Tim McKirdy: Sother. Fish tacos. Baja fish tacos.

Sother Teague: Baja. Let's go. Baja gives it a little bit more of a fine line. Baja means we're gonna deep fry this guy.

TM: Which I think is a good thing. I've had non-deep-fried fish tacos before and really enjoyed them. I think we're getting to maybe the merits and drawbacks of grilling fish, 'cause obviously we both gravitate towards grills. But yeah, the Baja. Initial thoughts?

ST: Love it. What do you mean, initial thoughts? There's no possible world in which this combination of flavors and textures wouldn't be satisfying for me. Baja fish tacos are excellent.

TM: What I like about giving it that distinction, Baja, is that there are some very definite ingredients and components we can hone in on, but then also discuss. Whereas some other times we've left it a little open-ended, right? Like burgers, for example. There were so many different ways we could go with that.

ST: So too with this, to be honest. Tacos, pretty broad stroke, but if we're pointing at Baja specifically, that at least gives us a greater sense of direction.

TM: Yeah, I think so. Areas where we can customize things, areas where we'll keep it classic. Personal or professional associations with this dish?

ST: I don't think I've ever worked anywhere where I sold specifically fish tacos, or even more specifically Baja fish tacos. I used to run a seafood counter, and on Thursdays we would do a fried fish sandwich, but vastly different than this. So I don't have any professional handling of this dish, but man, this is a dish I love. You and I both, for different reasons, travel out to California all the time, and especially in Southern California, this is the thing to get.

TM: Yeah, this is gonna be a big nod to our friends over there in San Diego today. I think so as well. Definitely never worked anywhere where I've cooked this professionally. Have had the occasional instance of making it at home. Definitely something I'm always gonna be tempted to order as well, though.

ST: And the great thing about them is they're usually relatively small, so you don't have to feel guilty that you had a whole dinner of Baja fish tacos. You can be like, "Give me two of those to start, and then I'll have some other food." They can be a little dalliance.

TM: It is, definitely. I think it's maybe a little bit more filling than some other taco preparations that we like, where you might be tempted to go five or more. Depends on your appetite. One thing to note up top here, though: obviously we've covered deep-fried fish in batter before. That was our Fish and Chips episode. We're very conscious of that, and this is not just gonna be a smaller serving of our Fish and Chips episode. These are gonna be unique. I've done some digging and found some stuff that's definitely news to me, and a different approach to the batter and some of the processes.

ST: Okay, cool. I've got a few things that I change up on the batter as well, specifically for fish tacos. One I think will be kind of a surprise, but we'll see when we get there.

TM: One thing that is cool, though, is that everywhere you look, they are beer-battered fish. This has always been a part of it. There's always been the cooking with booze in this dish, which is great. Shall we get into some origins now? Actually, give me your elevator pitch before we do.

ST: I wrote down here in my notes, "A fish taco is a warm corn tortilla," I think that's important by the way, "filled with simply prepared fried fish with a bright, crunchy, acidic accompaniment that celebrates the freshness of both the seafood and the tortilla." I think the tortilla is really maybe the loss leader here, and I wanna talk about that more as we get there. But that's my one-liner on the Baja fish taco. The origin story, sometimes I know it, and sometimes I actively try not to see it because I know you're gonna dive into it, and I like to be surprised on air. But this one, you can't get around. I think I'm gonna be just nodding along, 'cause I know a lot of what you're about to say. But I'm excited to hear it anyway in more depth, 'cause I definitely still skirted it.

TM: Definitely. And that might afford us some areas where you can add or fill in things that I might have missed. The story begins in the late 1950s to early 1960s, not in San Diego, but in Ensenada in Mexico, in Baja California. For those less familiar with maps and geography, especially if you're not based here in North America, this is that wonderful peninsular strip of land that comes south of California. It's still attached to Mexico by a strip of land, but it's kind of more in contact with California and the US. Ensenada is the central-north part of that territory. The cradle for this creation was the famous Mercado Negro, the black market, a loose cluster of around 20 stands near where there's this big business today called Agencia Arjona, which seems to be a one-stop solution for anything related to fish, whether that's fishermen, the fishing itself, the selling, the distribution. So where that building is now, that was the famous black market. Obviously, as fish markets do, dealing in fresh catches from the day, with regional street food built around it to serve the people working there, shopping there. Originally, the tacos served there were much more meat-leaning. Fish didn't work its way into the equation until a little bit later.

ST: Which seems odd. We got all this fish laying around, make me a steak taco.

TM: It seems odd. It is really strange. But that's just because I think people hadn't thought to do this preparation yet. This was also the cradle of another famous dish called caldo de siete mares, stew of the seven seas. And locals remember someone, and this is a name that's widely reported, Mario "El Bachigualato." Many locals point to Mario as the first modern fish taco stand. But interestingly, the fish tacos that he first served were grilled and not battered, and he used cheap, plentiful angelito, Pacific angelshark, and topped it with nothing more than salsa bandera, AKA pico de gallo. So that would be 1960, around the time he started selling those fish tacos.

ST: So shark tacos, which I can kind of understand. I grew up on the coast, and we would catch sharks off the pier when I was a kid, makos. And once the shark is out of the water and dispatched, you have to butcher it right away. They release ammonia throughout their flesh. All sharks release ammonia throughout their flesh upon demise, and you have to butcher right away on site, or the flesh will have that ammonia smell and thus flavor. So I can see that if he was catching a lot of them, or if they were being caught a lot and butchered right on the boats and he was right there, then it's like, well, the clock's ticking on how fast I gotta use it. So let's get it on the grill and let's make this taco and sell these to these guys who are doing all this fishing.

TM: Let's get it into people's mouths as soon as we can. This specific type, the angelito, I believe is lower on the ammonium scale than other sharks. Looking into it, that was kind of news to me. I've never butchered fresh sharks, or mongered.

ST: I tried to dance around it, but I'll lean into it a little bit. Sharks don't have a urinary system, so all the waste of what would be their urine seeps out through their flesh. And once their demise happens, it happens kind of automatically.

TM: Gotcha. So anatomically, there must be something specific to this one, the local variety. But otherwise, this is a fish with a slightly sweet flavor. It's lean but firm. Can dry out quite easily if you're not careful with the cooking, but will retain its structure, which makes sense if you're grilling or deep-frying. The Baja fish taco as we know it today then evolved through a few other people at this market and beyond. In 1963, Zeferino Mancilla Fortuna is credited as the first to put batter on the fish, but I don't think deep-frying it in the way that we would expect right now. There's a different pan and a different technique. And then someone called Pedro Alvarado, whose stand had opened by 1961, was the one who pioneered the frying technique. So Zeferino brings the batter, Pedro brings the frying technique. And then when the market closed in 1967, shut down for hygiene and sanitary reasons, the taqueros scattered. Some stayed in the city. Others moved to different parts of Baja California, including Socorro Negrete Rivera, who had taken over Mario's stand in 1963 and carried her fish tacos south to somewhere called San Felipe, which will become another important part of this story. Before we make the San Felipe connection, there's another connection to explore. Why the batter? Where does the batter come from?

