Destination
Puerto Vallarta
The story
Tacos de chorizo are the Mexico City breakfast taco: fresh Mexican chorizo (not the cured Spanish kind) is squeezed from its casing into a hot pan and cooked hard until it renders its fat and crisps around the edges, then piled onto warm tortillas with a splash of onion, a scatter of coriander and a spoon of salsa verde. Sometimes small cubes of fried potato are folded in to stretch the chorizo; sometimes scrambled egg. It's the taco of the 7am worker, the taco eaten while standing at the counter of a fonda before the metro ride to the office, and one of the fastest tacos to make at home.
Method
Bring a small pot of salted water to a boil. Add the potato cubes and boil 5 minutes until just tender. Drain and reserve.
Char the tomatillos, chillies, onion half and garlic on a dry pan 6 minutes. Blend with coriander, salt and lime to a coarse-smooth sauce. Set aside.
Warm the oil in a wide heavy pan over medium-high heat. Squeeze the chorizo from its casings directly into the pan. Press flat with a spatula. Cook 3 minutes without moving, then break up and cook another 6 to 8 minutes, stirring occasionally, until deep red, rendered and crisped at the edges. Add the chopped onion in the last 3 minutes.
Fold the boiled potato into the chorizo. Cook 3 more minutes so the potato picks up the chorizo fat and colour. Season with salt if needed.
On a second hot pan, warm pairs of tortillas 20 seconds a side. Stack in a towel.
Lay two overlapped tortillas on each plate. Pile 2 heaped tbsp of chorizo (or chorizo-potato) down the middle. Top with a small pinch of diced onion and a scatter of chopped coriander.
Serve immediately with salsa verde, lime wedges and, if you like, a spoon of refried beans on the side. Eat with hands, standing at the counter if possible.
For huevos con chorizo tacos: after the chorizo is crisped, push to one side of the pan, pour 4 whisked eggs into the other side, scramble softly, then fold everything together off the heat. Same tortilla assembly.
Tips
- Fresh Mexican chorizo, not cured. This is a raw sausage from a Latino grocer. Slicing dried Spanish chorizo into a pan gives you a completely different dish.
- Squeeze from the casing. Mexican chorizo casings are inedible — squeeze the sausage out like toothpaste and cook the meat crumbled.
- Cook it hard. Chorizo is at its best when the outside is crisped and the fat is fully rendered. Undercooked chorizo is greasy and pale; properly cooked chorizo is deep red and crackly at the edges.
- The potato is optional but classic. Papa con chorizo is the fonda-breakfast version. If eaters are hungry, add potato; if you want the pure chorizo flavour, skip it.
- Salsa verde, not salsa roja. Mexican breakfast tacos take a tomatillo-based green salsa. Save the red guajillo salsa for suadero and pastor tacos.
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