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Toro Tacos
Many Tex-Mex tacos are made with ground beef. That's OK, especially when the meat is well seasoned, but chuck is much better. The preferred cut, if your butcher has it, is "eye of chuck," which contains a lot of beef flavor and shreds perfectly for tacos. The marinade adds real Tex-Mex punch.
1½ pounds eye of chuck
MARINADE
3 tablespoons oil, preferably canola or corn
3 tablespoons jalapeño pickling liquid
1 teaspoon cumin seeds, toasted and ground
1 teaspoon chili powder, preferably homemade ([>]) or Gebhardt's
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 cup unsalted beef stock or water
Salt to taste
Minced onion and fresh or pickled jalapeño, optional
18
to
24 taco shells ([>])
Your favorite salsa ([>])
Bite-size lettuce, chopped tomatoes, and grated mild cheddar cheese or crumbled asadero cheese (a Tangy Mexican cheese), for garnish
Serves 6
Prepare the filling: You can choose one of two methods for cooking the meat. Charcoal grilling is faster and more flavorful. Baking gives a slightly moister meat and may be easier some times of the year. Prepare the grill or preheat the oven to 350° F.
If you are grilling the meat, cut it into slices about ½ inch thick and place them in one layer in a shallow pan. If you plan to bake the meat, it's not necessary to slice it thinner than 1 inch.
In a small bowl, combine the oil, pickling liquid, cumin, chili powder, and garlic, and pour the marinade over the meat. Cover the meat, and refrigerate it at least 4 hours, or overnight, turning occasionally if the meat isn't thoroughly submerged in the marinade. Drain the meat, and bring it back to room temperature before proceeding. Save a tablespoon or two of the marinade if you plan to bake the meat.
If you are grilling the meat, place it over the coals when they are well covered with gray ash. Turn the meat once, and grill it until it is just cooked through, approximately 4 minutes per side.
To bake the meat, place it in a small baking dish with the stock or water and the reserved marinade. Cover the dish, and bake approximately 1¼ hours, or until the meat is cooked through and pulls apart easily.
Let the grilled or baked meat cool about 10 minutes, and then shred it. A food processor equipped with a plastic blade takes care of this step in quick measure. Salt the meat, and, if you like, add some onion, jalapeño, or both. Serve immediately, or refrigerate the filling for later reheating.
Serve the taco filling with the shells, salsa, and garnishes heaped on a platter or in separate bowls. Let everyone fill each of their taco shells with 2 or 3 tablespoons of filling, and top with the remaining ingredients.
Variations: For Texas soft tacos, wrap your fillings in warm flour tortillas rather than crispy corn shells. Since soft tacos are often made in the morning with leftovers from the previous night, we describe them in the chapter "Eye-Popping, Heart-Thumping Breakfasts" on [>].
Carne Guisada
In the early years of statehood Tejanos made a stew similar to this except that carne (meat) wasn't included in the name or very often in the pot either. Our version is based on the one served today at Guero's Taco Bar in Austin, a top-notch restaurant. Many guisadas cook on top of the stove, but the meat will be more tender if slow-baked. In either case, the stew should be thick, without much liquid. Quisada can be served by itself or as a filling in soft tacos.
1¼ pounds beef tips cut from a chuck roast, in bite-size pieces
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon oil, preferably canola or corn
3 celery ribs, chopped
1 medium onion, chopped
1
to
2 fresh jalapeños, minced
1½ cups unsalted beef stock
1 tablespoon tomato paste
2 teaspoons cumin seeds, toasted and ground
¼ teaspoon chili powder, preferably homemade ([>]) or Gebhardt's
Serves 3 to 4 as a main disk, or 4 to 6 in tacos
Preheat the oven to 350° F.
Dust the meat cubes with the flour. Heat the oil over high heat in a skillet or Dutch oven. Brown the meat quickly. Add the remaining ingredients, and bring the mixture to a simmer on the stove. Cover the skillet, and place it in the oven. Bake about 2½ hours, until the meat falls apart at the touch. Serve warm.