ST: I don't know, but when you said the first guy, Fortuna, it stuck in my head 'cause it sounded like his name was Fortunate, and I was like, "All right, Fortunate. He's the fortunate one." You said it was a different batter. I envisioned immediately that sort of more eggy batter that goes on like chile rellenos. And I bet then the next guy came along and was like, "Well, let's make this thing a little more crispy." I don't know how to describe that batter. It's more eggy. It's like the same batter used on French toast. It's not gonna have that crisp. No matter how long you keep it in the fryer, it's not gonna come out crisp. It's gonna come out like that tender, sort of soggy crisp is what Dave Chang calls it when he talks about General Tso's chicken or things like that, things that are just never gonna get crunchy crisp. So I'm curious if that was the leap, and then flour's a little bit more readily available. Maybe it's a little bit more carry-aroundable, especially as they scattered. You said they had to move out of the market, and that's surely how it got propagated as well, right? If we were concentrated, people were coming here and getting them or they weren't. But then we spread out, and we brought them to the people.

TM: So I wonder, and this is where this question comes in, the Japanese question. Ensenada took in many Japanese immigrants during the early 20th century, and of course with them they would've brought such cooking techniques as tempura. So I wonder whether, and I don't know what Zeferino Fortuna's batter was, that was an evolution of that soggy, crispy batter you talked about, inspired by some tempura techniques to bring the crispiness to this. Probably because they thought, as we explored in the Fish and Chips episode, you're steaming the fish inside, so you have more control over the cooking and less chance of overcooking it, especially if it's that shark. No one, as far as I can tell, has been able to make a direct connection and say for sure that this is taken from Japanese tempura. People believe it as a plausible theory. It seems plausible to me.

ST: Sure. Everybody was there. We're gonna look over each other's shoulders. We're gonna look at each other's paper. I'm cheating off your paper.

TM: Exactly. Everyone's copying each other. So San Felipe, that place further southeast of Ensenada that I mentioned earlier. In the early 1970s, someone called Ralph Rubio, a San Diego State student, visits San Felipe during spring break and discovers fish tacos, most likely one of the stands that was taken there earlier that we mentioned.

ST: This is the story that I couldn't avoid. It popped up everywhere I looked.

TM: He describes loving tacos already, but not having fish tacos, especially in this style, in San Diego. Describes this break where breakfast, lunch, and dinner, that's all he was having. He loved it. He met a chef called Carlos, who he convinced to give him his recipe. Can't find the last name of Carlos. There's a little video on Rubio's, as we'll discover, website documenting this, and it shows a little photo of this napkin with the batter, and it's flour and mustard powder and garlic. Can't remember whether I saw eggs or not. Beer for sure. He gets the recipe, goes back to San Diego, and in 1983 opened the first Rubio's in Mission Bay in San Diego, selling what he billed as the original fish taco. The chain grew to roughly 200 locations and turned the fish taco into a SoCal staple.

ST: Wow. Are there still 200 locations today?

TM: That was at its peak. They are thriving and alive. They're still going, I believe. But to the point of 200, I don't know whether they're still doing that. San Diego kicks in some more, though, and this isn't just a take part of the relationship towards the dish. It also codifies a few things. It locked in a double rather than single corn tortilla, always corn, as you mentioned. The shredded green cabbage that we now expect, repollo as they call it in Spanish, which supplants any use of lettuce, which could become soggy. The mandatory lime. They're using pico de gallo, same as salsa bandera as far as I can tell, just a different name. And above all, introduced the crema, a mixture of mayo and sour cream, and oftentimes people putting a little bit of chipotle in there as well. And then everyone serving it with limes. So the Ensenada original: angelito shark, single corn tortilla, cabbage, thin crema, salsa bandera, and lime. San Diego shifts from that angelshark to more pollock, cod, mild whitefish that are common. Doubles the tortilla. Same with the cabbage, but it's a non-negotiable, we can lock that one in. Adds a bit of chipotle to the sauce. Pico de gallo, lime, good to go. It's a nice conversation, I think.

ST: What I understood also is this character, Rubio, he was down there because he was on a surfing trip. He was a young man in college, avid surfer, would travel down to do that, fell in love with this thing, brought it back to where he lived.

TM: Yeah, I think he could be surfing during spring break. So those are our origins, and from there, this thing spreads. We'll look into our culinary luminaries now. I've got one example of LA, and obviously LA really has embraced the taco and mastered it in ways that, you know, there's nothing better than going to a taco truck or getting tacos in LA. Funnily enough, one of the best fish taco experiences I've had in LA is the mariscos, where they do the ones that are kind of like ceviche, kind of cured and raw and incredible. But those are more like tostadas. I've enjoyed those, and certainly, you're baking under the sun, very refreshing.

ST: I have a few. Of course I have Ralph Rubio, because of his restaurants, and I didn't realize that there were that many. That certainly introduced this style of taco to the bulk of the United States who were paying attention at that time in the early '70s. Rick Bayless, famous dude who owns restaurants in Chicago but has spent, I think at this point, the bulk of his life down in Mexico. I remember watching his show when I was a young up-and-comer on PBS. It was called Mexico: One Plate at a Time. He really championed the notion that Mexican food is a success because every ingredient in every dish maintains an identifiable quotient rather than being buried by the other ingredients. He definitely leaned into that pretty heavy when he talked about fish tacos. There's a woman you'd probably be more familiar with than I am, Diana Kennedy. She was a British food writer, considered to be the most preeminent English-language authority on Mexican cuisine. She wrote numerous books on the topic of Mexican cuisine, and her most famous book was called The Cuisines of Mexico. She helped legitimize Mexican coastal cuisines for the English-speaking audience. She was a huge influence. I looked up Jacques and Julia. Not much to say from either one of them, and I think this was really out of their wheelhouse. Not really their lane. But they both would say things like, Jacques' constant refrain is, "The quality of food starts with the quality of the ingredients," and I think that's really paramount to this preparation. Everything has to be really good because there are so few things, everything has to stand forward. And Julia, I think I've said this exact quote about her before, "You don't have to cook fancy or complicated masterpieces, just good food from fresh ingredients," and I think that really is a backbone statement to what a Baja fish taco is.

TM: Totally. I think it's a dish where, you touched on this a few times, tacos being pretty small delivery vehicles, everything really needs to earn its place and be of the highest quality, otherwise there's nowhere for it to hide. So you have this real estate dilemma, and therefore if you're taking up a lot of real estate, you need to justify your place there.

ST: A hundred percent. And the quick analogy for me on that is pizza. I don't know why that's the one I jump to, but the similarity is you put too many things on here, and the diminishing of returns has started. I like a pizza that's three items at the most, and that includes the cheese. Tacos need to be, as you said, they're small, so they need to be grabbable. So we can't put too many things on there just for that reason, but for the next reason, is that I don't want anyone to outshine anyone else.

TM: I saw, I'm forgetting the chef's name, a Munchies video with a Mexican chef who was doing this preparation, Baja fish tacos, and they were talking about how that is a really real dilemma when you're making tacos for people. You don't wanna offer too little, but it's really easy to make too much of stuff because you can't fit that much on there. Especially if you're leaning towards stuff like avocado and guac. And he said a great trick is, if you don't want it to seem like you've made too little, like a salsa or a pico de gallo, make it really spicy. That way you only make a small amount, and the first person who tastes it goes, "Oh, that's hot," scares the other people off, so everyone's just adding a little bit. So you won't have made too much, but you've still made very little.

