Taco de Discada

The dish takes its name from the concave metal disc, originally agricultural equipment, used as a broad outdoor cooking surface. Its shape lets rendered fat and juices collect toward the center while ingredients cook at different temperatures around the edge.

Recipes commonly combine beef, pork, bacon, sausage, and chorizo, although the mixture varies by cook and region. Onion, tomato, and peppers are often added after the meats begin browning.

Discada belongs broadly to the ranching and outdoor-cooking traditions of northern Mexico, with strong associations in both Chihuahua and Nuevo Leon. It is better treated as a regional family of preparations than as a recipe owned by one city.

Discada is a chopped mixture of several meats cooked together on a wide metal disc. Al pastor normally uses marinated pork stacked on a vertical trompo, a technique influenced by Lebanese shawarma.