Hot Tortas
Quesillo (Oaxacan cheese), American cheese, and manchego all melt beautifully, while Mexican meats (carnitas, chorizo, or pierna, made from pork shank,) crisp up on the flat top. Stuffed into the soft telera, insides buttered, spiked with pickled jalapeños, tempered with refried beans, and garnished with a few fresh vegetables, the hot torta stands with the other kings and queens of the sandwich world: the po’boy, the cheesesteak, the hoagie, and the Uruguayan Chivito.
As with any of the great sandwiches of the world, the many moving parts of a hot torta can be subbed in or out, offering customizable sandwiches and a lexicon of different combinations. As Santibañez says in Tacos, Tortas, and Tamales “nearly anything can become a torta.”
Usually made with skirt steak, its flat surface on the griddle achieves the maximum amount of charred meat flavor, which makes the perfect foil for the creamy avocado that serves as its partner-in-crime inside the bolillo roll, spread with beans and crema—or possibly mayonnaise.
