>> Pati Narrates: Los Mochis.

Here in the North Western part of Sinaloa, just inland from the Sea of Cortez, Los Mochis is looking for a little attention.

While tourists flock to the beaches of Mazatlan to the South, and business runs through the capital of Culiacan, Los Mochis at first glance has just one thing to offer.

It's the first stop on a "Chepe", a scenic train route through Northern Mexico's magnificent Copper Canyon.

But spend a little time in Los Mochis, and you will discover its second gift to Sinaloa, street food.

Tacos, tacos, tacos!

Chunky, crispy, fried, adobada, greasy, steamed - you crave it, they've got it!

Pati: When you do something right, you don't need to add anything else on your menu.

Pati Narrates: In my kitchen...

It's incredibly - mmm!

Irresistible.

Pati Narrates: Los Mochis inspires me to come up with two irresistible street food style tacos.

Shrimp, Bacon and Crispy Chickpea Tacos with creamy, smooth guacamole.

And Tacos Campechanos - flank steak, chorizo and chicharron topped with a chunky street food salsa.

It doesn't matter if it's too much filling, the tortilla is just gonna hold it all together.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ >> Pati: I'm here with Martin Gonzalez, people know him as "El Chavo", and we are standing at the El Chavo taco stand, and these are really famous steamed tacos, I had never heard of these before.

>> Pati: Ah, so the steamed tacos aren't actually steamed in a steamer, so it's the corn tortilla, and then it has the filling that has potatoes and beef, and then they're stacked in that pot, and then they're covered, they just heat each other, and it becomes kind of - Pati Narrates: Before serving, the tacos are drenched in a pinto bean sauce, and then dressed in a Serrano chile salsa.

These are some of the most famous tacos in Los Mochis.

There are El Chavo stands on sidewalks all over the city!

And they're always expanding.

The family tradition is when someone in the family gets married, their wedding present is their very own El Chavo taco stand.

Pati: Delicioso!

Pati Narrates: Los Mochis is an interesting place.

Right now, in this moment, it feels like a taco paradise.

But it actually has a very unique history.

It was founded by a group of Americans seeking to build a utopian society.

The colony didn't stick, but an American industry did.

Building the large sugar cane mill, the railroad, and designing the wide U. S. style street grid, and the American influence still echoes in Los Mochis.

Elina Benitez is a local gastronomical ambassador, and an enthusiastic promoter of Northern Sinaloan cuisine.

>> Pati: So you're from Los Mochis.

>> Pati: Born and raised Los Mochis.

>> Pati: How old are you now?

>> Pati: People here, 70 years old and 80 years old, and they look so good!

How has Los Mochis changed?

>> Pati: Los Mochis seems so unique in its food offerings.

>> Pati: I love that word.

>> Pati: Mhm.

>> Pati: I am always trying to come up with new and amazing tacos because, in this house, we taco not every night, but we taco almost every meal!

Today we are making Shrimp, Bacon and Chickpea Tacos.

I'm going to add 12 ounces of bacon, and I'll cook it over medium-high heat.

Then I'll cook the rest of the ingredients in this bacon fat.

A lot of street food tacos are nothing but home food that's brought to the streets and finished off at the stand, and this is my way of bringing that street food into my kitchen.

As I fry my bacon, I'm going to make the smoothest guacamole as a topping for those tacos.

This guacamole we're gonna make in the blender.

You know I love my blender, and the blender can make a really fluffy, emulsified guacamole.

So I'll do 2 avocados, a tomatillo.

So you have this kind of tart, and then you have this kind of tart.

I'm doing 2 to 3 tbsp of lime juice.

You can add jalapeños to taste.

I know I can take a lot so I'm adding 2 jalapeños.

About 3/4 tsp of salt, 2 tbsp of chopped onion.

Because the tomatillos are juicy, as they start breaking in it's gonna make it easier for the guacamole to puree.

(blender whirs) Pati: Once the ingredients are combined, I'll add something that may surprise you, 2 to 3 ice cubes.

The ice cubes are going to make this guacamole base emulsify in kind of a savory smooth way.

Wait until you see this!

(blender whirs) Pati: Okay!

Mmm, mmm, mmm!

Oh!

I can just eat it right now.

(bacon sizzles) Pati: Look at all that amazing rendered bacon fat.

I have my heat at medium and I'll add 1 cup of drained chickpeas because I wanna crisp them up a little.

And I'm going to season the chickpeas with a guajillo chile.

Remove the stem, remove the seeds.

Chickpeas are huge in Sinaloa, so much that they use chickpeas for soups, stews, salads.

Because you can never have too much crunch, I'm adding 2 tbsp of slivered almonds.