ST: And that backs up the notion of what we were talking about here. The build is important. So I want all the things that we put in this thing to be maximum flavor, because I don't want to have a lot of anything. The largest thing is gonna be the fish. The corn tortilla is super important, and then everything else needs to just be garniture, in the truest sense of the word in the culinary world. This is the garniture for this entree. It's not garnish, it's garniture, which is different. And every piece needs to have its own singular voice come through loud and clear. So make your salsa extra spicy so you don't need much on purpose, just so that it doesn't have to take up as much room to be as impactful as it can be. I'm still getting all the flavor of a tablespoon, but I'm only using a teaspoon.

TM: Totally. It goes a long way. More concentrated. One or two places that I dug up: Tacos Fénix in Ensenada, opened in 1970, is the one place that people continue to make pilgrimages to, tourists and locals. The street-food interpretation, kind of original style. They serve shark dredged in a tempura-like batter with mustard and spices, and I think that guy Carlos' recipe had mustard, or mustard powder, which I think we might have discussed. No, we said malt vinegar powder for the Fish and Chips. It's fried in lard on a stainless steel comal, which is a new pan for me.

ST: Oh, really? Comal is just the pan that you see people heating up tortillas on. It's kind of ever so slightly domed, so the tortillas kind of sit around it.

TM: Fried twice, too. The first to cook the fish, the second to get the texture. And the taco goes straight onto a warmed corn tortilla, and then they have their self-serve bar, so everyone helps themselves. And then another guy, just 'cause we mentioned Los Angeles and their love of tacos, Wesley Avila, Guerrilla Tacos, was a Jonathan Gold favorite. And my God, Jonathan Gold, we've never really discussed too much on this show before. Absolute legend. His background is in fine dining before he launched his acclaimed taco business. His direction: fish cut to finger size, and I think that's consistent across the board with everyone. Dusts the fish in cornstarch first before it hits a beer and egg batter.

ST: Beer and egg. Oh.

TM: So I wonder whether that's kind of the nod to tradition, as you kind of mentioned earlier.

ST: I'm curious. It seems to me that that would make it a little heavier than I would want it, but I'm game to give anything a try. And when we talk about prep, we'll talk about how they need to be finger size, and frankly, slightly smaller than you think, 'cause don't forget, they're gonna get battered and fried. They're gonna be bigger later. It's like you think about a scotch egg, and you're like, "Well, egg's only this big." And then you gotta put a layer of sausage around it, so then it's this big. And then you gotta put it in a flour, egg, breadcrumb situation, so now it's as big as a baseball. It's not just egg-sized.

TM: Is it scotched? I think it's scotch. I don't think scotching is a technique. Whereas frenching, I will allow you.

ST: But we've certainly seen places that take it to that level. Do you remember the scotched olives that they had at The Nomad?

TM: I mean, just 'cause one bar might be doing something wrong in the US. I might be wrong on this one too, but it doesn't surprise me to hear you say scotched. I've always said scotch.

ST: Well, you put this on the internet and we'll get the right answer. If you don't know the answer to something, put the wrong answer on the internet.

TM: So that's in Los Angeles, and those are the forerunners there, and of course people can go to Rubio's if they want up and down California, and head to that original one in San Diego.

ST: So you've mentioned it twice, and I thought I was gonna come in with a sneaky thing with the mustard. But I will say, the mustard, you've said powder twice now. I've made this in the past at my own home just using pretty standard yellow mustard in my batter. Not enough to really change the texture, but enough to add that sharpness of mustard and also the color, which always is low on my totem pole, as you know. But there is a golden-yellow hue to fish taco batter that isn't there in standard fried fish, Fish and Chips batter. And that's where it's coming from.

TM: I think my instinct for this, and I guess I just assumed mustard powder because my mind was already going in this direction, was because I want to have as much control as I can over the relationship between liquid and dry ingredients. So if something doesn't need to be a liquid and it can be a dry ingredient.

ST: Sure. But the mustard powder doesn't involve the vinegar that's in the mustard, right? So maybe you could change that by adding some citric acid, or the bulk chips.

TM: Or that malt vinegar powder that we bought for our Fish and Chips. And then finally, color, your old friend turmeric. Let's jock it up.

ST: You don't wanna reach in for the saffron on this one?

TM: This is the final thing on the eggs, though, so I was like, "Okay, maybe eggs are being included for color." I've heard that before. But then, on the occasions where I've seen people include eggs in their fish and chip batter, it's generally just egg white, and that was purportedly for crispness.

ST: Maybe you whip them a little bit first before you fold them into the batter to create that matrix so they could become crispier.

TM: But we've got some other techniques that we will get into, and we will remind you and maybe evolve from ours. A couple of approaches there: are we frying in lard on a comal, or are we double-frying in a Dutch oven where we're controlling the temperature? Are you letting people garnish themselves, or do you have a specific build? I'm interested to hear your take on that one. And what makes the sauce the Baja fish taco? We will get a lot closer to finding out very soon, but before we do, let's take a quick break.

TM: All right, Sother, we're back. Time for the non-negotiables. But before we dive into them, we did not answer: is it originally a prince's or a pauper's dish?

ST: I think the stories that you told dictate pretty outright that this was a dish of the people. This is a pauper's dish. This is the guys and ladies working the boats and bringing in the fishes, probably at the craziest of hours in the morning, and this was sustenance food. Again, a simple list that we're about to go over on the non-negotiables. Pretty simply prepared. This is a pauper's dish that has been elevated over and over and over.

TM: There are certain dishes, I was gonna say cuisines, I think that's too broad and not fair, there are certain dishes that I have absolutely no interest in trying the fine dining interpretation of, and tacos is one of them. I've had very expensive tacos here in New York when someone else was picking up the check, and enjoyed it, but it's not something I wanna be precious about. It's something I want to fill my soul as much as my stomach.

ST: It's finger food. That alone makes it a little less formal. And there's an opportunity for it to be a bit messy. Similarly, I'm not looking for the fine dining version of pizza. This is food for the people. We can elevate aspects of it, but we don't have to exalt it.

TM: I like when people with fine dining backgrounds turn their attention to things like this, but not in a fine dining setting, if that makes sense. Another one I'll put up there is curry. Leave it alone. And we can't wait to get into curry. Don't know where the booze comes into that one. Maybe that's a drinking with food episode. Sother, non-negotiables, hit me with your number one.

ST: Fish. Gotta have some nice, fresh, firm fish. I didn't realize that shark seemed to keep coming up as the original, so let's find some shark.

TM: What was interesting, too, looking into it, this was more shark in general, that it was more native to the Gulf of Mexico, the complete other coast. But angelshark continues to be the one in Ensenada, apparently. And then pollock or cod up north. And then the other one I was gonna mention: mahi-mahi. That's a pretty new fish for me. Don't think I've had too much experience with it.

ST: Oh, it's beautiful. We used to catch them in the Gulf of Mexico where I grew up. Firm, semi-oily, white-ish, darker than white. It's not as white as a cod or a pollock, nor as flaky, so it's a little bit more meaty. That's where that oily part comes in. Really long, beautiful filets. Really fun fish to catch. They've got a domed head and a really long, sleek body, and they swim real fast and real strong. Delicious, sweet meat. It's not like an amberjack. It's certainly not anything close to a mackerel, king mackerel, which we caught all the time in the Gulf of Mexico. It's a pretty clean, relatively sweet, but a little higher oil content firm whitefish.

