Salsa macha: a Mexican cross between sambal and peanut sauce
Do you like to add a generous spoonful of sambal to everything, but also enjoy a spoonful of peanut sauce? This Mexican sauce has both, so from now on you can eat it with every dish.
The world of spicy sauces seems endless. Almost every week, we discover another new sauce that gets us pepper lovers completely excited. This week it’s salsa macha: a hit in Mexico for years, but I had never heard of it.
The sauce is nothing more than dried chili peppers, peanuts, garlic and neutral oil. First, you let the garlic infuse the oil, then cook the peanuts in the same oil, followed by the chilies in that same oil. Layer upon layer of flavor, and the result is incredible. Because you use dried chilies, the flavor is very rich and deep, while the peanuts make the sauce fairly thick and oily. I like to leave the peanuts a little coarse, but you can also blend the sauce until completely smooth.
Make it yourself
I recently made this recipe from Bon Appetit and it’s really very easy. The recipe does call for different types of chilies, which provide an extra layer of flavor and are available at a Mexican (online) shop. Otherwise, use dried chilies from an Asian grocery store, and you’ll still get a delicious sauce. Some recipes also add sesame seeds, or replace the peanuts with, for example, almonds.
What do you eat it with?
Of course, now you’ll want to spoon it over everything—and that’s exactly what you should do. The chili sauce is delicious with tacos, but also with a perfectly fried piece of fish, together with some cilantro and grilled spring onion. Spoon it over your fried egg or eat it with anything you would normally serve with other spicy sauces. It’s hard to think of anything that salsa macha wouldn’t taste good with.
Also read:
