Adobo Grilled Steak Tacos

You can buy Adobo from any market, but making your own isn't that difficult and more than worth doing. There is such a richness of flavor and it is a rather simple process.

Here is a taco recipe using a homemade Adobo and grilled skirt steak.

Adobo Grilled Steak Tacos
Serves 4

1 1/2 lb skirt steak
8 flour tortillas
1 large red onion, diced
1 bunch cilantro, chopped
1 avocado, thinly sliced
2 lemons, cut into quarters

Adobo
3 cascabel chiles
2 guajillo chiles
2 pasilla chiles
1/2 cup water
1 teaspoon cumin seeds
5 allspice berries
2 cloves
5 garlic cloves
1 inch stick cinnamon
8 black peppercorns

Prepare Adobo by wiping the chiles clean and seeding then roasting chiles for 7 minutes on each side in a toaster oven (or at 350 degree oven.) Place all Adobo ingredients into a blend and blend slowly into a paste. Add a 1 tsp of water at a time to get the right consistency if the 1/2 cup of water does not make it smooth enough.

Rub Adobo into skirt steak and let it marinate for 1 hour or overnight. Cook marinated skirt steak over high heat on a grill. About 10 minutes per side to desired doneness. Remove from grill and slice into small 1/2 inch pieces.

Fill flour tortillas with steak, onion, cilantro, and thin slices of avocado. Plate 2 tacos and include a quarter slice of lemon.

Slow-Cooked Achiote-Marinated Pulled Pork Tacos

Every cook has shelves and shelves of cookbooks, but most of them ever get opened more than once or twice. Then there are the cookbooks you can't live without. Roberto Santibanez, chef of the NYC restaurant Rosa Mexicano, wrote an excellent book Rosa's New Mexican Table.

I've tried a few recipes before and wanted to get deeper into the book now that I'm in Texas where there are tons of local Mexican grocery stores and amazing made that day tortillas.

So I tried what is essentially Mexico's version of pulled-pork. It's the Slow-Cooked Anchiote-Marinated Pork on page 102 (I wanted to post the full recipe but that's a copyright violation, so pardon my select ingredients that follow as they are more for me to remember what I need to buy at the grocery store in case I failed to check the book. One of the great side-effects of a food blog is that you can pull up the blog's recipes on a smartphone.)

The recipe calls for a 3 1/2 pound pork butt, 10-ounce package of fresh banana leaves, a couple of limes, anchiote paste, and several spices. The pork is marinated for a couple hours or over night. Once marinated the pork is wrapped in the banana leaves in a casserole dish and cooked for 2 1/2 hours.


Above is what it looks like before entering the oven and below is what it looks like after being unwrapped and pulled. Keep all the liquid from the pan as this will be used to coat the pork. Simply pull the pork and place it in the pan with the marinade juices from the oven. Stir and serve the pork with some sliced onions, cilantro and tortillas.


You can also add some hot sauce, but the tacos do not need it and you'll get more of the sour and hot flavor from the pork without adding more heat to the dish.

The shredded pork can also be used for burritos, quesadillas, or use it like BBQ pulled pork and make a sandwich. There should be plenty of leftovers to play around with.

A friend informed me this is also known as Cochinita Pibil.

Taco Truck Tacos... Simple and Great

When I lived in South Pasadena, California I used to stop by a taco truck in Pasadena along Fair Oaks Boulevard. It was a big yellow truck parked in an empty parking lot that sat there in the late hours of the night. We would usually get some tacos there around midnight, or later, after having some fun. The tacos were simple. They were like no taco I had ever had before. There was no shredded cheese. No shredded lettuce. No sour cream. All it was were small corn tortillas with diced onions, chopped cilantro, hot sauce, a slice of lime, and chopped beef (though you could order brains or intestines if you wanted, I was never so daring.)

I created a very similar taco at home. Here is the recipe. Hope you enjoy it. It's not exactly taco truck, but it is pretty damn close. Also, if you like a nice economical meal, it is a cheap dinner for the family that is quick and easy to make. Let me know what you think!

Taco Truck Tacos
Serves 4
Makes 12 tacos

1 1/4 lb ground beef
1 tablespoon cumin
salt and pepper to taste
1 red onion, finely diced
1 cilantro bunch, chopped
corn tortillas
vegetable oil for frying

3 limes
your favorite hot sauce

Heat the ground beef in a medium high pan. Add cumin and salt and pepper to taste the ground beef, continue to brown for about 5-8 minutes. Once cooked all the way turn heat down to lowest setting to keep warm. While the beef is cooking, chop the red onion and cilantro and mix the two together. Set aside.

Heat oil on medium-high in saute pan. Add enough oil, about a 1/2 inch, to dip corn tortillas into turning each side to cook 5 seconds on each side. Remove each tortilla quickly and set on paper towels. Continue until all tortillas are cooked (should be soft after cooking in oil, you don't want them crispy.)

Assemble tacos by placing spoonful of beef atop tortillas then spoon cilantro and red onion mixture over beef. Add some hot sauce and serve with sliced limes. Squeeze lime slices over tacos and enjoy.