Papa Loca Sonorense

Ingredients

Equipment Needed

• •Charcoal grill, ideally fueled with mesquite chunks or mesquite charcoal
• •Long-handled grill tongs
• •Heavy wooden cutting board for chopping the asada
• •Two sharp chef knives or a cleaver for the asada chop
• •High-powered blender for the salsa de aguacate

Instructions

1. 1

   Build the mesquite fire

   Light a charcoal grill with mesquite wood or mesquite charcoal. In Sonora the smoke is the seasoning, and mesquite is the wood. Let it burn down until the coals are covered with gray ash and the grate is hot enough that you can hold your hand over it for only two seconds. While the fire settles, dry the potatoes well. Wet potatoes will steam instead of roast.

   Briquettes will get you through, but the flavor is not the same. If you have access to mesquite chunks, use them. The wood is half the dish.
2. 2

   Rub and roast the potatoes

   Pierce each potato several times with the tip of a knife. Rub the skins with melted manteca de cerdo, then crust them all over with kosher salt. La manteca es el sabor, even on a potato. Set the potatoes over indirect heat on the grill, cover, and roast for 75 to 90 minutes, turning a few times, until a knife slides through the center without resistance and the skin is dark, blistered, and crackling. The potato should look like it has been working hard.

3. 3

   Marinate and grill the asada

   While the potatoes roast, lay the arrachera in a shallow dish. Pour the lime juice over the meat, add the minced garlic, salt, and black pepper. Turn the meat to coat. Let it sit for 20 minutes at room temperature. Not longer. Lime cooks the surface of the meat the way it cooks shrimp, and an over-marinated asada turns gray and mealy. When the coals are still hot but the potatoes are nearly done, lay the meat directly over the fire. Sonoran arrachera cooks fast, about 90 seconds per side for thin cuts, until charred at the edges and medium-rare inside.

   Salt the meat fifteen minutes before it hits the grill, no earlier. Salting too far in advance pulls the moisture out and you lose the juice that makes asada taste like asada.
4. 4

   Rest and chop the asada

   Move the meat to a wooden board and let it rest for five minutes. Do not skip the rest. Chop it into rough quarter-inch pieces, knife in one hand, second knife or cleaver in the other, the way they do it on the taqueria boards in Hermosillo. Toss the chopped meat with its own juices and a pinch of salt. Cover loosely while you finish the potatoes.

5. 5

   Make the salsa de aguacate

   While the meat rests, combine the avocados, cilantro, serranos, garlic clove, lime juice, water, and salt in a blender. Blend until completely smooth. The salsa should pour off a spoon in a thick ribbon, bright green, sharp from the chile, rich from the avocado. If it is too thick, add cold water one tablespoon at a time. Taste for salt. This is not guacamole. It is a salsa, and it has to be loose enough to flood into the potato.

6. 6

   Split and mash the potatoes

   Pull the potatoes off the grill and rest them for two minutes. Slice each one open lengthwise without cutting all the way through. Use a fork to rough up the inside, breaking the flesh but leaving it inside the skin like a boat. Drop a tablespoon of butter and two tablespoons of crema into each potato and mash them right into the hot flesh. Season with salt. The potato should be loose and creamy, not whipped. This is the foundation. Everything else stacks on top of it.

7. 7

   Cheese, asada, salsa, in that order

   Pile a generous handful of queso Chihuahua into each open potato. The cheese melts against the hot flesh and binds the layers together. Pull a few strands of queso Oaxaca over the top. Pile the chopped asada onto the cheese, juices and all. Pour the salsa de aguacate over the meat in a slow ribbon, letting it pool wherever it wants to go. No me vengas con atajos. Each layer matters.

   If the cheese is not melting fast enough, set the loaded potato back on the cooler side of the grill for two minutes with the lid down. Queso Chihuahua melts clean. Do not use cheddar. Cheddar belongs on a hamburger, not on a Sonoran papa.
8. 8

   Finish and serve

   Scatter raw white onion and chopped cilantro across the top. Set crushed chiltepin and lime wedges on the table for each person to add to taste. Chiltepin is the Sonoran chile, small as a peppercorn and twice as hot. A pinch is plenty. Serve the papas locas in shallow enamelware plates with warm flour tortillas de harina alongside, the way a sonorense would do it. Tear pieces of the potato and the asada into the tortilla, roll, eat. Asi se hace y punto.

Chef Tips

• •Russet is the right potato. It bakes up dry and fluffy and soaks the crema and butter without turning to glue. Yukon Gold goes waxy on the grill. Do not substitute.
• •Queso Chihuahua is the cheese. If you cannot find it, queso menonita is the same thing under a different name, and a good Monterey Jack is an honest compromise. Cheddar is not a compromise. It is the wrong dish.
• •Chiltepin is small and very hot. The dried red berries crush easily between two fingers. If you cannot find chiltepin, a few drops of a clean-tasting salsa picante will get you there, but the flavor is not the same. Chiltepin tastes like the desert.

Advance Preparation

• •The salsa de aguacate can be made up to four hours ahead and pressed with plastic wrap directly on the surface to keep it from oxidizing. Past that the color dulls and the lime starts to dominate.
• •The asada can be marinated up to 20 minutes ahead, no longer. The potatoes are best the moment they come off the fire. This is not a dish to make in advance. Build it hot and eat it hot.

Frequently Asked Questions

Nutrition Information

1 serving (about 840g)