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Beef taco recipes?

eteller

eteller

Addicted Member
Ok, I'm looking a close recipe to what you would find in an ordinary Mexican restaurant ground beef taco. I don't live in New Mexico, so what we have here is prolly not authentic, and for this I don't need anything fancy, just Sunday night taco feed for the family and kids. Just something better than the $.49 taco seasoning packets you find in the grocery store. What's ya'll got? I got ground beef and a pretty decent array of spices.
 
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The tacos I get at a small local mom and pop authentic mexican place uses corn tortillas, carne asada (steak), chopped cilantro, chopped onion, sliced avacado and a squeeze of fresh lime juice. Simple stuff and damn tasty.
 
I love Mexican food and fortunately my Mexican cooks over the years have invited me to many of their dinners and barbecue events. I've been able to taste "traditional" preparations of various dishes and compare it to many of the local Mexican eateries.

If you're going with beef, typically you'll use ground beef or skirt steak.

I prefer using skirt due to better flavor and texture.

If you go with ground beef, you'll want to season it. The below ingredients are typically what I use:

- Salt
- Black pepper
- Chili powder
- Garlic powder
- Cumin
- Mexican oregano
- Dried thyme
- Mexican adobo (you can find this in the supermarket or make your own)

You can also chop up some onions and a little bit of fresh garlic into the ground beef when cooking.

If you can't find adobo, here's a basic recipe:

- 3 oranges, juiced
- 1 lime, juiced
- 1T chipotle powder
- 1T tomato paste
- 3 fresh garlic
- 2t dried Mexican oregano
- 1/2t cumin
- 1/2t black pepper
- 2T white vinegar
- 1/2t salt

Throw all of the above into a blender or food processor and puree.

If you go with skirt steak, you'll need to marinade it for a few hours before grilling it. Typical marinade is:

- Lime juice
- Cumin
- Onion
- Fresh garlic
- Salt
- Pepper

Take the above ingredients and puree it until smooth in a blender or food processor.

When you're ready to eat, just fix up your favorite condiments to put in the taco:

- Grilled onions
- Avocado slices
- Grilled nopales (prickly pear cactus or cactus paddles)
- Grilled chili's (poblano, jalapeno)
- Cilantro
- Lime wedges
- Salsa
- Queso fresco (Mexican cheese), otherwise if you can't find this, use whatever your local supermarket has as "Mexican cheese".
 
Found this on chowhounds.com:

A good starting point for a pound of meat as far as the seasoning goes
3 medium cloves garlic , minced or pressed through garlic press (about 1 tablespoon)
2 tablespoons chili powder
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon ground coriander
1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
Plus table salt to taste.
I prefer lime or cider vinegar, or depending on heat tolerance a little bit of the adobo sauce from some chiles in adobo.

Was simple and tasty.
 
The classic spices for Tex-Mex are:

Chili Powder (preferably ground chiles, as opposed to the McCormick stuff)
Ground Cumin
Oregano (preferably the Mexican variety, although the regular (Greek variety) is OK.
Garlic (I use fresh. Powdered is OK, I suppose.)
Salt

I brown the ground beef (or venison, ground turkey or chicken), chopped onion and garlic, add the spices above (don't use too much oregano - it can be bitter/overpowering). Sometimes I'll add a bit of salsa to the mixture along with a little water and let it cook a bit.

For the shells, don't use the prefab ones. Buy corn tortillas and brown them lightly in a hot skillet with oil. Take them out, fold them over and put in a warm (~200 deg F) oven until you've done enough of them for the meal.
 
I am surprised no one uses masa harina in their meat mixture. I will add a couple tbs to about 1/4 water (varies depending on how much meat I am preparing), blend it to get rid of lumps then pour it in and let it cook. I started using this in chili then in mexican meats. I have come to expect that flavor now.
 
Don't think for a second that New Mexico is any special place for eating Tacos.
I've been here over 7 years, and have yet to eat anything that resembles a good Taco, like I used to enjoy in Chicago.

Reason is, people are so goddamn cheap here, they'd put dog food in a Tortilla, and try to pass it off as edible.

I make Tacos at home, and better than any I;ve had here, but still not as good as places like El Milagro, and Nuevo Leon in Chicago.

Use some imagination. Don't go american style, with american cheese, tomatoes, and like has been mentioned by another poster, onions, cilantro, avocado, and make some homemade salsas.

The true word is Chile, not Chili. The good NM dried Chile is hard to beat, but might be a big problem trying to find this outside of NM.

