293642 Tue Jul 29 13:59:25 -0700 2003 30 27 General Chowhounding Topics 0 1607728 i'm new here so hello! i do a taco dinner for a bunch of friends every couple weeks or so and am looking for creative ideas for taco fillings (relativly quick and easy...shopping and cooking will be done after work). even some ideas for neat additions to your basic ground beef... Tue Jul 29 13:59:25 -0700 2003 0 bronih 1 1607731 For some reason this summer we've rediscovered tacos last week when we made them we filled them with - fresh cilantro avocado pico da gallo fresh tomato fresh red onion ground meat seasoned with rest of red onion, 3 tbs of chili powder and 1 tsp of chipolte seasoning (chili powder isn't as hot as we think it should be) I've also made a salad with canned diced tomatoes and green chiles and lettuce. This is what I had growing up with parmesean cheese added. Fairly pedestrian stuff I'm afraid. Tue Jul 29 14:39:28 -0700 2003 1607728 0 LisaLou 1 1607732 A diced potato and chorizo / sausage mix would be good. I love potatoes in my tacos. Also, when I am doing tacos for groups, I tend to make a chicken filling. Boil up the chicken (I use breasts, on the bone) before hand, shred when cool. Then saute with onion, chiles, tomato, cilantro. No need to cook very long. When you are done, the mixture should be a little soupy - serve with a slotted spoon or tongs. Also, adding a mexican cheese or two is great. Crumbled queso fresco, cotija, or queso seco would be great. Tue Jul 29 14:48:16 -0700 2003 1607728 0 jen maiser 1 1607734 There was an excellent feature in Gourmet Magazine in July 1997 for an authentic Taco Party. I've used the recipes from the story again and again, and all are good. They include taco fillings such as carne asada, pollo in pipian verde (chicken in pumpkin seed sauce) and marinated grilled shrimp, and side dishes such as guacamole, beans and rajas con crema (peppers in cream). If you don't have the hard copy of that issue of Gourmet, all recipes are available on Epicurious; you can search "Gourmet July 1997" and all the recipes will come up. Gourmet July 1997 recipes linked below: Link: http://www.epicurious.com/s97is.vts?action=filtersearch&QueryZip=%28%28gourmet+%3CAND%3E+july+%3CAND%3E+1997%29+%3CIN%3E+%28CNContent%2Ctitle%29%29&Filter=recipe%2Dfilter%2Ehts&ResultTemplate=recipe%2Dresults%2Ehts&QueryText=%28%28gourmet+%3CAND%3E+july+%3CAND%3E+1997%29+%3CIN%3E+%28CNContent%2Ctitle%29%29&Collection=Recipes&ResultStart=1&ResultCount=15&BrowseLink=%3CA+HREF%3D%22%22%3EQuick+Search%3C%2FA%3E+%26gt%3B+keyword%3A+gourmet+july+1997 Tue Jul 29 14:54:15 -0700 2003 1607728 0 DanaB 1 1607738 Fish or shrimp! Folks seem to love it. Tue Jul 29 15:06:49 -0700 2003 1607728 0 SLRossi 2 1607739 Good call, link below to when I asked the same question. Link: http://www.chowhound.com/topics/show/292459#1596284 Tue Jul 29 15:09:16 -0700 2003 1607738 0 Dax 2 1607759 Epicurious.com has a terrific recipe for fish tacos. Search recipes for "fish tacos" and it will come up. Tue Jul 29 17:12:01 -0700 2003 1607738 0 NolaFoodie 1 1607740 the joint in my neighborhood sells them with: chicken beef with sauce chorizo carnitas pernil veal brains tongue Tue Jul 29 15:23:42 -0700 2003 1607728 0 bigskulls 2 1607743 pernil? do explain...unfamiliar with it. Tue Jul 29 15:45:51 -0700 2003 1607740 0 bronih 3 1607746 roast pork shoulder Tue Jul 29 16:06:27 -0700 2003 1607743 0 bigskulls 2 1607791 Maybe not pernil...I think it's *pierna*. That means 'leg', as in the cut you mention. Tue Jul 29 22:38:29 -0700 2003 1607740 0 Cristina 3 1607806 Round these parts we call it pernil. So do a lot of the local dominican/latin groceries. Some call it picnic. I call it good ettin. THM Wed Jul 30 09:46:55 -0700 2003 1607791 0 THM 4 1607807 And to further confuse you, BBQ'ers and "Bostonians" call it BUTT. THM Wed Jul 30 09:48:53 -0700 2003 1607806 0 THM 1 1607741 If you are doing soft tacos, grilled veggies work great! Tue Jul 29 15:27:51 -0700 2003 1607728 0 LisaN 1 1607744 There's a recipe in The Pleasures of Slow Food: Celebrating Authentic Traditions, Flavors, and Recipes for a fresh ham roast with salsa verde that is just terrific on its own, but we used shredded leftovers for tacos. If you can't find the book, here's what I remember: You need to make a rub of chopped cilantro, jalapenos, garlic, olive oil, salt and pepper and rub it all over the fresh ham (not ham ham, but a pork roast)and let it sit overnight. Roast the next day. The fragrance is incredible and the flavor sinks into the meat. Serve the shredded meat (cold or hot) in tacos with sour cream, chopped onions, cilantro and guacamole. Fabulous. I want to make it now. Tue Jul 29 15:59:43 -0700 2003 1607728 0 MkeLaurie 1 1607754 Let me add to LisaN's suggestion. Do soft tacos (real tacos imho) instead of those easy to break hard shells. Just heat corn tortillas and keep them warm. Offer a couple of roasted or grilled meats (find recipes for pollo asado or carne