How to Season a Molcajete
This tutorial will walk you through all the steps to wash your new molcajete before the first use so you can start making authentic salsas in lava rock just like the natives of Mexico.
Ingredients
- Dish soap and water
- 3/4 cup long-grain white rice divided, plus more as needed
- 1/2 cup Salt divided, plus more as needed
Instructions
- Line your kitchen sink with a dish towel to prevent scratches. Set the molcajete, pestle, and root brush in the sink.
- Under running water, clean the pieces with soap and water. When the root brush is clean, use it with the soap and water the scrub the molcajete and tejolote vigorously.
- The soapy foam will be gray. Rinse the the pieces and repeat until there is no more gray foam.
- Set the molcajete upside down in the bottom of the kitchen sink (so the feet are pointing up). Fill the sink with water so the molcajete is completely submerged, and add the pestle to the water, too. Be sure to remove the trapped air bubble on the curved underside of the molcajete.
- Leave the pieces submerged in the water for 20 to 30 minutes. Remove from the water and check the kitchen towel for any volcanic debris that may have been loosened while submerged. Rinse the molcajete and pestle.
- Add 3 tablespoons of dry white rice to the bottom of the molcajete. Using the pestle, grind the rice on the bottom and all sides of the molcajete in a circular motion. This is tough work! The rice will be gray which means you are doing well.
- Discard the ground rice and dust out the molcajete with the root brush. Add 3 more tablespoons of rice, and continue grinding. Continue this process until the rice powder is white, not gray.
- Add 3 tablespoons of salt to the bottom of the molcajete and grind it on the bottom and all sides of the molcajete with the pestle. The first round may be gray. Discard the salt, brush out the molcajete, and add 3 more tablespoons salt. Repeat this process until the salt is pure white.
- Add 3 tablespoons of rice to the bottom of the molcajete and add water to cover. Let the rice soak for 20 minutes until softened. Grind the rice into the bottom and sides of the molcajete until it looks like rice water. Rinse and repeat until there is no gray dust.
- Rinse thoroughly in water (no soap) and let air dry completely.
Notes
- Molcajete and tejolote (mortar and pestle): This tutorial is for a porous, lava rock molcajete. They are filled with gravel, dust, and dirt and must be seasoned (cleaned) before their first use.
- Escobeta (root brush): Made from natural zacatón root over a beech wood handle, this is the brush favored in Mexico to clean a molcajete. The sturdy bristles grind rice and salt while scraping out the tiniest pieces of debris from porous lava rock.
- Dish soap and water: Some users warn that soap will be absorbed into the porous basalt and flavor future salsas with soapy flavor. This has never happened to me, but I scrub the soap, rinse thoroughly, and move on to the next step. If you let your molcajete sit and soak in the soap, it's possible that could happen. I'm not sure.
- Rice: Regular long-grain white rice. Grind it repeatedly into the molcajete through stages of gray and finally white powder. You also soak white rice in water and grind it to a paste for further deep cleaning.
- Salt: Common table salt provides a further level of grit to infiltrate the pores of the molcajete.