We're really making these chickpeas shine, we're giving them that crusty, crunchy exterior, and the chile has changed its color, now it's coated in the bacon fat, I can see it crisped a little.

Now I'll add 2 tbsp of butter, and a little bit of olive oil because I'm getting shrimp!

Pati: You want them to brown on both sides.

I'm gonna add a little bit of salt, and a little pepper, and 2 cloves of garlic.

You find shrimp everywhere in Sinaloa.

In machaca, stews, in soup, so we needed to have a shrimp taco in here.

Now that my shrimp are ready, I'm gonna put this back in there and turn it off because I don't want my shrimp to overcook.

This is what you want in a taco, it doesn't matter if the shrimp are too big, if it's too much filling, because the tortilla will just hold it all together.

>> Pati: Mmm.

The shrimp has this super delightful wet crunch because it's browned on the outside, but because we didn't cook it too much, it's crunchy and juicy inside, and then you have the crisped chickpeas, and the really generous amount of crunchy bacon, and then that smooth guacamole on top - it's a well rounded taco experience.

>> Pati Narrates: In a city filled with delicious street food, how does one become a legend?

You've gotta give people what they want, right?

At Tacos Don Chuy, that's simple.

Crave-worthy tacos served up with a side of two-step.

Pati: Okay, I have one camera, two cameras, and three, four cameras because Eduardo is live!

We're live from Los Mochis, Sinaloa.

Pati: Hola, don Chuy!

>> Pati: Zulema is Don Chuy's daughter - >> Pati: Four, you're the youngest - The whole family is here!

So he's 82 years old, but he's been making these tacos for 62 years.

Pati Narrates: Don Chuy's grill has 3 fillings to choose from: pinto beans cooked with pork, beef head, which is mostly the cheek meat and tongue, and pork crackling, chicharrones.

There's also one more not-so-secret ingredient.

>> Pati: Aw!

So the customers request - if he's not dancing when he's making them, they won't take the tacos!

>> Pati: Always the same tacos!

Okay, can I try one?

>> Don Chuy: Si.

>> Pati Narrates: Don Chuy makes me his most popular taco, a combination with all 3 fillings.

Mmm.

Mmm!

Mhmm, mmm.

>> Eduardo: (laughs) >> Pati: Mmm, Buenísimo!

The chicharron has a crunch, and the beef head has so much flavor - >> Pati: When you do something right, you don't need to add anything else on your menu.

It's crazy delicious.

Really delicious.

>> Pati: There's a thing in Mexican taco stands called "Tacos Combinados", and tacos combinados combines different kinds of meats with different textures, and you get it all together.

I'm making a classic, a Suadero, Longaniza, and Chicharron.

Suadero usually refers to a cut of meat like brisket or chuck, a meat that has to be cooked for a long time with seasonings until completely tender, and then it's shredded, and then fried in some tasty fat like lard or I'm gonna do Longaniza fat, and in taco stands, the taqueria usually cook the meat at home for a long time, and then they finish it off at the taco stand.

So here we have 2 pounds of flank steak.

I don't know why I love flank steak so much, it's just a beautiful cut of meat.

I'll cover it generously with water, and get it going over high heat, and I'll add 3 - 4 bay leaves, 2 garlic cloves.

If you didn't want to peel them, that would be okay too.

1 tsp of black peppercorns, and 1 tsp of salt, and I'll let it come to a boil.

>> Pati: Once the meat starts cooking you'll see some foam over the top, and you want to remove the foam.

You want the meat to cook in a clear broth, but also when you take the meat out, you don't want the foam to stick to the meat.

Now that it's strongly simmering, I'll reduce the heat to medium-low, and this will cook for about 90 minutes.

>> Pati: We're in Tacos El Zurdo, and - >> El Zurdo: No.

>> Pati: Ok, ok. Now an adobo marinade is a sauce that has a base of chiles, sometimes vinegar, but there are many different kinds of adobos, and his is unique.

>> Pati: He gets pieces of pork butt that have absolutely no fat, and then he marinates it in this adobo marinade, then they throw them in the deep fryer.

He started selling tacos with his mom!

>> Pati: He said he's improved his mom's recipe a lot, which is very gutsy for a son to say, I have to say.

>> El Zurdo: Yes.

>> Pati: Mmm!

>> Pati: Mmm!

>> El Zurdo: Perfecto!

>> Pati: Oh my gosh, this is so good!

The adobada has a lot of flavor, but it's not spicy at all.

>> Pati: When you go to a taqueria, they give you different kinds of salsas, they give you the green salsa, the red salsa, the pico de gallo, some guajillo, and then people don't know what to do, 'cause we love salsa so much, we add all the different salsas to the tacos.