TM: And I think pretty sustainable as well. They grow quite fast and quite large. So those are the options. I think some of the non-negotiables when it comes to that as well: cut into finger-strip sizes, as you mentioned. And make sure you're pin-boning or removing all bones as well, please.

ST: They grow fast and in numbers, and they can get very, very big. Once we go to the effort of batter-frying a fish, we wanna make sure that we're as boneless as possible, because it's now inside of a shell that you've created, so there's no way to pick around it once it's on the plate for eating.

TM: Yeah, that's an easy surefire way to ruin an otherwise delicious bite. First one from me, then. It's gonna have to be the corn tortilla.

ST: Yes, that was my next one as well. I think it is as important as the fish on this one. In fact, I think we could truly break it down and stop here. Fried fish and corn tortillas.

TM: I think, well, that's obviously gonna be our third one. I think the remaining ones that I have on my list are, in my mind, what makes it the Baja fish taco.

ST: And that's what we're doing. But I do think that I would be pretty happy if I got some fried fish on a corn tortilla that was warm and freshly made. I'm good to go. But I want all those other things.

TM: I would be a little bit disappointed if there's no sauce of some variety. Well, there we go, then. That's the third one, right? It's deep-fried. There's a batter, and we're saying booze is a non-negotiable. Beer, in the batter. And then we'll put a pin in that, and we'll discuss further batter a little bit later.

ST: But I still have some non-negotiables. Again, I'm just saying, we could really strip it down and that's where it would be. We need that fresh, crunchy cabbage, which we can either dress or not dress. I've been to many places where they don't dress it because it relies on whatever salsa or sauce you're putting on. And I've been to many places that dress it on its own as well.

TM: I was gonna say, if I'm on autopilot, I'm going salt and lime as standard. But you're saying you could even just go fully dry, just shredded, that's it? Interesting. Okay. Well, the cabbage is the non-negotiable. What you do with it after is your call. Next one for me, this is the San Diego codification, the white sauce. The crema. Mayonnaise, sour cream, thinned either with a little water or a little milk, sometimes tinted with chipotle. I like the Tabasco chipotle. Just a couple of drops of that in there, too. This is the one element I think San Diego kind of made mandatory. So in honor of that dual origins, I'm saying it's a non-negotiable. Next one for you.

ST: I've only got two left. I'm gonna go with fresh cilantro. I need it. I know it's a problem for a lot of people who have that gene or whatever, but I don't have that and I need it. I think I have the opposite gene. Not only do I not have a problem with cilantro, I love it. I'll make a salad out of just cilantro leaves. I love it.

TM: It is the herb that I prepare most at home. I'm more doing dressings and sauces and stuff with it than cooking with it.

ST: Although I recently found, I think through some of our studies, that much of what is the problem for people who have that gene, to make them taste cilantro as soap, is eradicated if it's cooked. So if you're making your roasted tomatillo salsa verde, if you get your cilantro in there while it's still hot and you're processing it, it'll cook that part out, so then you can say, "Oh, I enjoy this dish and this flavor," but that part is gone. I'm gonna try and test it on Natalie. She can't do it.

TM: I thought you were gonna say that those people who suffer from that get more enjoyment out of something else. So you lose out on this, but this becomes even better. Maybe there is.

ST: That probably exists somewhere. She loves mint chocolate ice cream, which I can't stand.

TM: So you're saying cilantro, and you said you only had two more, so what was your other one?

ST: I thought you'd hit it. Salsa. Some kind of pico-style salsa. And correct me if I'm wrong, again, my Spanish is busted, but pico de gallo is beak of the rooster, and it's because when you're grabbing a chip and dipping, your hand looks like the beak of a rooster. Why is English so boring?

TM: And then the salsa bandera being the other name. Do you know what that means? Flag. So you got the red of your tomato, the white of your onions, the green of your serranos and/or cilantro. And my final non-negotiable would be in that salsa. I might be putting my cilantro in there, so I didn't have that, but I can see both approaches.

ST: Bandera is like a sash you wear, right? Flag. Sí. All the colors. Okay.

TM: I think you have to serve this with lime, no ifs, no buts.

ST: Okay, I'm on. It wasn't on my list, but I thought it was just gonna be there. But that's what this list is for. We talked about this on something else, I think it was on the shrimp episode. Where you were like, "There's gotta be a wedge of lemon there," and I was like, "I guess so, yeah."

TM: Like if it arrives at a restaurant and it's not on the plate, you're asking for it. And as you said, if the server doesn't bring you it.

ST: Right. I'm gonna ask the bartender, can I get a wedge of lemon?

TM: Some things that I don't want to see on there ever. Yellow cheese.

ST: Oh, okay. We have the opposite of the non-negotiables this time? Is there cheese at all in a Baja fish taco? I don't think so.

TM: I don't wanna see any, but there might be cotija out there on the table just because you're doing the tacos.

ST: Is that even anywhere close to Baja? That's in Michoacán, right?

TM: What I'm saying is, say you're doing a taco evening or a Mexican-themed evening. It's gonna be around. I'm not kicking anyone out of my house for putting that on their fish taco, but let's do no yellow cheese, please. And no iceberg lettuce either.

ST: No. Which does have its place in the taco world, just not on this taco. This taco needs that crispy cabbage to stand up to the piping hot, steaming-inside fried fish situation, so it won't wilt.

TM: So, okay, now this is a great point to address, and I'm curious to get your take. We've just listed all of the things that are gonna be in this one bite, this small single-serving piece. What order are you building them in?

ST: That's gonna be important as well. I'm gonna lay my tortilla down, two of them. You know what, I love that style because here's how I do it, and I may be completely doing it wrong, but this is the way I've always done it. I fold the top one up around the interior, and I pick it up and I eat it over the other one lying there, and a taco's this size, what, four bites maybe? So I'm eating those four bites, and whatever detritus falls lands on the other one, and then I have this second bonus taco.

TM: Well, this is the thing too. We mentioned it. You're always probably gonna put more on there than needs to be, so you're gonna get some of that cabbage falling out.

ST: Little cabbage, little drips of sauce and crema, little pieces of fish that break off as you're pinching and chewing. Double tortilla. Then I think I'm gonna put a spoon of the crema on the tortilla, lay my fish on top of that. On top of that, I'm gonna go with whatever salsa we come up with, and then the cabbage and the herbs on top of that. So from top down: cilantro, cabbage, salsa, fish, crema, tortilla. Second tortilla.

TM: The question for me was always, okay, if you're going for the gold standard, you're trying not to disrupt the integrity of the tortilla with a sauce or with the hot taco. You're trying to maintain the crisp of the taco. So I was trying to get too much in my mind, being like, what is the perfect build? And these things you're eating so soon after cooking them, and it's four bites. There's really not too much of an issue there. I think I would say, if I was doing a single tortilla, then I might go with the cabbage first, and the cabbage is the buffer between the tortilla and the taco, and then I'll go sauces on top of that.

ST: Do you have a tortilla press, Tim, in your home? Because I do make corn tortillas at my house relatively frequently, and I roll them out, and I know for a fact I would make them more if I had a press. So I looked it up for the listener and for you.

TM: I do not. I really want one.

ST: Webstaurant, which is a place I shop because of the restaurants and the bars, sells a tortilla press that's seven and a half inch, which is plenty big enough for this size of tortilla, 17 bucks. So I'm getting us one. For sure, I'm getting us one.

TM: Nice. And you know what, 'cause I know you're pretty strict when it comes to you don't want anything that only serves one purpose in your kitchen.

