Burro Percherón Ahogado Hermosillense

This is from Sonora. Specifically from Hermosillo, where the burro percherón is built around a sobaquera, a flour tortilla so large it has to be stretched across a woman's forearm and shoulder to roll out, which is where the name comes from (de la sobaquera, from under the arm). The percherón takes its name from the Percheron draft horse because the burrito is enormous, the size of a working animal's haunch. The ahogado, drowned, is what Hermosillo does to it on the plate: caldillo de tomate, salsa de chipotle, crema, asadero melted on top, served with a knife and a fork.

The flour tortilla is a Noroeste birthright. Sonora is wheat country, has been since the Jesuits planted it in the 17th century, and the sobaquera is the highest expression of what Sonoran women can do with flour, water, lard, and salt. The rest of Mexico can argue about corn. Sonora knows what its tortilla is. Manteca de cerdo, never shortening. Stretched by hand, never rolled with a pin. Cooked on a hot comal until it spots and puffs and stays soft enough to fold like cloth. If your tortilla cannot fold, it is not a sobaquera, and you cannot make a percherón with it.

The filling is carne con chile colorado, the Sonoran red stew built on chile colorado (what the rest of the country calls chile california) and chuck and potatoes. Not ground beef. Not lettuce and tomato. Not yellow cheese. The asadero on top is the cheese of the Noroeste, made by the Mennonites in Chihuahua and across the border in Sonora and Durango, and it pulls in long strings when it melts. Cheddar does not belong here. Sour cream does not belong here. The percherón is what it is.

My mother made carne con chile colorado the Jaliscience way, drier, served with corn tortillas. The first time I ate a percherón ahogado was at a fonda outside the Hermosillo airport in 2009, and the senora who served it to me watched me try to pick it up with my hands and laughed. She handed me a fork. "Aqui no, hija. Aqui se come con cubiertos." Cada estado, su propia cocina. I have been making them her way since.