Ensalada de Repollo Sinaloense

This is a Sinaloa dish and it has one job. It rides on top of a battered fish taco or a shrimp taco, and without it the taco is incomplete. In Mazatlán, in Culiacán, in the marisquería towns up and down the Pacific coast, you do not get a pescado capeado without a fistful of this slaw on top. It is not a side. It is a component.

The ingredients are simple and the proportions are exact. Green cabbage shredded thin. A little carrot for color and sweetness. White onion for bite. White vinegar, lime, salt, oregano. That is the dish. There is no mayonnaise. There is no sugar. There is no sour cream. Anyone who tells you otherwise is making American coleslaw and pretending it belongs on a Mexican taco. La cocina no es decoracion, es trabajo, and this is the working slaw of an entire coast.

The oregano matters more than you think. Sinaloa cooks reach for oregano del norte, the northern Mexican variety with a sharper, more citrusy edge than the Mediterranean oregano sold in supermarket jars. If you can find it at a Mexican grocer or a mercado, use it. Crumble it between your palms before it hits the bowl. Whole leaves taste like nothing. Crushed leaves taste like the dish.

My mother did not cook from Sinaloa. She was Jalisciense and her notebook had no pescado capeado in it. But the first time I ate fish tacos in Mazatlán, the woman behind the counter taught me her slaw in about ninety seconds, scolding me for trying to write it down. "It is cabbage and vinegar," she said. "What are you writing?" I wrote it down anyway. Saber cocinar es saber vivir, and saber escuchar a las señoras del mercado is the same thing.