Papusa, refried beans, curtido, salsa roja, salsa cruda. Here is the recipe I followed for the beans. They have a rich, distinctive flavor because of the preparation.
I really like this combination, which apparently is pretty classic. At least the papusas, salsa roja, and curtido (a very tasty cole slaw) often go together. Papusas and salsa cruda were from Maricel Presilla’s Gran Cocina Latina, pages 401 and 121. The salsa roja is here, and here is the curtido.
A couple more comments. I don’t know if anyone else will read these, but at least I’ll have them for the next time I circle back to this meal. 1) The three curtido and both salsas were all perfect as they were. 2) I’ll watch a video before making papusas again. I think I like them, this time they were undercooked and not as wide as they should have been. 3) For the refried beans, there was a discussion in the recipe comments between the author of the recipe and her mother, who taught it to her. They both fried onion quarters for quite some time before adding the bean puree back in. The mother removed the onions, just leaving the oil, but the daughter left the well-cooked onions in as the beans cooked down. I’m hesitant to say this, but there was a little _too_ much depth of flavor in the beans by the time they got to my plate. I also added a little too much salt, which she warned against. They’re still good, but they definitely need the acidic elements to offset them.