ST: That's exactly what I was gonna say. Or especially if you're sticking in the fish realm, making beautiful raw stuff for ceviche, things like that. Tuna carpaccio. Beautiful.

TM: So I'm sure everyone's seen those videos on Instagram, as we all have too. It's a lot of fun. So making the corn tortillas. Little bit of science, then you give us some technique. Nixtamalization. This process is what determines what is a real corn tortilla versus just ground corn.

ST: Are you gonna talk about the word I can't pronounce? Nixtamalization. Yes. I got it.

TM: Roughly, we believe, three and a half thousand years old, developed in Mesoamerica. Dried corn is simmered and then steeped for eight to 12 hours in water that has been mixed with calcium hydroxide, otherwise known as slaked lime, known as cal in Spanish, creating an alkaline bath with a pH of around 11 to 12. The treated corn is nixtamal. It is ground and mixed to become masa. Why this matters, what it achieves: raw ground corn will not form a cohesive dough. It'll crumble. Not that this is the most glutenous thing in the world, but the calcium acts as a kind of cross-linker between the proteins and starches in the corn. It's what turns it into a masa, a dough. The alkali also frees up something called niacin, vitamin B3, that is otherwise unavailable in corn. The lime adds calcium, and apparently cultures that adopted corn without nixtamalizing it got pellagra, and the ones that used lime did not. So there are health benefits to this, preventative benefits, but also finally just the flavor and the smell. That vitamin B3, it's a deficiency of vitamin B3. It's a nutritional disease, famously characterized by four Ds: dermatitis, diarrhea, dementia, and eventually death.

ST: Wow. So cultures that centered around corn that didn't nixtamalize denied themselves access to vitamin B3, and it caused pellagra, which could do all this to you. Wow. Which then always makes me go back to, you said 3,000 years ago. They didn't know what they were doing. They're just soaking the corn in this liquid, and we don't know what happened, but it happened.

TM: I have considered this. I've sat there watching videos on YouTube of Mexican communities making these traditionally massive vats of stuff, and considered exactly the same thing. How did we come up with this as human beings?

ST: Like how did that happen? That's for our next show. Well, my understanding of nixtamalization is that it's gelatinizing the starches to release soluble proteins, which create a sticky, pliable dough that can be shaped into tortillas without crumbling, and that's how you get your tortilla that's foldable.

TM: One of the things, describe making it as well, 'cause the texture doesn't feel right. If you're used to making bread, it's not that smooth. It's flaky.

ST: The easiest example that I can give you, and I don't know if you had this as a kid where you grew up, Play-Doh. The texture of dough for making corn tortillas feels like Play-Doh. If you made a ball of it and you put your thumb into it, it would leave an indent, but it would sort of slowly bounce back a little, but not really. But luckily we have a great product on the market that's easy to make corn tortillas with: Maseca. Which literally all you have to add to this is water. You can get away with it, but I recommend you add a little bit of salt. But that's it. Three ingredients, and you can have corn tortillas in 30 minutes. So much more rewarding. And not for nothing, do yourself a favor, listener. Go out and get a bag of Maseca, and go ahead and buy those corn tortillas that you normally buy, even if they're from kind of a local shop. There's a shop here in Brooklyn that makes them, and you can go there and pick them up still even warm, and that would be the closest thing. But even when you get them in the bag they're in at the grocery store, it's been there for a couple days, who knows? So go and get a bag of Maseca. All you need is water and salt. Make these on the side. Try them side by side. You'll be blown away. And knowing that it's less than a 30-minute process, why are you not making your own corn tortillas?

TM: And knowing that you're partaking in something that we've been doing for three and a half thousand years.

ST: 3,000 years, apparently. And that also makes you understand why tortillas are so commonplace and so abundant. It's because they are pretty easy to make once you have the things. In every little town in Mexico that I've been to, they either have a tortillería where you go pick it up, or they have a place where you go pick up the nixtamalized corn and go home and make them yourself.

TM: Right. Totally. I think that's the part that I don't wanna be dealing with, and grinding it by hand traditionally either.

ST: Yeah, 'cause you gotta get rid of the husk. It's an insoluble fiber that we can't digest in the first place, but also it doesn't homogenize into the dough.

TM: So one of those things, and maybe the final thing when it comes to making your own, it's gonna impress people.

ST: And again, you're gonna be like the hero, and people are gonna be like, "Oh my God, he makes his own corn tortillas." And you're gonna be like, "Yeah, this cost me 30 minutes, and 28 of those minutes were passive." It was two minutes of work. I'll run it down for you real fast just so you have it. Two cups or 240 grams of Maseca against one and a half cups or 355 milliliters of warm water, it takes warm water by the way, to a half teaspoon of salt. That's it. Fold those things together till they look like Play-Doh, let it rest for about 30 minutes, and then ball it into about golf ball sizes and roll them out flat or press them in your tortilla press, and put them on a hot surface. No oil, no nothing, just get them on your comal, AKA your cast iron pan, for 30 seconds on each side, and you've got these beautiful warm corn tortillas. Stack them in a pile wrapped in a tea towel as you make them. They'll stay warm in there by themselves. That's it.

TM: Beautiful. So another big one for us today, a theme. Let's talk about the booze in the dish. We've got beer in our batter for sure. A couple of reminders, especially for those who haven't listened to our Fish and Chips episode, but it would make a great accompaniment to this one, or a great sequel if you haven't listened to that one already. You want your beer and your liquid components as cold as possible. We opted for vodka for that, because it just helped all aspects of the process, but especially getting that shatteringly crisp crust. So all I was gonna say for this, beyond the other ingredients that we've discussed, flour, maybe a bit of cornstarch, maybe the mustard powder, if we're going for a spiritous alcohol.

ST: Oh yeah, it's Tequila. Or even Mezcal. Why not? Keep it in the freezer so it's nice and cold. Keep your beer as cold as possible as well, obviously not in the freezer, it'll freeze. You could even go another step. We talked about it a little bit on the Fish and Chips episode, where we keep all of the dry components cold as well. Just get it in a bowl and get it in the fridge while you're doing other prep work. And when it's time to make the batter, everything's as cold as possible. That's gonna ensure you the most, as you just said, shatteringly crisp crust.

TM: And if you are able to make it the day before as well and let it rest and hydrate, that's gonna be even better. And as I've heard you say a few times on this show too, mix it until combined like a pancake batter. Do not overwork it. Don't try and work out the bumps. Bumps are your friends. And beyond that, have at it. Any other areas in this dish where you're like, "I might wanna bring booze into this"? Because obviously we have the batter, but I wanna try and go one more for our listeners here, considering we have done a batter before.

ST: I was gonna talk about some negotiables. I think I wanna have something on the side, not necessarily a side dish for this, but just an item that can be an accoutrement that's not necessarily in the taco. And that, for me, is gonna be some form of pickle. So let's pickle some jalapeños and red onions, and even maybe some garlic cloves, and let's make a brine. And in that brine, I was gonna suggest, 'cause I knew where you were going with the batter, Tequila, I thought that's where you were going, but then you said Mezcal, I was gonna suggest using Mezcal in the pickle. So we have vinegar, sugar, salt, pickling spices, jalapeños, red onions, garlic cloves, Mezcal.

