All posts tagged: aguachile

Where to try Sinaloan-style aguachile in Los Angeles

Where to try Sinaloan-style aguachile in Los Angeles

A good plate of Sinaloa-style aguachile starts with liquid hot peppers, lots of lime, and freshly butterflied, raw shrimp. The flavor and heat build like a strong corrido: dramatic and full of contrast, tension and release. The chiles, the lime, the crunch of cucumber, the bite of red onion — it’s all deliberate. Bold, loud and alive. Just like Sinaloa. In “Mexico: The Cookbook,” author Margarita Carrillo Arronte asserts that aguachile began in the sun-baked ranchlands of inland Sinaloa, not the coast. She says the original version was made with carne seca (sun-dried beef), rehydrated in water and jolted awake with chiltepín peppers. Picture ranchers grinding the chiles by hand, mixing them with lime and water, and pouring it over dehydrated meat to revive it like a delicious Frankenstein’s monster. Chef Francisco Leal of Mariscos Chiltepín in Vernon and Del Mar Ostioneria in Mid-City, shares a slightly different origin story. “According to legend, aguachile was invented in the hills of Los Mochis [Sinaloa],” he said. “The poor would mix tomatoes, onions and hot water with …