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Mexican · IV The Method · Grains And Dough

Sopaipillas: New Mexican Fried Bread

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I

Origin

Sopaipillas have been made in New Mexico for over 300 years — descended from the Spanish Colonial sopaipa and adapted to New Mexican ingredients and technique. They are served at Rancho de Chimayó at the beginning of the meal alongside honey — the expectation of sopaipillas with honey is as fixed in New Mexican dining culture as bread and butter in France.

II

Description

Sopaipillas — the hollow, puffed, deep-fried bread of New Mexican cooking — are served at every New Mexican meal, eaten sweet (with honey poured into the hollow interior) or stuffed with savoury fillings. Their puffing mechanism is identical to the Indian puri (a small amount of leavening or the steam generated from the dough's water content causes the bread to puff hollow when it hits hot oil) and produces a bread that is simultaneously crispy on the exterior and hollow and soft within.

III

The Thread

—Indian puri is the direct technical parallel — a thin, unleavened (or minimally leavened) bread that puffs hollow in hot oil through the steam of its own water content
—Bolivian sopaipillas (a Spanish Colonial variation) use the same technique with slightly different proportions
—The principle of dough puffed hollow by steam is universal across cultures that discovered it independently
IV

Flavour Context

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