In pockets of the Southwest, no meal is complete without these crisp pillows of fried dough.
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At many restaurants throughout the United States, customers can count on a bread basket. But in New Mexico, those baskets often hold sopapillas, pillows of fried dough meant to be dipped into spicy dishes like green chile enchiladas or drizzled with honey and eaten as a dessert.
Sopapillas, also spelled sopaipillas, are typically made with just a handful of pantry ingredients. These versatile golden brown puffs can be stuffed with meat like carne adovada, or topped with red and green chile sauces. And yes, customers can grab another to eat with their stuffed sopapilla.
Recipe: Sopapillas
“It was a staple food,” said Janet Malcom, the kitchen manager of Rancho de Chimayó, a restaurant in Chimayó, N.M. Ms. Malcom sometimes helps make the sopapillas served with entrees there. Sopapillas conjure memories of her grandmother’s. “There were sopapillas or tortillas on the table for every meal,” she said.
The dish has roots in both Native American and Hispanic culture; the sopapilla is closely related to fry bread that’s served in many Native American communities. Hispanic communities were often located right next to Indigenous ones, and they exchanged some traditions, said Lois Ellen Frank, a chef, food historian and owner of Red Mesa Cuisine, which provides catering services with an educational bent in the Santa Fe area.
“There was a lot of weaving, some of the cultural traditions are inseparable or the same,” Ms. Frank said.
At Sadie’s of New Mexico in Albuquerque, sopapillas have been served for 70 years. The restaurant now serves at least 1,500 a day. Sadie Koury, who was born in 1914 to Lebanese parents and raised in New Mexico, learned how to make the sopapillas from the Indigenous people that lived nearby. The family used sopapillas, rather than pita, with their hummus.
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