asada on the internet, for example) with salsa, onions, guacamole, shredded cabbage (or iceburg lettuce), cheese etc. These can turn soft tacos into an authentic feast, and each diner can build his own. Hard taco shells and hamburger make gringo tacos. ed Tue Jul 29 16:55:05 -0700 2003 1607728 0 e.d. 2 1607818 By "Hard taco shells" I assume you mean the prefab baked U-shaped tortillas, ala Taco Bell? My favorite tacos utilize tortillas pan-fried to a nice crispiness. In Mexico, the tacos I've had came in varying degrees of grilled crispiness. I never saw a soft taco until the 1970's, and as far as I know, the two soft unfolded tortillas with a pile of goodies on top is a USA thing, and should properly be called something other than "taco". Wed Jul 30 11:07:06 -0700 2003 1607754 0 Sharuf 3 1607831 In the Southwest border region in authentic taco shops, if you order a "taco" you get a soft taco. If you want the shell deep fried, you order a folded or rolled taco. In Sonoran and, I suspect, Tex Mex places this is not the case. I have no doubt that restaurants for touristas or "Mexican" restaurants that have few Mexican customers also will serve folded tacos as tacos since that is what most Americans expect. But real tacos, at least from Guadalajara north, are soft tacos. Wed Jul 30 12:37:41 -0700 2003 1607818 0 e.d. 4 1607900 The tacos I eat at street stands here in the Central Highlands (and they are definitely authentic) can be had a variety of ways: two small tortillas steamed hot and filled, two small tortillas dragged briefly through the hot meat-frying fat (read *lard*), then grilled and filled, or two small tortillas just grilled, no added grease. When the tortillería is out of small tortillas and the taco stand only has large ones, they are always served with an apology: "Solo hay tortilla grande, no le hace?". The *ONLY* tacos in these parts that are even remotely hard are the rolled taquitos dorados that have a few shreds of chicken or beef rolled up in a single tortilla and are then deep-fried and served with salsa, shredded white cheese, shredded cabbage or lettuce, and minced onion on top~three or four to an order, or as many as you like for takeout, with the garnishes sent home in plastic bags, on the side. OK, so what do we get here for fillings? At the stands, we get bistec, carnaza, labio, lengua, cabeza, and adobada, and a variety of other meat products. Those are thin-sliced beef, steamed beef or pork meat, lip, tongue, head, and a marinated beef or pork. But a homemade taco can be a tortilla wrapped around almost anything: fried potato and onion with some chile, leftover veggies, machaca, picadillo, shredded chicken, etc etc etc. The limit of your imagination is the limit of what a taco can contain. Consider that the literal meaning of the word taco is *wad*, and you get the picture. It's a wad of just about anything edible, ready to pop into the mouth. At my favorite stand (c'mon down and I'll take you there), I favor tortillas dragged through the grease and grilled, filled with chopped bistec and a garnish of frijoles de la olla, shredded cabbage, chopped cilantro, minced onion, a squeeze of lime, salsa de aquacate AND a fiery salsa casera (roja), and a sprinkle of sea salt. Pshew, now I might have to make a run to the taco stand. Wed Jul 30 20:54:44 -0700 2003 1607831 0 Cristina 5 1607908 Thanks for your input. It is always good to hear from you. I realize though that I was rather hasty in responding to Sharuf. I actually think that the folded taco is traditional and authentic in Sonoran cuisine (at least on the US side of the border) as well as in Cal-Mex and probably Tex-Mex cuisines too. It was really only in the 70s with the new wave of Mexican immigration that the soft taco, which is what the vast majority of my students and all the non-Sonoran restaurants I go to call a taco, became widely available in the US. So I am convinced that the primal, basic, original Mexican taco is a soft taco--after all Aztecs were probably eating dogmeat and turkey mole in corn tortillas long before any Spaniards showed up in North America. Still I wasn't right to say that folded tacos with a hard shell are not authentic Mexican food. Wed Jul 30 23:49:49 -0700 2003 1607900 0 e.d. 6 1607939 First taco I ever had was in the late '50s at Mama Garcia's, a dive near the Stanford campus. Mama made the crispy fried kind, so that set the standard for me (Cal-Mex?) They were filled with meat, lettuce, tomato and maybe cheese and/or avocado. Loved 'em and have been making them that way ever since. Went to various parts of Mexico numerous times from the early '60s on, and found tacos to be simpler and smaller than the California version and usually not so crispy. Don't recall ever having a soft greaseless taco in Mexico. BTW my Mexican jaunts avoided the tourist resorts and went more into destinations of cultural interest. I usually ate at cheaper places frequented by locals. Thu Jul 31 11:58:55 -0700 2003 1607908 0 Sharuf 7 1607944 It is so dangerous to overgeneralize, so my apologies for doubting your information. Much of my personal experience with what I think of as "authentic" tacos are from the taco trucks and stands set up for farm workers and others during our harvest season in Yuma. There a taco (usually $1) is always a soft corn tortilla with whatever--fried fish, carnitas, tripas, al pastor, asada--as filling. Usually there is a salsa/guacamole/onion/cabbage bar so that you can customize them. Here there seems to be no choice of sliding the tortilla through hot fat first and none of them even offers folded tacos--though some will have rolled tacos. So my generalization is based on limited information, but considering that we have Mexicans and Mexican Americans here from Jalisco, Baja, Sinaloa, Nayarit, and beyond, I think it does offer a fairly representative look at popular tacos. And personally, I much prefer the basic soft taco and have made them a part of my home cooking. ed Thu Jul 31 12:32:46 -0700 2003 1607939 0 e.d. 8 1607975 Worked in Mexico City for a year, never saw a crispy taco. Always the soft variety. Thu Jul 31 16:35:03 -0700 2003 1607944 0 Stanley Stephan 1 1607755 Welcome! I am guesing you live outside the southwest if you are still in ground beef in tacos mode! In Mexico, the taco is almost all about the meat and involves nothing but tortilla, meat and salsa with a little cilantro or chopped onion. We recently had a party where we marinated a butterflied leg of lamb in cumin, garlic, pepper and citrus juices and used it sliced in tacos. Heavenly. Also the seafood taco rules here in San Diego and south of the border. They are done both grilled (like shish kabab chunks) and battered and fried. Usually topped with shredded cabbage (not lettuce) tomatoes, maybe avocado, and always both salsa and crema. Carnitas is hugely popular too. It can be somewhat time consuming to slow cook the pork, then brown the chunks and shreds, but it is delectable. Tue Jul 29 16:56:20 -0700 2003 1607728 0 Junoesq 2 1607813 Mmmm... Gringa loves carnitas... But as an Irishgirl, I have positively no knack. Do you have a tried and true recipe you'd be willing to share? Wed Jul 30 10:46:17 -0700 2003 1607755 0 Chickie 2 1607837 Also thinly sliced steak with grilled onions and green chiles. Yum Wed Jul 30 13:28:49 -0700 2003 1607755 0 Candy 1 1607773 I like these on tacos: onions pickled in citrus juice and salt. You can make them the night before, and they'll keep for a week or two in the fridge... Link: http://www.davidscooking.com/recipes/pickledonions/pickledonions.html Tue Jul 29 19:36:27 -0700 2003 1607728 0 david in NOLa 1 1607795 My brother and I do (very gringo) taco feasts for special occasions sometimes... Christmas, family reunions, etc. We usually make each of the following: - mole tofu (crumble tofu with a jar of mole... let it sit around for a while, saute.) - chicken sauteed with onions and garlic and peppers, with salsa verde - obligatory ground turkey with taco seasoning packet. Kinda tacky, but definatly fun and there are NEVER as many leftovers as we think there will be! Wed Jul 30 00:07:57 -0700 2003 1607728 0 Liloo 1 1607802 KIND OF surprised that nobody has mentioned this, although I suspect that this sort of thing is not found too far outside of crummy Chicago tacquerias: Chicharrones: Dump about half a bag of fried pork rinds (unflavored) into a can's worth (7 oz.) of Herdez Salsa Verde (hot green sauce--or, use your preferred equivalent, red or green) which has been brought to simmer in a pot. Smush around until pork rinds are softened and have achieved the texture/consistency of little sponges. Serve up in heated flour tortillas. No garnishes necessary, but optional. What could be simpler? Martha Stewart, why haven't you discovered this? (This will serve only about 2 or 3 (if they like this kind of thing), so you may need to multiply ingredients.) Of related interest: Look on the Chicago board for strings on tacos de los ojos (eyeballs) and goat. Wed Jul 30 06:12:10 -0700 2003 1607728 0 Bruce 1 1607808 Tacos are like sandwiches. Pretty much anything but auto parts can go in a tortilla. Still, I'm surprised no one mentioned cactus. You can find nopales in latin groceries, usually. Scrape off the skin, dice it up, simmer to tenderize, then sautee with onions and garlic til crisp. Real versatile and a soaker upper o' flavor. Sort of clean n' fruity with a slightly acidic undertone. Chayote works too. Same prep, although you can do em any way you want, roasted, sauteed, maybe even battered n' fried. Has more of a squash taste, but it's pretty light. If you do nopales, you can make prickly pear margaritas too, for a cactus themed tacofunfest. THM Wed Jul 30 10:02:08 -0700 2003 1607728 0 THM 1 1607872 Scrambled eggs, as plain or fancy as you like. I like salsa verde with eggs, but practically any salsa will do. Wed Jul 30 16:17:49 -0700 2003 1607728 0 aromatherapy