Some taqueros have come with a Salsa Taquera, and you know what that is?

They take all the ingredients of all the salsas and cook them off.

So we're making a version of that.

Pati: I'll toast 2 chiles de arbol, I'm just gonna remove the stem and I'll be very vigilant because it is gonna take nothing but a minute.

Gonna take them off, and put them right here in the blender.

These are gonna go with the rest of my ingredients.

I'm gonna add 2 jalapeños, 6 roma tomatoes which is about a pound and a half, 1/2 a pound of tomatillos that I already husked, and then a garlic clove.

I need this to cook for 7 - 8 minutes.

Back to our salsa, I have 2 chile de arbol in here.

I'm going to add about 1/2 a cup of cilantro.

I wanna use the stems and the leaves, 'cause the stems also have a lot of flavor.

2 tbsp of chopped white onion, about 3/4 tsp of salt, a pinch of cumin, then we'll puree this with these ingredients.

See?

They're good!

So I'm adding all the tomatoes, we are never seeding, never peeling, never coring, we want the taste of the entire tomato, and the tomatillos too.

Okay, I would add the 2 jalapeños already because I know I love the heat, but I'll show you how to do it at home until you know how much heat you want.

I'm adding 1 jalapeño at a time, and we're gonna puree until smooth, and because things are really hot in here, I'm gonna start at low speed.

(blender whirs) Pati: There.

Okay!

We wanna taste for heat.

Pati: Salsas need to be spicy because the salsa is not the entirety of the of the dish, it's what goes on top, so I'm adding the other jalapeño, and a little more salt.

(blender whirs) Pati: We're going to do the traditional Mexican technique of seasoning and double cooking a sauce that already has cooked ingredients.

So I have the same saucepan that I used to cook the tomatoes and tomatillos, I rinsed it, I dried it, I have it at medium heat, and I'll add 1 tbsp of oil, and I'm waiting for my oil to be very hot because you want the oil to really shock the sauce.

You want to be ready with a lid because it will splatter and smoke and jump, but you need the sauce to do that 'cause you want the sauce to react.

(sauce sizzles) Pati: You want for some of the oil that was on the bottom of the pan to come to the top, that's how you know you've achieved a really wonderful, doubly cooked salsa.

It's gonna take just a couple minutes.

Because we didn't puree it all the way, you can still see the seeds of the tomatillo, and it still has some texture, and it smells like anything that you put this on will be delicious.

Here I have my flank steak that I cooked for 90 minutes, I let it cool a little so I can handle it, and now I'll just take it out, really tender, delicious meats.

I won't waste the broth, I'll strain it and put it in my freezer for tons of uses.

I'll start frying my longaniza.

Longaniza is a variation of Mexican chorizo.

Usually has a lot of annatto or achiote seeds.

That's what makes it different.

Very popular in Northern states, very popular in the Yucatan Peninsula.

You can use Mexican chorizo instead of longaniza, but if you're making your tacos combinados, and you're telling your friends that you're making a taco with Longaniza in Suadero instead of flank, ooh you sound like such a Mexican connoisseur.

So as this fries, I'm going to chop my meat, but I'm also going to start heating my comal because this is will come together so fast, and your comal for your tortillas needs to preheat for 5 minutes.

See, I'm having a hard time cutting into it - it's so soft - without it breaking into pieces, which is what you want!

Now it's going to finish cooking off in that delicious fat.

So if we were in a taco stand or taqueria, you would be seeing this in a big griddle.

They would be adding a little bit of one, a little bit of another, and just mixing them right before you eat your tacos.

And the other thing we'll add in our combinado is chicharron.

Chicharron has the best crunch in the world.

It's incredibly - mmm!

Irresistible.

I mean, just hear that crunch.

(chicharron crunches) Pati: You add this in here, many of its pieces start absorbing the fat and the sauce it's cooking in, and you wanna eat these right as that is happening, which is right now.

Pati: So as my tortillas heat, I'm gonna chop my fresh garnishes.

Fresh cilantro and white onion is a typical garnish of Tacos Combinados.

Okay, who's ready?

Pati: Mmm.

Mmm!

I can't begin to describe this taco.

The corn tortilla is just wrapping the soft and luscious meat, and the crisp bites of longaniza, and the incredibly crunchy pieces of chicharron that have soaked the flavor of that mixed meat combination, and then that salsa taquera has all the flavors of all the salsas that I love.

That's why street tacos in Mexico are so good, because it's homemade food that's brought to the streets.

>> Pati Narrates: For recipes and information from this episode and more, visit PatiJinich.com, and connect!

Find me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest @PatiJinich.