Chef Lupita
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Culinary Explorer
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Mochomos Sonorenses
Created by
Sonora's signature beef dish from Los Mochis: shredded machaca fried into mahogany threads as crispy as a desert ant scatter, tossed with onion, serrano, and tomato, eaten in a sonorense flour tortilla.
Main Dishes
Mexican
Comfort Food
Make Ahead
Batch Cooking
30 min
Active Time
3 hr 30 min cook•4 hr total
Yield6 servings
This is from Sonora, the cattle country in Mexico's northwest. Specifically from Los Mochis, the city on the Sinaloa border where the dish was named and where every restaurant worth its salt has a version. Mochomo is the Yaqui word for the desert ant. When the fried beef strands hit the platter, scattered and mahogany and bristling, they look like a colony of those ants on the move. That is the dish. The name is the description.
Mochomos is a northern dish and northern Mexico does not apologize for what it is. This is beef country. Sonora produces more cattle than any other state in Mexico, and the cuisine reflects it: machaca, carne asada, cortes finos, flour tortillas instead of corn. The flour tortilla is not a Tex-Mex invention. The sonorense flour tortilla, large and thin enough to read a newspaper through, is one of the great breads of the Americas, and it is the only tortilla that belongs with mochomos. Corn does not work here. Corn is from the south. Cada estado, su propia cocina.
The technique is patience disguised as simplicity. You simmer the beef. You shred it fine, finer than you think. You dry it. You fry it in batches until every strand is crisp. You build a quick sofrito of onion, garlic, serrano, and tomato. You combine. The dish is not difficult, but it is not fast, and the cook who tries to rush any step gets steamed beef instead of crispy beef. There is a difference between machaca and mochomos, and that difference is the fry.
My mother was from Jalisco and never made mochomos. I learned this dish in Los Mochis, in the kitchen of a senora named Carmen who had been making it for her family for forty years. She told me the secret was not the meat, not the chile, not the tortilla. The secret was the shredding. 'Si la carne esta gruesa, no son mochomos. Son tiritas.' If the meat is thick, they are not mochomos. They are just strips. She was right. Saber cocinar es saber vivir.
Mochomos emerged in the mid-20th century in northern Sinaloa and southern Sonora as a restaurant evolution of the much older tradition of machaca, the sun-dried, pounded beef that allowed indigenous and ranching communities to preserve meat in the desert before refrigeration. The word 'mochomo' comes from the Cahita language family spoken by the Yaqui and Mayo peoples and refers to a large desert ant native to the region; the dish takes its name from the visual resemblance of the fried, scattered strands of beef. The restaurant Los Mochomos in Los Mochis is widely credited with popularizing the dish nationally in the 1980s, though home cooks across the Sonora-Sinaloa borderlands had been preparing similar fried-machaca preparations for generations.
The technique, the tradition, and the story behind every dish.
Discover Culinary ExplorerIngredients
beef chuck or top round
Quantity
2 pounds
in one piece
white onion
Quantity
1 medium
halved
head of garlic
Quantity
1
halved crosswise
bay leaves
Quantity
2
kosher salt
Quantity
1 tablespoon, plus more to taste
black peppercorns
Quantity
1 teaspoon
water to cover
Quantity
about 8 cups
neutral oil for frying
Quantity
1 cup, plus more as needed
manteca de cerdo (pork lard)
Quantity
2 tablespoons
white onion
Quantity
1 medium
slivered very thin
garlic cloves
Quantity
4
slivered very thin
fresh chile serrano
Quantity
2
slivered into thin rings
tomato
Quantity
1 medium
finely diced
lime
Quantity
juice of 1
flour tortillas (sonorenses, the large thin ones) (optional)
Quantity
for serving
warmed
frijoles puercos or refried pinto beans (optional)
Quantity
for serving
lime wedges (optional)
Quantity
for serving
salsa de chile chiltepin (optional)
Quantity
for serving
| Ingredient | Quantity |
|---|---|
| beef chuck or top roundin one piece | 2 pounds |
| white onionhalved | 1 medium |
| head of garlichalved crosswise | 1 |
| bay leaves | 2 |
| kosher salt | 1 tablespoon, plus more to taste |
| black peppercorns | 1 teaspoon |
| water to cover | about 8 cups |
| neutral oil for frying | 1 cup, plus more as needed |
| manteca de cerdo (pork lard) | 2 tablespoons |
| white onionslivered very thin | 1 medium |
| garlic clovesslivered very thin | 4 |
| fresh chile serranoslivered into thin rings | 2 |
| tomatofinely diced | 1 medium |
| lime | juice of 1 |
| flour tortillas (sonorenses, the large thin ones) (optional)warmed | for serving |
| frijoles puercos or refried pinto beans (optional) | for serving |
| lime wedges (optional) | for serving |
| salsa de chile chiltepin (optional) | for serving |
Equipment Needed
- •Heavy 6-quart stockpot for simmering the beef
- •Wide cast iron skillet or carbon steel pan for frying
- •Slotted spoon or kitchen spider
- •Sheet pans for drying and draining
Instructions
- 1
Simmer the beef
Place the beef in a heavy stockpot with the halved onion, garlic, bay leaves, salt, and peppercorns. Cover with cold water by two inches. Bring to a gentle simmer over medium heat. Skim the foam that rises in the first ten minutes. Lower the heat and cook at lazy bubbles for two to two and a half hours, until the meat shreds easily with a fork. A rolling boil will toughen it. Patience is the technique.
