Sopes, the quintessential Mexican corn dough patties, here comes with a topping of prawns. Sopes can be made with either the yellow or the blue corn and is a main dish in Mexico. Here, the chef has transformed it into bite-sized starters layered with prawns, refried beans and vintage salsa.
Some prefer their sopes just grilled, and others prefer to deep-fry the sopes after it is out of the grill.
Ajillo prawn sopes
Ingredients
85 gms prawns
30 gms chopped garlic
10 ml guajillo chile shifonnade
15 ml oil
20 ml white wine
10 gms yellow butter
2 gms salt
120 gms corn dough
90 gms refried beans
40 gms shredded lettuce
20 gms sour cream
40 gms shredded cottage cheese
Method
To make corn dough
The corn dough masa comes in powder form. Add salt and water and make the dough. Make little dough balls, flatten them by hand and put on a flat grill. Once it is cooked make little pinches on them so the re-fried beans can fit into the cavities well. Then deep-fry the sopes, when they float in oil and don't make that many bubbles, they are ready.
For re-fried beans
Cook rajma, mash them once cooked and then fry again in butter. Place the re-fried beans on the deep-fried sopes. Sautee prawns in olive oil, add chopped garlic and the guajillo chile shiffonade (it can be replaced by dry chilli), deglaze with white wine. Place a prawn per sope and top it with shredded lettuce, cottage cheese and sour cream.