Description
When executed properly, machaca, a sort of red-brown heap of fried beef jerky, is one of the great dried-beef dishes of the world, an intense distillation of the flavors of the Mexican West, all salt and smoke and heat. Real machaca, a specialty of Sinaloa, is grilled, smashed into powder with a stone pestle, and fried to a frizzle with bits of onion and sweet peppers until the beef releases its chewy, animal essence. At Badiraguato, a converted hamburger stand on the main drag of South Gate, the machaca may be hidden on the breakfast menu next to the cumin-laced stew chilorio and the spicy Sinaloan version of chilaquiles called picoso, but it is a primal, fundamental version, with a specific gravity approaching that of lead.