Sonorense cooks use beef from cattle raised in their own state. Sonora is the largest beef producer in Mexico and the meat is part of the regional identity. If you can find grass-finished beef from a serious source, use it. - 2
Cool and shred
Lift the beef out of the broth and let it rest on a cutting board until it is cool enough to handle, about 20 minutes. Save the broth for soup another day. Shred the meat by hand into very fine threads, almost like floss. The thinner you shred it, the crispier the mochomos. This is the work that nobody can shortcut. No me vengas con atajos.
- 3
Dry the shredded beef
Spread the shredded beef in a single layer on a sheet pan and let it air-dry for 30 minutes. The drier the meat, the crispier the fry. In Sonora, where the air is hot and dry, cooks lay machaca out in the sun. In a humid kitchen, a low oven at 200F for 15 minutes will do the same job. The meat should feel dry to the touch, not damp.
- 4
Fry the meat in batches
Heat the oil in a wide heavy skillet or cast iron pan over medium-high until it shimmers. Working in three or four batches so the pan is never crowded, fry the shredded beef for four to six minutes per batch, stirring almost constantly. The strands will sputter, then stop sputtering as the moisture cooks off, then darken and curl. That is when they are ready. They should be deep brown and crisp enough to crackle when you press them with a spoon. This is the texture that gives the dish its name. Mochomo is the Yaqui word for the desert ant, and the fried beef strands look like a scatter of mochomos across the pan.
Crowding the pan steams the meat. Steamed meat is not crispy meat. Use a wide pan and small batches. The fry takes longer this way and there is no other way. - 5
Drain on paper
As each batch finishes, lift the meat out with a slotted spoon and drain on a sheet pan lined with paper. Do not stack the meat. Spread it out so it stays crispy. Continue until all the beef is fried.
- 6
Build the sofrito
Pour off most of the frying oil, leaving about two tablespoons in the pan. Add the lard and let it melt. La manteca es el sabor. Add the slivered onion and cook for two minutes until translucent. Add the slivered garlic and the chile serrano. Cook another minute, until fragrant but not browned. Add the diced tomato and cook for three to four minutes, stirring, until it breaks down into a loose sauce.
- 7
Combine and finish
Return all the fried beef to the pan. Toss with tongs to coat every strand in the sofrito. Cook for two more minutes over medium heat, just long enough for the meat to absorb the flavors without losing its crunch. Squeeze the lime juice over the top. Taste for salt. The meat should be crispy at the edges, glossy from the lard, and scattered with the onion, chile, and tomato. Asi se hace y punto.
- 8
Serve at the table
Pile the mochomos into a wide platter. Serve immediately with warm flour tortillas, a pot of frijoles puercos, lime wedges, and salsa de chiltepin on the side. Each diner builds their own taco at the table: a sonorense flour tortilla, a generous scoop of mochomos, a smear of beans, a drop of salsa. Recetas probadas y garantizadas.
Chef Tips
- •The shred is the dish. Use your hands, not a fork, and pull the meat into the thinnest threads you can manage. A food processor will turn it to mush. There is no shortcut. The hour you spend shredding is the hour the dish requires.
- •Sonorense flour tortillas are the only tortilla for this dish. They are large, thin, and made with manteca. If you cannot find them, find a Mexican bakery that makes them fresh. Supermarket flour tortillas are a different product entirely. The texture is wrong and the flavor is wrong.
- •Salsa de chiltepin is the traditional table salsa in Sonora. The chiltepin is a small wild chile native to the Sonoran desert. If you cannot find it, a salsa de chile de arbol will do, but understand you are eating the dish without its proper companion.
Advance Preparation
- •The beef can be simmered and shredded one day ahead. Refrigerate the shredded meat in a covered container. Bring to room temperature and dry on a sheet pan before frying.
- •Mochomos lose their crunch within an hour of frying, so they should be cooked just before serving. Reheating in a hot dry skillet will restore some of the crispness, but the first plate is always the best plate.
Frequently Asked Questions
Nutrition Information
1 serving (about 145g)
Calories
445 calories
Total Fat
35 g
Saturated Fat
10 g
Trans Fat
0 g
Unsaturated Fat
23 g
Cholesterol
90 mg
Sodium
720 mg
Total Carbohydrates
4 g
Dietary Fiber
1 g
Sugars
2 g
Protein
28 g
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