Picadillo
The Tex-Mex equivalent of sloppy foes, picadillo is heavy-duty comfort food. The ground meat can be beef, a combination of beef and pork, or sometimes venison. The savory mixture shows up in tacos and burritos, served on buns, or scooped atop tostada chips or fritos.
1½ pounds lean ground beef
1 large onion, chopped
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 14½-ounce can tomatoes
2 medium baking potatoes, cut into bite-size cubes
¼ cup unsalted beef stock or water
1 teaspoon vinegar, preferably white or cider
1 canned chipotle chile with ½ teaspoon adobo sauce
½ teaspoon cumin seeds, toasted and ground
½ teaspoon salt
½ bay leaf
1 tablespoon minced cilantro
Makes about 6 cups
In a skillet over medium heat, brown the ground beef with the onion and garlic. Pour off any accumulated grease. Add the remaining ingredients, except the cilantro. Simmer over medium-low heat for 20 to 25 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add a little water if the mixture appears dry. Serve the picadillo warm, sprinkled with the cilantro.
Variation: For Holiday Picadillo, add 1 chopped pear, ½ cup slivered almonds, ½ cup raisins, and ½ teaspoon ground canela (Mexican cinnamon) or cinnamon.
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Gebhardt's Chili Powder is probably the oldest on the market and still the best in our book. German-born William Gebhardt, a New Braunfels resident, loved the famous fare of San Antonio's chili queens. In 1896 he figured out a formula for making their specialty from dried ingredients. He based the original chili powder on ground ancho chiles and a mix of spices such as cumin and garlic, still the core constituents today.
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Ninfa's Fajitas
Ninfa Rodriguez Caurenzo opened a ten-table restaurant, Ninfa's, in Houston's eastside barrio in 1973. She cooked everything herself at first, modeling her dishes on ones her mother made gears earlier in the Rio Grande Valley town of Harlingen. Over time Ninfa added new fare from Mexico, new restaurants, and new chefs, and within twenty years she was operating a dozen Ninfa's branches and a couple of dozen other eateries. One of the dishes she brought to Houston from the Valley, fajitas, swept the city and eventually the state. This is how Ninfa makes it.
2 skirt steaks, 1 to 1¼ pounds each
MARINADE
1 large orange
2 lemons
¼ cup pineapple juice
¼ cup white wine
¼ cup soy sauce
¼ cup water
3 dried chiles de árbol
1 tablespoon coarse-ground black pepper
1 garlic clove, minced
16
to
20 7-inch flour tortillas, heated
Ninfa's Marinated Onions ([>])
Pico de Gallo ([>])
Guacamole ([>])
Tomato slices and green bell pepper rings, optional
Serves 8 generously
Trim the skirt steaks well of any membrane or fat. Place them in a shallow pan large enough to hold the meat in one layer.
For the marinade, grate 1 tablespoon of peel from the orange and 2 teaspoons peel from the lemons. Squeeze the orange to get approximately ¼ cup juice, and both lemons to get a similar amount of juice. Put the citrus zest and fresh-squeezed juices into a small bowl. Add the pineapple juice, wine, soy sauce, water, chiles, black pepper, and garlic, stirring to combine the ingredients. Pour the marinade over the skirt steaks. Let t
he meat marinate for at least 1 hour but not longer than 2 hours.
Prepare the grill, as Ninfa does, or preheat the broiler.
Drain the skirt steaks. Cook them about 3 inches above the coals or 4 inches below the broiler flame for about 5 to 6 minutes on each side, or until they are done to your taste. Remove the meat from the heat, and let it sit for 5 to 10 minutes. Slice the meat across the grain and diagonally into finger-length strips.
