Once again I looked up something AFTER the fact: Molcajete grit

M

marilynfl

Moderator
To my minor defense, I DID ask the cashier at the Latino grocery store if the molcajete needed to be seasoned when I bought it. When the young girl turned to the older woman behind the cashier and exchanged comments, the shake of the head "no" and the responding NO from the girl gave me my answer. Of course, if I had paid a bit more attention during Spanish I and II, I could have asked the question myself.

I took it home, gave it a good washing and then proceeded to waste ALL of my fresh basil and a full cup of pine nuts on a batch of gritty pesto that can be used as cement mortar now. If nothing else, it has a healthy dose of non-soluble fiber in it. Who needs ground flax seed when you run actual volcanic lava through your intestinal tract.

Also, there are now bits of white stuff ground into the lava. That, my friends, would be garlic, cheese or pine nuts...any or all of which will turn rancid. So here I am, picking out the embedded residue with a professional dental tartar scrapper. Yep, that's me...pick, picking away with a modern dental tool over a lump of ancient lava rock, swearing at my stupidity with each cleared crevice.

99.8% of me wants to donate the damn thing, but that other 0.2% wants to make fresh guacamole in it. I hate kitchen stand-offs. Please, please, please give me a good reason to keep this thing...or convince me it's a lost cause and just donate it.

PS: To my second defense, I did stop first at my local kitchen store for a mortar and pestle, but they were out of them. I didn't want to pay shipping for marble, so I walked down the block to the Mexican grocery store and bought the molcajeta. That's when it all went sideways.

https://www.mexgrocer.com/50409-87421.html?gclid=CjwKCAjw7anqBRALEiwAgvGgm-rqPMPN8PwQbbQvI0fKs6YLi1ShvOc67RyYoEW7X0dRkXMmBV6_oRoCqsoQAvD_BwE

 
A wonderful Mexican Mamacita once told me that when choosing a molcajete, one must...

...look through dozens before finding one with the smallest holes possible. She said when she is in the market for a new one (gift for a new bride, replace one that is done after 60 or so years of use, etc.) she starts looking MONTHS in advance. She said it is hard these days to find a good one with small holes because they are mass produced, mostly for the tourist market.

When she travels in Mexico, she looks for the ones produced by local craftsmen in areas where tourists don't normally go.

She seasoned them by mashing chiles and raw, uncooked rice together a few times to knock out the loose rock.

I know this is 'after the fact', but thought you might like to know.

Miguel

 
You really made me laugh. I have a huge unused one dh bought for me. Never used because of the

instructions on using rice to cure it seemed way too much trouble. Even worse, the dang thing weighs a ton! Worse than a large Le Crueset Dutch oven. However, the cast iron comal he purchased at the same time has seem much use. Love it to heat tortillas, make grilled cheese, even cook pancakes.

 
I remember her saying you need a some green chile in there to give the loose rock...

...something to cling to, or be absorbed into.

Miguelito.

 
Thank you M & M. I ground rice in twice yesterday and it's staying clean, so my

expensive but gritty fresh basil pesto that ended up in the trash was apparently a good cleansing agent.

As a bonus, now I can't tell if the white crevices are filled with ground rice or cheese or pine nuts or garlic and I simply don't care anymore. The next time Haas avocados aren't 2 for $4, I'll try making guacamole in it.

 
Marilyn, I'll admit I didn't understand your issue at first as I've only used a marble mortar/pestle

so I thought your basil was just unusually sandy! Once I followed all your links and read through the fine print, it was starting to dawn on me where your grit was coming from.

The scales were truly lifted from my eyes when Michael passed along the instructions he'd received from the Mexican Mamacita.

So one would use a lava material to make a slightly chunkier mixture than what one ends up with when using a marble mortar & pestle?

 
The porous nature of the lava rock makes it an excellent material for pulverizing...

...foods quickly.

Click on the link to see how the real thing is made.

Miggy

 
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