Hi, I'm the gringo.
I've slowly been learning to cook and I'm trying to broaden my horizons. I'm in Southern California and surrounded by good Mexican/South American and Asian food my whole life, and I'm trying to be better at making it myself.
I've got the really basic stuff down. Pico de gallo. A 7/10 guacamole that needs work. Using my slow cooker for ropa vieja. But I have to graduate from white boy tacos. I shamelessly love my basic seasoned ground beef tacos, I do.
But I need to do better, and I need help.
I'm off work at 4, I can get back from the grocery store by 5:15, and I want tacos ready for my wife tonight by about 7.
What I Have
- pre-diced and marinated carne asada
- corn tortillas that were fresh yesterday
- a huge cast iron skillet
What I Want
Toppings/suggestions for TONIGHT'S taco night
a salsa roja recipe for future taco nights
anyone's suggestions for carne asada (I'm totally fine to marinate myself) and how to prep/cook it if all I've got is a cast iron. I know the grill is just better, but don't have one.
anything else you've ever wanted to share with a gringo trying to have better taco nights (or any other kind of Mexican food night, I'm open to anything)
—–UPDATE (FROM AFTER TACO NIGHT)—–
GodDAMN, these were good tacos. Not stellar, but I'll take it for first try.
We kept it simple with the carne asada and topped with diced onion, cilantro, and my very first homemade salsa roja.
I already know what I'm going to do next time.
Going to buy a marinated steak cut and cook the whole thing, then slice it up myself to control the size of the strips for one. The flavor of the diced up asada I got was great but I want something thicker that I can really feel my teeth going into.
As one of you suggested, next time I'm going to try pickled red onion and some thin sliced cabbage.
I ended up not having enough time for the salsa recipe someone suggested, so I pivoted. I found this guy (and instantly loved his style, link below) so I made a restaurant style basic salsa roja. Blended together roma tomatos, cilantro, onion, Serranos, garlic, can of fire roasted diced tomato, and salt. I still have three cups of it left to eat with the rest of my chips and remaining tacos through the week and I am so happy. But next time I'm going to plan in advance so I can fire-roast some of those ingredients before I blend them, and maybe add one of those Chipotles in adobo he suggested. SALSA RECIPE
by Nitrostoat
14 Comments
[deleted]
As for toppings, minced white onion, cilantro, lime, and a salsa is all I ever want. I don’t think you can beat it.
For cooking the carne asada, you’re going to want to dry off that meat as much as possible. On a grill, the wet marinade can just drip off and burn away. But in a pan (or a plancha in my experience) the marinade has no where to go and will just boil in your pan and you’ll end up with beef boiled in a reduced marinade which tastes terrible (ask me how I know).
You want high heat – as ripping hot as possible. Work in batches. If you throw all of your cold meat on a small pan it’ll zap all of the heat out of your pan and you’ll end up just steaming your beef and not getting that nice sear. You’ll definitely want a good amount of oil in that pan too.
why are you using chat GPT to write this?
The thing that really leveled up our White People Taco Night was making cheesy beans. Take a can of refried beans and scoop them in an oven-safe dish. Cover with shredded cheese of choice (we love pepper jack). Bake in the oven at 350F until bubbly hot.
It’s not fancy but it’s an essential part of taco night now!
If you want to add some fresh veggies on the side, peel and slice a cucumber and some radishes
Check out Jonathan Zaragoza on YouTube. Dude is a real good teacher and his recipes are solid. Here’s his carne asada (3 options) and his salsa videos are good.
https://youtu.be/168ojhgSqyU?si=iz67_0mPngL6bb3P
If you aren’t using it already, salt will take your guac up a point or two.
Please don’t use flour tortillas or the hard shells, use corn and heat it up good.
Eh, ropa vieja is more of a Cuban dish than Mexican.
Anyways, the only thing to take in mind is that a taco is a way of eating, not a dish. You can make a taco out of anything, as long as you’re eating it inside a tortilla (whether it is a flour or corn, it doesn’t matter).
And another thing, hard shells aren’t tortillas, those are badly shapen tostadas, so those aren’t tacos
Learn how to cook good “picadillo” and put it in your taco shells, that would be an upgrade for the taco bell tacos you are used to cook, Here that hard shells are flat and called tostadas, and picadillo is a common dish to put on them.
It’s all about the salsa.
Stop referring to yourself in derogatory terms. Have some damn pride man. The rest of us don’t appreciate your ignorance.
So yesterday I had some leftover potatoes with chorizo and a small slice of pork belly I didn’t use for a recipe.
I poured some oil in a small pan, cubed the pork belly, fried it up, then threw in the leftovers (basically potato hash with the kind of chorizo that comes in a tube, it’s called chorizo para freír or frying chorizo).
Served it up on warmed tortillas with chopped white onion, cilantro, salsa, and lime. SOOOO good!
The point is, try very fatty pork in tacos. If it’s too heavy for you use some cubed potatoes to thin out the grease. These were super easy and the best home made tacos I’ve yet to achieve.
(My salsas are based on recipes from Cocina Jauja, for chile de árbol salsa, and Pati Jinich, for salsa ranchera.)
Simple, every-day salsa roja
4 Roma tomatoes
2-4 jalapeños
1 fat clove garlic
Piece of onion about twice the size of the garlic
Optional: Cilantro
Salt
-Put the jalapeños in a pot of water
-When it comes to a boil, add the tomatoes and boil, removing each tomato as the skin cracks
-Remove jalapeños when all tomatoes are done and cool completely (salsa will separate if you blend before cooling)
-Remove skins from tomatoes and cores if they are tough, cut off stems from jalapeños (do not remove seeds. If you want it less hot, use less jalapeños. But removing the seeds changes the flavor), cut both into chunks
-Blend tomatoes, jalapeños, garlic and onion
-If you like cilantro, after blending the salsa, add about a quarter bunch of cilantro to the blender, stems and all and pulse a few times.
-Add salt to taste, start with 1/2 teaspoon and go from there, a little at a time.
Buen provecho!