TM: And I would say as well that this is the one component where you could argue some folks might try and bundle that into the non-negotiables, the pickled red onions, right? Those bright pink ones that come out. I think they've become so common with tacos that some people will be like, "Where's my onions?" But certainly not traditional.

ST: Right, I would think so. And then another one, a clear and obvious one, especially for me, again using Mezcal, I make a hot sauce. I make two hot sauces that use Mezcal. And hot sauces are very easy to make. They're not so easy to make on a grand scale, but they're very easy to make for your home use. So make yourself a hot sauce of some kind using whatever peppers you enjoy, whatever sort of vinegar acid that you enjoy, maybe a fruit that you like. Mine particularly is habanero pineapple Mezcal. Pretty straightforward. But you can go in there with anything you want. Get that buzzed up, and then you can just drizzle in a little Mezcal at the end, so it doesn't go through any cooking process, so you get a real burst of aroma and a little bit of flavor off of it too.

TM: I was gonna suggest as well, and I thought you might be going down this route earlier, I wouldn't say it's a side dish because it needs other things for it to be consumed, but a classic tomatillo salsa, a green salsa. What I love about it is it's so simple. You're getting on a sheet pan your tomatillos, which, okay, they're kind of annoying to peel and they're sticky, but it's really not that hard. White onions, some chilies in there, and I really like to char those up. Garlic.

ST: A couple cloves of garlic. Throw them under the broiler, get them till they're blackened on some spots, roll them around one time, do it a little more. That's it. With a lot of cilantro.

TM: Get it in the blender. And also, those cilantro stalks that you're not using for your garnish, they're going in there. They give us a bunch of flavor and a bunch of color, too. People don't realize how useful those are. And at that point, while it's warm, I'm gonna incorporate a bit of Mezcal in there to marry with the smoke. That is something I generally do any time I make a tomatillo salsa.

ST: Me too. I've even posted that on my Instagram in the not too distant past. I almost always at my house have both a green and a red salsa in my fridge that I make pretty much the same way. Red tomatoes, dried peppers that I reconstitute, lots of cilantro, onion, garlic for the red one, and then what you just described for the green one, because I just love those things. I have to have them. They're just around my apartment all the time.

TM: Love it. Well, Sother, those have been the non-negotiables. It's been some science for us there, and additional ways to work booze into the dish. We're gonna take another quick break now, then we'll be back with the preparation. You know what we're not gonna share in the preparation, though? Quantities of ingredients. Because it's not a fun conversation. I don't enjoy it, like, listening. I don't wanna take notes. I don't wanna interrupt what I'm doing. I like to think of podcasts as what my ears are doing while my eyes are doing something else. Might be cooking, might be driving. I don't wanna be taking notes. So for those folks who do want the Sauced Baja fish tacos recipe, and every recipe we've ever done on this podcast, you can become a premium subscriber, seven bucks a month, 70 for the year. And you get a bunch of other perks as well, folks. But you'll get those recipe cards in your inbox every week. And yeah, seen a lot of people subscribing recently. So thanks to all our new subscribers and friends, we see you. We appreciate you. All right, Sother, we're back. I'm gonna ask you to handle today's preparation.

ST: Ooh, I'm in. All right, we're gonna make our batter first. Again, hopefully maybe we made it yesterday. And again, we'll give you all those specs in our recipe cards, but it's gonna be flour, cornstarch, lager beer. I think we're going with Mezcal, keep that in the freezer. Mustard. I think it needs to be actual mustard, yellow mustard, because I want that vinegar notion in there as well. If you've got that vinegar powder that we talked about before still hanging around in your house, and some dry mustard powder, use those instead. But it needs that little bit of tang, and it's gonna bring a little golden-yellow hue to the final product. So get that one done. Then it's time to make your tortillas, or at least the dough. You can cook the tortillas literally nearly to order. So let's make that dough that I just described a minute ago with Maseca, water, and salt. That's all it takes to get it to a Play-Doh consistency. Let it rest for 20 minutes so it hydrates. Roll it out into little ping pong ball-sized balls, and press it with your tortilla press. It's 17 bucks. You can get one. Or roll them out with a rolling pin or a bottle, an empty wine bottle or whatever you got.

TM: Question for you. When I see people making these, they always have little layers of plastic that they stack them with.

ST: The most common technique is not for stacking them necessarily. They won't stick together. The most common technique, I think, is to take a zip-top bag and cut off three of the sides, so now you've got this sort of hinged situation. And you lay that on your tortilla press or your board if you're rolling them out. You put the ball of dough down, you fold it over. It's just like when you're pounding out a piece of food to make a cutlet.

TM: But I've seen people stacking them on those, so then when it comes to cooking, you're just taking the top layer off and slapping it on the grill and peeling the plastic back, and they're just layering on top of each other.

ST: I have never had that issue, but I also make them in a batch of like 20, so maybe I'm moving fast enough that there's no issue.

TM: Or you're probably doing both things at once, whereas other people are maybe being like, "Okay, I'm gonna make a bunch of these."

ST: I don't think you need that, but certainly something to consider, and they sell deli papers that are cut to size or whatever. Just grab some of those. Okay, so now you got your dough made and you're ready to press them out using the technique we just described with the zip-top bag or a couple sheets of plastic. And then now let's get that fish cut into those finger sizes. Again, a little bit smaller than you think you're gonna need, because they're gonna be bigger, because they're gonna be wrapped in batter, and the batter's gonna puff some, and that's ideal. We want that. That's gonna give us some airy, light, crisp situation. You've got your oil cranked up to around 350, and that oil is something pretty neutral. I like peanut oil, but I understand that there are people who have a problem with that. So now we're gonna dip the fish into the batter before then gently lowering it down into the oil so it doesn't fly apart, until they're golden and crispy and starting to float. And you can roll them around so they're browned all over, 'cause they'll have a part that's floating above. It's like donuts. You'll get that little yellow line all the way around the edge if you don't ever roll them over. Then we've already made our crema we talked about before, mayonnaise, sour cream, a bit of milk or even water to thin it out, and then let's buzz in some adobo. The pasty part that's all around your chipotle peppers. And by the way, I only recently and on accident realized that they sell that on its own. You can just buy a can of adobo. I went to grab a can of chipotles, and I got home and I was like, "Wait, there's none in here." Then I looked at the label and I was like, "Oh." I thought I got a mistake can. So you're just gonna measure with your heart on this thing. Spoon in enough to make it the right color and taste as you taste it, and maybe a squeeze of lime in there too. So now you got that made. You got your tortillas in process. You got your fish frying. You've got your cabbage that has been shredded as thinly as possible, really fine, thinner than angel hair, that's been dressed with a bit of just lime juice and salt for maybe 10 minutes. That way it's begun to wilt but is still super crispy and fresh. And then it's time for assembly. Slapping your tortillas down on a cast iron pan or a comal if you have one, 30 seconds or so on each side until they're pliable but cooked. Two tortillas down, bit of crema down, piece of fish right out of that oil. And when it comes out of that oil, of course we're gonna salt it. On top of that we're going, oh, I skipped our pico de gallo. Making a quick pico de gallo. Or what's the new one I just learned? Bandera. I like that better. But again, I still argue that English is boring compared to other languages. So your salsa of the flag, which means it's got your red, green, and white, which is gonna be tomato, cilantro, and onion. And of course the pepper. Okay, so there we go. Now it's assembly time. Two tortillas down, crema down on that for me, fish on top of that, salsa on top of that, cabbage on top of that, couple of leaves of cilantro. Beautiful. We're out.

