Ivan Lopez’s Homemade Sopes – The Thicker Sibling of the Tortilla

May 26th, 2019

Ivan Lopez is an Adjunct Professor at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. He has been in the Head and Neck Surgery department for 27 years, doing the research that he lives and breathes in.  Ivan is not only passionate about his research but also with life. He spends time with his wife and children and also makes time for Tango and martial arts. On weekend mornings, he loves to make food for The Boss (that’s what he calls his wife) and kids. I join him for breakfast one morning and he shows me how to make homemade sopes. Sopes is the thicker sibling of the tortilla.

You can purchase fresh masa flour by the pound at a Mexican supermarket such as Northgate. “Don’t buy the premade sopes,” he said. “By the time you use them at home they are dry and cracked up.”

Ivan mixes the masa flour with some water. As a general rule of thumb, less water to make sopes and more water to make tortillas. He then rolls them into 1-inch balls and flattens them on a tortilla press.

A trick with a tortilla press is to rotate the sopes or tortilla each time and flatten them again to get an even thickness on all sides.

Next, Ivan places 4 sopes on a comal. A comal is a typical Mexican flat pan used to cook tortillas and sopes at home. Once the comal is heated, he adds a thin layer of oil and then the sopes. He cooks them until they are almost brown and takes them off the stove. Don’t worry, it’ll be reheated to a nice brown later.

Now, prepare your choice of fillings and toppings. Ivan has a pot of pinto beans and a pot of pollo carne (chicken meat), with chopped lettuce and diced onions as toppings. Common toppings are pinto beans, small diced onions, lettuce, cheese, cilantro and salsa.

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Lastly, assemble them together into a heavenly mountain of goodness:

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And now, enjoy! It isn’t that difficult to make tortillas or sopes now is it 😉 ? Thanks for showing me the insider tips Ivan!

When I took a bite into the warm, soft-centered sopes with the oozy pinto beans, fresh crispy lettuce, crunchy onions and spiced tender chicken, I knew I couldn’t stop at one. The sopes has a certain richness to them that is absent in store-bought products. I stuff myself with the fourth sopes (mind you, they are very filling!) with Ivan egging me on (he has tried to see how many tacos I can eat in one seating before, but that’s for another day to tell). Honestly, without the egging I can still eat like a bottomless pit. Breakfast naturally reaches the end of its course, and I say goodbye to Ivan and The Boss. I leave well-fed and happy and went home to drift into my food coma for the rest of the afternoon.

You can’t beat homemade food and hospitality for sure.