Chimayo is reknowned, but of course is not the only good Chile in this state. Chile here is grown all over. Towns such as Socorro, hatch, Las Cruces, Farmington, Taos all grow fantastic product.
 
This thread is making me hungry. Guess what we're having for dinner. I must admit, I do love an American style taco though. However, we had a guy on our crew that was a chef. He did some fish taco's that were to die for. All full of lime and cilantro goodness. That guy would make veggie animals and trees just for fun.
 
The easiest and best tasting shy of authentic is using Taco Bell seasoning packets but don't use it full strength. We use about 2/3's that it calls for and chop the ground beef real well and drain well. I have spent some time in Mexico and have lived in Texas for over 5 years and Mexican food became our favorites. I live in NW Indiana and service a lot of accounts that have primarily a workforce of Mexican decent which all bring in their lunches and I'll tell you what, when they share OMG it is real good. My $.02
 
zieg72 said:
The easiest and best tasting shy of authentic is using Taco Bell seasoning packets but don't use it full strength. We use about 2/3's that it calls for and chop the ground beef real well and drain well. I have spent some time in Mexico and have lived in Texas for over 5 years and Mexican food became our favorites. I live in NW Indiana and service a lot of accounts that have primarily a workforce of Mexican decent which all bring in their lunches and I'll tell you what, when they share OMG it is real good. My $.02
Click to expand...

I've tried it, and it's OK. It is inexpensive, and quick.

I think one important key to making really good ground beef tacos, is of course the quality of the ground beef. So much beef today from the stupidmarkets is so goddamn tasteless, it is truly nasty.

Quality of Chile Powder varies tremendously. Even here in New Mexico, the home of the Chile. Over 7 years spent here, the best I ever had wasn't even commercial, but given to me, and was sourced directly from Las Cruces, about 70 miles from me here. (And a very short distance from Hatch) It was the most flavorful, and the most character of any Chile Powder I've ever sampled. Sadly, I was only given a very small jar.

When you can open a package-jar, and smell it instantly from 3 feet away, that's Chile Powder! And no, I'm not talking hot, just the quality of the peppers used to make it. Mark
 
markd51 said:
Quality of Chile Powder varies tremendously. Even here in New Mexico, the home of the Chile. Over 7 years spent here, the best I ever had wasn't even commercial, but given to me, and was sourced directly from Las Cruces, about 70 miles from me here. (And a very short distance from Hatch) It was the most flavorful, and the most character of any Chile Powder I've ever sampled. Sadly, I was only given a very small jar.

When you can open a package-jar, and smell it instantly from 3 feet away, that's Chile Powder! And no, I'm not talking hot, just the quality of the peppers used to make it. Mark
Click to expand...

+1. My brother lives in Santa Fe and I have him mail me half-pound bags of ground Chimayo chiles every year or so. There is simply no comparison between the good stuff and commercial Chili powder (e.g., McCormicks) from the supermarket.
 
.....the best tacos I ever ate were at a get-together a few years ago at a friend's house....his wife not only drained the hamburger meat, but rinsed it well with hot water in a strainer, then cold water, then she spread the beef on a towel and dried it....she claimed that was her secret.....
 
Tacos can be as simple (like others mention) as browning some meat, adding a taco mix, and voila. Sometimes simple is good.

As many know, there are other methods-ways of making a suitable meat for fixing with Tacos, Burritos, etc. And that is the use of Chile, more typically Chile Sauces.

I've witnessed how from scratch one makes sauces with dried guallilo (sp) chiles, soaking-cooking in water, blending, then straining to remove the skin, etc.
Lots of work of course, but the final cuisine can be very worth it. The mexicans commonly call such dishes Guisados, or Guisos. Or something like that! lol

In markets here, one can find NM Green, and Red Chile in the Freezer Sections of the store, one brand is Bueno. All the hard work is done.

I've seen many mexican cooks here simply brown the meat (Pork or Beef) with a bit of oil, and garlic, then simply add this mixture into the saucepan and simmer. Such dishes here are called "Chile Colorado", or the famous Green Chile, such as Green Chile Stew, a NM Staple for sure.

And of course, one very important ingredient, which seems to be indigenous to most flavorful mexican cooking.....Garlic!

I would imagine the availibility of such pre-made Chile Sauces may be limited in other areas of the country. If you cannot find such in the large supermarkets, perhaps some specialty food stores, or hispanic grocery stores may handle such. Mark
 
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