TM: Nice. Might switch a few of the orders for myself, but the build, yeah. I think I might go crema, fish, then cabbage, then sauce, then cilantro, because I wanna get flavor with my first bite, and if the cabbage is the thing at the top of it.

ST: For the build or for the process? You said cabbage down.

TM: Cabbage doesn't have a bunch of flavor, especially when it's raw. And I probably would opt to dress it, once I've sliced it real thin, bit of salt, bit of lime. Nothing too crazy. Cool. Well, that has been the preparation. Those have been some stunning-sounding Baja fish tacos. Sother, it's time for us to take our final break of the day, and then we're gonna be back with the booze.

TM: All right, Sother, we're back.

ST: It's time for my favorite segment of the show.

TM: Time to drink with food. The pairings. You know what goes great with chips and guac? Tacos and ice-cold Mexican lager. Breaking ground again.

ST: Tacos. I mean, obvious no-brainer. I'm reaching for the crispest, coldest Pacífico. Victoria is a great Mexican beer that I like. Let's get a cold, frosty beer.

TM: One of the things I will say, when it comes to the craft beer movement, increasingly, and it's not a new thing, but increasingly as hazy IPA fatigue creeps in, I'm seeing a lot more craft breweries giving some attention to lagers, but stylizing it and saying, "We're doing a Mexican-style lager or an Italian-style lager," or pilsner. That's awesome, because I want them to be giving the props, but also, there's a time and a place for an ice-cold Modelo or Victoria, like you say. But I think we like supporting local and smaller here. And it is true that craft delivers so much more flavor than macro on all fronts. So check out your local craft brewery, see if they make a Mexican-style lager. Fill the cooler.

ST: There's a few. There's even Athletic, that makes all the NA beers. They make a Mexican-style lager that's really good.

TM: I love getting a couple of NA beers in the cooler as well when I'm grilling or when I'm outdoors, just to pace myself throughout the day. Otherwise, wine, any thoughts? Verdejo came up again recently. Seafood, light, crisp, fruity, coastal. Acidic.

ST: Acidic.

TM: Delicious.

ST: You want a list of cocktails?

TM: I've got a cocktail for us here today, but I'm sure you've come armed with a cocktail.

ST: I am. But I just wanna also list some commons that are out there. Obviously, we're having a Margarita. Maybe even the bulldog. Is that what it's called? The one where you get the pony of any Mexican lager and tip it upside down into your Margarita, if it's specifically Corona, but I think the technique is called bulldog, right? You make your Margarita in a huge glass, and you have that tiny pony bottle of beer that you turn upside down in there, and through capillary action, it glugs down into your drink as you're drinking it. The thing that holds the bottle there, is the device called the bulldog maybe?

TM: I once tried to do a deep dive on it and tried to get hold of them, 'cause I thought it might make a fun story, but could never connect with them. But yeah, there's a specific patent for that. And even if you're not using Corona, it's not the number one selling Mexican beer in America anymore, but for the most part it was the thing that seeded Mexican beer in Americans' minds.

ST: So a Margarita, the Coronita, whatever we're gonna call it, the Paloma, delicious, grapefruit soda, Tequila, very quenching, very refreshing. Ranch water. Just Tequila seltzer with some lime.

TM: The pigeon. No, dove or pigeon? Ooh, I think Texas would maybe raise an eyebrow at that.

ST: Well, Tequila, Topo Chico, and lime. That's the traditional one, right? And then the Batanga. Do you know this one? There's some internet guys who made this drink go nuts last year. It's Jalisco, 'cause I've been there, and I'm struggling now to even think of the name of the place.

TM: Let's skip past them and let's go to the people who actually made it. There's a guy in Jalisco. I forget the name of the place, but the man was, or continues to be, famous. The story is still famous for the individual who created it, and he had this specific knife. But it's Coca-Cola, Tequila, lime.

ST: In a heavily salted rimmed glass, tall over ice. Delicious and refreshing.

TM: It is to Tequila what the Cuba Libre is to rum. I'm sad that neither of us can remember his name.

ST: I'm sad that I just audibled it, 'cause it's not on my list and I was like, "Oh yeah, the Batanga. I kind of forgot about it."

TM: So I guess my thing was, you were mentioning a bunch of people who made it famous recently. They didn't do a very good job of telling the full story if neither of us are sat here remembering the person's name.

ST: True that. And I've even been there, which is even crazier.

TM: But look, great drink, and anything to sell more booze and to highlight regional stuff, amazing.

ST: And then you have a cocktail that you created for us. I have one as well. We can go head-to-head.

TM: I do. This is not what you're gonna be expecting from me, I don't think.

ST: I don't think mine's gonna be what you're expecting from me either, to be honest. This is a little bit of left field for what you think of me, I think. We'll see. Let's go.

TM: Likewise. So obviously one of the great modern agave spirits cocktails is the Oaxaca Old Fashioned. For those who are not familiar with it, it was created by a bartender called Phil Ward in 2007 while he was working at Death & Co., Phil being the opening head bartender of that place, I believe. He swapped out whiskey for a split base of reposado Tequila and Mezcal, and he swapped the sugar component of the Old Fashioned for agave syrup, agave nectar, finished with Angostura and a flamed orange twist, I wanna say. Obviously this helped popularize Mezcal and bring it somewhat into the mainstream in America, but also builds upon that thing called the Mr. Potato Head philosophy, where you can take the structure of a drink and start pulling out components, replacing them with something else, and thus the Old Fashioned transforms into a category of drinks rather than just a cocktail. So I thought the Baja Old Fashioned is the one that I wanna say today, or Baja-inspired. Some people have given Phil a hard time because he's not from Oaxaca and he's calling that drink that. I think it was a nod to anything. Anyway, Baja-inspired. So I just happened to be looking for something in one of my cabinets upstairs, and was reminded that I have this bottle of fish sauce that was aged in bourbon barrels. It's this company called BLIS, and they specialize in a range of different maple syrups and bourbon-barrel-aged products. I was writing a story about them during the pandemic. They sent me a bunch of their stuff and I got to try it, really tasty. I was shocked to discover a fish sauce rested in bourbon barrels, but I was reliably informed that when they brought this thing out, and they really do cater to bartenders and trying to be part of the drinks conversation as well as food, they were doing shots of this thing at festivals. It's non-alcoholic, obviously, it's just fish sauce, and people are doing shots of it. It is delicious, and it's sweet, and it's intense, and it's umami. So I was like, "Well, what if we could incorporate a bit of that and a bit of their maple syrup into an Old Fashioned?" So I thought one and a half ounces of aged Tequila, can be añejo, can be reposado, whatever you want. Probably go añejo 'cause we're bringing maple in. Half an ounce of Mezcal, joven, one teaspoon or one bar spoon of maple syrup from these guys if you want, if you have access to it, and then three to five drops, from like a saline dropper, of this fish sauce, and stir it over ice, with two dashes of Ango, served with a big rock, and we'll keep it classic with an orange twist. The Baja Old Fashioned.

ST: I'm very intrigued by the notion of the three eye drops of the fish sauce. This is a unique way to bring saline. Many a bartender, including myself, has a saline solution behind the bar. A couple of drops will help a lot of different cocktails pop, and I think this is doing the same function, but it's also bringing another layer of umami and kind of funk.