To assemble the fajitas, pile a platter high with the meat, and accompany the meat platter with the tortillas, onions, pico de gallo, guacamole, and, if you like, tomatoes and bell peppers. Let all assembled help themselves. For each serving, fill a flour tortilla with some of the meat and portions of the garnishes.
Variations: For pork tenderloin fajitas-style, pound 2 to 2½ pounds pork tenderloin to ½-inch thickness, removing any membrane. Marinate for 2 hours, and prepare as you would the skirt steaks.
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The oldest Tex-Mex cookbook we've found is Gebhaidt's Mexican Cookery for American Homes, published by the San Antonio chili company in the 1930s. It wasn't until this period that enchiladas and tacos—or much else beyond chili and tamale variations—begin to appear in cookbooks.
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In Mexican cooking, dishes such as tacos, tamales, and enchiladas are called antojitos. Literally "a little whim," the term can refer to appetizers at a meal or to typical native foods popular as street snacks. Traditional Mexicans seldom, if ever, eat the equivalent of a Tex-Mex combination plate, that is, a full dinner of antojitos. As Maria A. de Carbia said in the American edition of her Mexican cookbook (edited by Neiman Marcus chef Helen Corbitt), if you served a meal like that in her country the dessert of choice would be bicarbonate of soda.
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The biggest beef eaters in early Texas were the Mexican settlers in the southwestern part of the state. The Anglos who immigrated from the South favored pork until the second half of the nineteenth century, when they pushed farther west and learned both the cowboy trade and a love of beef from their Mexican neighbors.
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Chicken a la Fajitas
Jajitas is the Spanish name for beef skirt, so a term like "chicken fajitas" doesn't make linguistic sense, however common it might be. The dish itself is definitely delicious, whatever you call it. This is Ninfa Laurenzo's recipe for chicken prepared fajitas-style, and it's a true match for her beef version.
2
to
2¼ pounds boneless, skinless chicken breasts
3 tablespoons white wine
6 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 tablespoon soy sauce
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 teaspoon fresh-ground black pepper
16
to
20 7-inch flour tortillas
Ninfa's Marinated Onions ([>])
Pico de Gallo ([>])
Guacamole ([>])
Tomato slices and green bell pepper rings, Optional
Serves 8 generously
Prepare the grill, as Ninfa does, or preheat the broiler.
Pound the chicken breasts to ¾-inch thickness, and set them aside.
Heat a heavy skillet over high heat for 3 to 4 minutes. Pour the wine into the skillet, and boil it for 1 to 2 minutes to evaporate the alcohol. Reduce the heat to medium. Stir in the butter, soy sauce, garlic, and pepper, and cook until they are just combined, about 1 minute. Remove the skillet from the heat.
Dip the chicken breasts into the sauce, and turn them to coat them thoroughly.
Place the breasts 3 inches above the coals or 4 inches below the broiler flame. Grill or broil the chicken 3 to 5 minutes on each side, or until it is done to your taste. Remove the chicken from the heat, and let it sit for about 5 minutes. Slice the breasts into slim finger-length strips.
To assemble the fajitas, pile a platter high with the chicken strips, and accompany the platter with tortillas, onion, pico de gallo, guacamole, and if you like, the tomatoes and bell peppers. Let all assembled help themselves. For each serving, fill a tortilla with some of the chicken and portions of the garnishes.
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In 1991 commercial Mexican salsa overtook ketchup as the top-selling condiment in the United States. This represented a major shift in American tastes. Before then ketchup had reigned supreme for over one hundred years.
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Turkey Mole
The Texas Almanac—an indisputable source for hard-core trivia—says turkeys are among the state's oldest residents. They certainly were abundant in the early years of Anglo settlement, and became the wild game of choice for many hunters. This way of preparing the birds is relatively new in Texas, but ancient in Mexico, where mole is the queen of sauces.
