Tacos de Buche y Nana (Nenepil)

Ingredients

Equipment Needed

• •Heavy 8-quart stockpot for simmering
• •Wide cast iron skillet, cazuela, or copper cazo for the confit
• •Sharp chef's knife for chopping the cooked offal
• •Cast iron comal for the tortillas and the salsa ingredients
• •Volcanic stone molcajete for the salsa
• •Wooden spoon for stirring the cazo

Instructions

1. 1

   Clean the buche and nana

   This is the step nobody wants to talk about and the one that decides whether your tacos taste clean or barnyard. Rinse the buche and nana under cold running water. In a large bowl, rub them aggressively with the 2 tablespoons of salt and the cut lime, then add the vinegar and cold water to cover. Let them sit for 20 minutes. Rinse again. Repeat the salt-and-lime scrub one more time. The buche has folds, run your fingers through them. The nana has a thin membrane, leave it. When the smell pulls back and what you have is the clean iron scent of pork, you are ready. No me vengas con atajos. Skip this and your nenepil tastes like a butcher's bucket.

   Ask your carnicero in a Mexican market for buche and nana together. In a CDMX mercado they will hand them to you already trimmed. At a supermarket you will not find them. Find a real butcher.
2. 2

   Parboil to tame the funk

   Place the cleaned buche and nana in a heavy stockpot. Cover with cold water by three inches and bring to a boil over high heat. Boil hard for 10 minutes. A gray foam will rise, that is what you want out. Pour everything off, rinse the meat and the pot, and start again. This double-water method is how the fritangeras of Mercado de San Juan and Mercado Medellin do it. The first pot pulls the funk. The second pot builds the flavor.

3. 3

   Build the simmer

   Return the buche and nana to the clean pot. Cover with cold water by two inches. Add the halved onion, halved garlic head, bay leaves, oregano, the 2 tablespoons of salt, and squeeze the orange over the pot before dropping the spent halves in. Bring to a gentle simmer over medium heat. Lazy bubbles. Not a rolling boil. A rolling boil turns these cuts to rubber. Cook partially covered for one hour and fifteen minutes. The buche should yield to a knife with very little resistance. The nana should be soft enough to tear with your fingers.

4. 4

   Chop and reserve the broth

   Lift the buche and nana out with a slotted spoon. Reserve one cup of the cooking broth. Discard the aromatics. While the meat is still warm but cool enough to handle, chop everything into small pieces, about the size of your thumbnail. Mix the two together on the cutting board. This is nenepil: buche and nana, together, chopped fine. One without the other is just buche tacos or just nana tacos. Together they earn the name.

5. 5

   Confit in the cazo

   In a heavy cast iron skillet, a wide cazuela, or if you have one, a copper cazo, melt the lard over medium heat until shimmering. Add the chopped nenepil in a single layer. It will sputter. Stir every couple of minutes with a wooden spoon. Cook for 25 to 35 minutes, until the edges of the buche turn deep amber and the nana takes on a rich golden color. The fat goes from pale yellow to a clear, chile-stained amber. La manteca es el sabor. This is the moment the fritangeras stand over for hours on weekend mornings in Colonia Doctores. Pull when the pieces have crisp edges but the centers are still soft.

   If the pan dries out before the meat is fully tender at the edges, splash in a few tablespoons of the reserved cooking broth. It deglazes and adds a layer of pork flavor as it cooks off.
6. 6

   Make the salsa de chile de arbol

   Heat a dry comal over medium. Toast the chile de arbol, the unpeeled garlic cloves, and the tomatillos. The chiles take about 20 seconds per side, watch them, they burn faster than any other dried chile. The garlic blisters in five minutes. The tomatillos blacken in spots and turn olive green in about eight. Peel the garlic. Drop everything in the molcajete with the salt and the water and grind to a rough, rust-colored salsa. A blender will work if you do not have a molcajete, but pulse it, do not puree it. You want texture.

7. 7

   Warm the tortillas double

   Heat a comal over medium-high. Warm the tortillas in pairs, stacked one on top of the other, flipping the pair together. CDMX street tacos are always served on two tortillas. The bottom one holds the grease. The top one holds the meat. This is not optional and it is not excess. Try it on one tortilla and the bottom will tear before you get it to your mouth. Así se hace y punto.

8. 8

   Build the tacos

   Lift the nenepil out of the lard with a slotted spoon and let it drain for a moment. Pile a generous spoonful onto each pair of warm tortillas. Top with a pinch of diced raw white onion and chopped cilantro. Set lime wedges and the salsa de chile de arbol on the table. Each person finishes their own. Eat them standing up if you can. That is how they taste right. Recetas probadas y garantizadas.

Chef Tips

• •Buche and nana are sold at Mexican butchers and at any decent mercado in CDMX. In the United States, ask at a Mexican carniceria. Do not order them online. You need to see and smell them before you buy. If they smell sharply ammoniac or strongly barnyard, walk away. Clean offal smells like pork, not like the floor of a stockyard.
• •The lard is non-negotiable. La manteca es el sabor. If you try to do this in vegetable oil, the meat will not take on the right color and the flavor will be thin. Save the strained lard after, it keeps for months in the refrigerator and it is the best thing you can fry an egg in.
• •Eat them the moment they are built. Nenepil tacos do not sit. The double tortilla, the hot meat, the cold onion, the bright salsa, all of it works because it is fresh off the cazo. Build them, eat them, build the next one.

Advance Preparation

• •The buche and nana can be simmered and chopped one day ahead. Store them in their cooking broth in the refrigerator. The flavor is no worse for it and your taco morning is easier.
• •The salsa de chile de arbol can be made up to two days ahead and refrigerated. The flavor deepens overnight.
• •Do not pre-confit the nenepil. The crisp edges have to be fresh. That step happens right before serving, every time.

Frequently Asked Questions

Nutrition Information

1 serving (about 270g)