TM: So saline is to salt for your cocktail what simple syrup is to sweetness. Saline is salt and water. You're getting salt but no flavor. Simple syrup, you're getting sweetness but no flavor. So what we're doing in effect here is like we're doing a Demerara syrup, we're introducing flavor plus the desired effect, salinity. I thought you might like that one, but when do you ever see me making Old Fashioneds?

ST: You went out of your box. You got a name for this? The Baja-inspired Old Fashioned.

TM: The Baja Old Fashioned. The "inspired" is for the listeners, but for cleanliness.

ST: Now, the listener can easily just use whatever fish sauce they have on hand, right? We don't have to get this one, but that'd be nice, certainly. And I'm sure that there's a layer of added complexity, but this can be made with the fish sauce that you have in your apartment right now.

TM: I would exercise some caution when it comes to if you're using just regular fish sauce. This thing is delicious, and it tones down the funk and brings in other qualities. That's why I'm like, you can stretch it that far, whereas traditional fish sauce, yeah.

ST: But I could see it getting my toes in, and then I'd be like, "Well, maybe I need to order this stuff."

TM: So tell me, how are you going outside of your box?

ST: You know, I think oftentimes when we talk about the dishes that we're doing here on the show, I have a weird vision of where I'm at when I'm eating it, and I think I'm probably near the coast and I'm probably near, if not entirely outside, in the sun. So I think for me, I'm gonna make this drink here. I'm gonna get some hibiscus syrup, which is just hibiscus flowers in a simple syrup. And by the way, don't ditch those. Get your dried hibiscus flowers and make a simple syrup using them, and then those are edible. You can use them as a garnish, or you can crisp them up. Not a pan, sorry, in the air fryer, they're really delicious. Anyway, I'm gonna make a hibiscus syrup. I'm gonna use three-quarters of an ounce of that. This is a little bit tough if you're just making one, but if you're having a party, this is worth your time. I do a citrus blend of equal parts of lemon, lime, orange, and grapefruit. That is just a nod to my own personal youth and growing up. We had one of each of those trees in my yard when I was a kid, and that was a common thing that we would just make around my house. But equal parts. So one ounce of that. I'm gonna go with three-quarters of an ounce of orgeat, but I'm making this orgeat out of pepitas to keep it sort of grounded in the cuisine. Same steps involved in making orgeat, just using pepitas instead of almonds. And then I'm gonna go with an añejo, which I think is reaching for me, given the build of this sounding a little bit sweet and floral and nutty. And then I'm gonna either swizzle this or whip shake it and pile it full of pebble ice. And then I'm gonna use a couple of those pumpkin seeds that I saved and maybe one of those hibiscus flowers that I saved to put on top as a garnish. And I call this guy Panic at Hibisco. I usually let you name them, but this is one from my pocket. This used to be on the menu at a place that I used to have.

TM: What I love about that as well, and I haven't been to this place, I'm sure you have, one of the places that people say is kind of transformative as a bar in Mexico, is it in Jalisco or Guadalajara? What is the bar? It's an agave bar. Pare de Sufrir. Again, I've never been, but every bartender, when I had a show called Cocktail College, we would ask guests five questions at the end, like, "If you could only drink at one last bar in your life, what would it be?" Those that were very agave-focused, everyone's like, "I'm going to Mexico and I'm going to Pare de Sufrir," which means stop suffering. Stop the suffering. So I was curious. We'll need to get down there ourselves. So, Sother, let's stop the listeners suffering right now. No, that's tongue in cheek, but I will say this: what is someone missing out on if they never make this dish, or if they never try the authentic version at least once in their life?

ST: I think that Baja fish tacos are gonna teach you some of the techniques that we talked about. They're gonna teach you dough making and creation of tortillas. They're gonna teach you knife skills for making your salsa, pico de gallo. And of course making the batter and frying the fish. But I think what you're really gonna take away here is the ability to cook with restraint, to eat with restraint. We're cooking with abandon. We're really going at it on these cooking techniques. But the eating is restrained in the way that you're gonna build this thing and the way you're gonna eat it. Like we said, few and small amounts of ingredients that have impact and flavor so that you can pick them up and eat them. Yeah, I think that's what you're gonna get here. You're gonna get lessons in restraint.

TM: Especially when it comes to putting together those bites. You mentioned having a very visual sense of exactly where you are when you're eating this. You can envision it. Today, as we're recording, is a Tuesday. Some folks might say the perfect day for tacos.

ST: It's Taco Tuesday. I didn't even think of that.

TM: It's Taco Tuesday. However, we might not have been able to say that officially.

ST: Oh, no. Is this like the big game? Does someone own the phrase Taco Tuesday?

TM: So for decades, the Wyoming chain Taco John's held a federal trademark on the term Taco Tuesday in 49 different states. New Jersey was the lone holdout, 'cause I know you were wondering. They tried to enforce this. In May 2023, Taco Bell filed a petition to cancel the trademark, arguing that nobody should own such a common phrase. And LeBron James, the basketball player, went through a big phase on Instagram where he would do Taco Tuesday, and he really got into it. He joined the fight, but only because in 2019, he himself tried to trademark the term Taco Tuesday. He was denied by the trademark office because it was a commonplace term. So he joins forces with Taco Bell and says, "Taco Tuesday is a tradition that everyone should be able to celebrate," which I find slightly ironic coming from a man who also decided to try and trademark it, so no one can have it, and that's unfair. That seems a little bit disingenuous to me. However, on July 18th, 2023, Taco John's gave up the name rather than fight, and Taco Tuesday is free for everyone to enjoy and to say on podcasts.

ST: It sounds like, I didn't get it, so no one can have it, 2023. This is recent history, man. I had no idea. The Porco fun fact, the Porco litigation fact of the week.

TM: Poor Coach is working his way through law school. So yeah, that was my final tidbit.

ST: Well, I just got a message from Maurice. And Maurice says, "Why can't you remember that it's called La Capilla de Don Javier? Javier Delgado Corona is the owner of La Capilla, where the Batanga was created." Thank you, Maurice, for calling in. Oui, chef.

TM: Nice. Thank you, Maurice. And given that I mentioned Cocktail College over there, I believe the episode where we covered the Batanga and go into much more detail on it and the origin is right there, and there's definitely a knife involved, and that's all I can remember. Knives and limes and Cokes.

ST: The whole deal is, he used a specific knife to slice the limes that he was squeezing into your drink, but then he would just use that knife to then stir the drink. And that kind of became the visual of this drink. There's a lot of drinks that have an iconic look, like the Martini glass, and there was a visual attached to this drink, and it was this gentleman stirring your drink with a knife. And then the lore started, like, well, there's still lime juice on the knife, and you're getting all the juice and all these things. Doesn't really matter. But it's a heavily salted rim, Tequila, Coca-Cola, lime juice, and it's shockingly delicious, to be honest.

TM: I wouldn't be too surprised if there's also part of the story where people are like, "And you know he never washes the knife, so 15 years' worth of lime juice buildup caked on there."

ST: Yeah. It used to be a sword. The acid's just eating it. It's getting smaller with every decade.

TM: Oh, fantastic. Well, Sother, it is Tuesday. So I gotta go out there and get myself some tacos, but before I can, time to put on the apron.

ST: Break out the shaker and the knife.

TM: And let's get frying.

ST: And drinking.

TM: Cheers.

ST: Cheers, buddy.