SAUCE
12 ounces dried red chile pods, preferably a mix of anchos, mulatos, and pasillas
6 tablespoons sesame seeds
4 tablespoons peanut oil
¾ cup sliced almonds
6 garlic cloves, with skins on
6 small tomatoes, preferably Romas or another Italian plum variety, whole and unpeeled
2½ cups unsalted chicken stock
Juice of 1 orange
½ cup raisins
2 cup chopped cilantro
1 medium onion, chopped
1 day-old corn tortilla, torn into quarters
2 ounces unsweetened chocolate
1½ ounces Mexican chocolate, preferably Ibarra (or an equal amount of bittersweet chocolate with a pinch of cinnamon)
1 canned chipotle chile, optional
1 teaspoon ground canela (Mexican cinnamon) or cinnamon
1 teaspoon anise seeds, toasted and ground
½ teaspoon fresh-ground black pepper
½ teaspoon cumin seeds, toasted and ground
½ teaspoon salt
⅛ teaspoon ground cloves
Hot sliced smoked turkey breast ([>]) or other good smoked or roasted turkey
Sprigs of cilantro, optional, for garnish
Minced cilantro and onion, for garnish
Serves 10 to 12
Preheat the oven to 300° F.
Break the stems off the chiles, and remove the seeds. Rinse the chiles, and transfer them to a baking sheet. Toast them for about 5 minutes, watching to make sure they don't burn. Turn off the oven. Transfer the chiles to a large saucepan, and cover them with water. Simmer over medium heat about 30 minutes, until the chiles are softened.
While the chiles simmer, prepare the seeds and nuts in a large, heavy skillet on top of the stove. First, toast the sesame seeds over medium heat. Watch them carefully. The seeds are done when fragrant, lightly browned, and popping merrily, a matter of several minutes. Don't let them burn. Spoon the seeds into a blender. Add 2 tablespoons of the oil to the warm skillet, and stir in the almonds. Sauté until the almonds are lightly colored and fragrant. Transfer them to the blender.
Wipe out the skillet with a paper towel, and increase the heat to medium-high. Scatter the garlic in the skillet, turning the cloves occasionally so that they soften and darken on all sides, a matter of a few minutes. Remove the garlic from the skillet, and set it aside. Add the tomatoes to the skillet, turning occasionally as they soften and darken. The skins will split a bit during the process. Remove the tomatoes, and set them aside until they are cool enough to handle.
Remove the skins from the garlic and tomatoes, stem the tomatoes, and add both to the blender.
Pour about 1½ cups of the stock into the blender. Purée the mixture for 2 to 3 minutes. The mixture will become smooth but a little grainy. Pour it into a large bowl.
Drain most of the liquid from the chiles, reserving 1 cup of the liquid. Put the chiles and about ½ cup of the reserved liquid into the blender, and purée 1 to 2 minutes. Pour the chiles into the bowl of puréed tomatoes and almonds.
Add the remaining sauce ingredients to the blender, and purée for 2 to 3 minutes. This mixture, too, will become smooth but a lit
tle grainy. Pour it into the bowl, and stir the mixtures together.
Wipe out any tomato residue from the skillet, and add the remaining oil. Warm the oil over medium heat. Spoon in the mole sauce, and fry it for about 10 minutes, stirring up from the bottom constantly. The sauce should be thick but spoonable. Mix in a little of the reserved chile cooking liquid if it seems too thick. Cool and refrigerate the sauce for later reheating, or serve it immediately.
Arrange the turkey slices on a serving platter, and top generously with the mole. Surround the dish with sprigs of cilantro, if you like, and sprinkle with minced cilantro and onion.
For a cocktail party, cube uncooked turkey or chicken, and marinate the cubes in orange juice with a little garlic and cilantro. Skewer the cubes, grill them, and serve them with the mole as a dipping sauce.
Variations: For mole enchiladas, shred several cups of turkey or chicken and toss with a couple of tablespoons minced onion and cilantro. Assemble and cook as you do Beef Enchiladas ([>
Texas Home Cooking Page 8