be saved for stocks, soups, and breads.

You can boil fresh cassava/yuca, but it's also fried as yuca frita (similar to thick English-style chips), or fritters, or chips.

Loroco flowers resemble scapes but taste like earthy asparagus. They can be pickled, stuffed in pupusas, or cooked with tomatoes and rice.

Yellow (or brown) soft, plantains are caramelised as a sweet treat. While the starchier green ones are fried for tostones or chips.

Spice it up

Bright red achiote/annatto seeds, powder, and pastes flavour and colour foods.

"I use this a lot when I do soups. When I do panes con pollo I use this paste as well. It's not that it has a lot of flavour, because it really doesn't, but it adds a nice almost peppery spice," Hernandez said.

El Salvador's signature and familiar taste comes from relajo. It's a mix of sesame and pumpkin seeds, peanuts, herbs, and warming spices. Dry toast it before adding it to sauces, grilled meats, and seafood. You can even dust it on fries.

Hernandez said Salvadoran cuisine doesn't use a lot of chillies, but they are sometimes found in sides and condiments. There are also many hot sauces.

There are plenty of bottled salsas available. Two Hernandez mentioned were salsa roja (red tomato sauce) and salsa verde (green sauce, which can be made from ingredients including spinach, herbs, and tomatillo).

How sweet it is

Sweet, rice-based horchata de morro powders and syrups make cool refreshing drinks, or you can buy a Kolashampan, a tutti-frutti-flavoured fizzy pop.

You'll find plantanos (plantain chips), chicharrons (fried pork crackling), and elotitos (crunchy corn snacks) to satisfy snackish cravings.

Semita is a pan dulce (sweet bread or pastry) with spread of jam between two pastry layers.You can find ready-made versions at Latin American grocery stores.

"Everything in El Salvador is eaten with coffee," Hernandez said.

"That's why I never was a big fan of our desserts. Not drinking coffee, I have nothing to dip in, and it doesn't taste the same dipping it in milk. But Semita, in milk, is amazing."