Taco

This recipe is really all about the tomatoes. For the best results, make these tacos in summer when tomatoes are at their sweetest and seasonal best. Thicker-fleshed varieties, like Romas, work better for this filling as they give off less juice and cook down to a firmer consistency. After roasting, the tomato slices turn soft and crinkly. Thin shavings of buttery, piquant Spanish Manchego cheese makes a wonderful addition, as do leaves of peppery arugula or sprigs of cilantro. Pumpkin seeds are available toasted, which deepens their flavor, or you can easily toast them yourself in a hot, dry skillet. These tacos can easily be served in place of a salad course for a dinner party. The pesto will hold for one week in the refrigerator and shines with pastas, seafood, or meat dishes. For a quick version, substitute about four ounces purchased roasted tomatoes, stocked at specialty markets. Look for them in bulk where olives are sold, packed with herbs and a bit of oil.

A Southwest twist on the old classic of grilled cheese, this version is spicier and good comfort food. In the Southwest, the Spanish word rajas (slivers) has come to mean slim strips of cooked chile peppers or sweet bell peppers, here lifted with aromatic spices, a buttery cream, and slightly tangy cheese. When spooned into smaller tortillas, this enticingly rich filling makes a great appetizer or hors d’oeuvre taco. For a heartier snack, add chicken or beef. Large or small, with or without meat, they’ll go as fast as you can make them. To reduce the heat level of this dish, leave out the seeds from the jalapeños.

Huitlacoche is often referred to as “Mexican truffle” even though it is not related to truffles or mushrooms, but rather a fungus that grows naturally on corn in its wild state (spraying corn prevents the fungus). However, the flavor is pungent, earthy, and robust, all characteristics of true truffles. Highly prized in Mexico, fresh huitlacoche commands top prices when sold in the open markets there. Huitlacoche is almost impossible to find fresh in the United States. The federal government requires a special permit to grow it as a way to control infestation of the corn crop, as the spores are disseminated by air. It is usually available frozen and canned (see Sources, page 167). These tacos are hearty enough to be served by themselves, but also make a great side dish for a main course of beef.

The earthy meatiness of portobello mushrooms pairs wonderfully with the smoky flavors of chipotle chiles. The mushrooms are sautéed in butter, which imparts a delicious nuttiness and helps the mushrooms brown. Toasted pine nuts or pumpkin seeds are a traditional and tasty garnish that increases the nuttiness of the dish. Small, fresh portobellos have tightly closed gills that are easy to slice through. The spongy gills of large portobellos must be scraped off with a spoon before the mushroom caps are sliced—but don’t discard them. The gills can be tossed in the pan and cooked with the rest of the mushroom, adding color and depth of flavor.

During the summer monsoons in Santa Fe, we forage for wild mushrooms—mostly porcini-like varieties—in the high-altitude forests of the nearby Sangre de Cristo Mountains. We’re always looking for new ways to use our earthy, robust bounty, and this woodsy taco is one of our favorites. Buy wild mushrooms in at least three colors or textures. They’ll add interest to the filling and give you the option of mixing less costly types with the more pricey ones. Avoid shiitakes and enokis, which don’t pair well with wild mushrooms (the enoki are too acrid, and the shiitake too powerful) or lobster mushrooms as they don’t cook at the same rate and remain hard. Aim for a mix that is woodsy, rich, delicate, and very flavorful. Good substitutions for fresh wild mushrooms are a mix of dried wild mushrooms and fresh criminis, or dried porcini and thinly sliced portobellos.

These tacos are a great way to enjoy the harvest from your late summer garden. The delicate orange-and-yellow flowers of squash plants are a prized treat through out Mexico and the southwestern United States. Squash blossoms are an ideal partner to the green chiles grown in Hatch, New Mexico, widely available in the Southwest during late summer and early fall (see Sources, page 167). If you can’t find New Mexico green chiles, you can use Anaheims, their slightly less robust California counterpart, found in produce markets throughout the country. I like to serve these tacos with a cold, citrusy beverage—margaritas for the adults and limeade for the kids. The tartness of the limes beautifully complements the warm, buttery cheese that oozes out of the taco with each bite.

The popular version of fish tacos—as opposed to those made with grilled fish, native to Mexico—is believed to have originated in Southern California, where there is a strong Mexican influence on cooking and plenty of coastline for reeling in fish. They are garnished with a variety of piquant salsas and relishes and usually crema, the Mexican equivalent of sour cream; these are topped with a sour cream–based sauce, spiked with smoky chipotle chiles.

We made this dish because we like the “potato” de gallo idea. (In fact, you can make only the rub and eat it on almost anything, especially eggs.) Make certain that the potatoes are tiny and crisp, so you get that salt-and-vinegar potato chip taste.

Quick: Fire up your slow cooker for a filling and healthy winter feast. "The low heat preserves more nutrients than grilling, frying or boiling, and helps prevent the formation of carcinogens," says Jonny Bowden, Ph.D., nutritionist and coauthor of the 150 Healthiest Slow Cooker Recipes on Earth. We're loco for this Crock-Pot treat.

On the first morning of the Workshop, participants rise early to pick grapes before the temperature soars. These chefs may labor in hot kitchens every day, but on grape-harvest day, they learn what real work is like. By midday, they are famished. We keep lunch casual, knowing that a big dinner will follow. Typically, we serve Mexican food, like these soft tacos, with from-scratch tortillas prepared outdoors on a comal (Mexican griddle) by winery staffers Brenda Godinez and Virginia Barrera. Rubaiyat, a blend of red varieties, is perfect for the occasion. Note that the beans need to soak overnight.

I have eaten more than my share of fish tacos while living in Baja. But the beach is a half-hour drive from my house, so I was on a mission to find a fish taco recipe that I could make at home—one that was as delicious and authentic as the taco they serve at my favorite Rosarito taco shack. This is what I came up with—and I’m happy to say it competes!

Sarandeado, as a technique, refers to grilling a cleaned fish in a basket, constantly flipping it from one side to the other in order to preserve all the juices and flavors before they seep out of the fish. In this recipe we use the oven, so there’s no need for a fish basket or even a grill. It is essential, however, that you use a properly butterflied fish (the skin prevents the juices from seeping out and yields a moist and succulent fish). I strongly suggest asking your fishmonger to do it for you.

Taquitos, also known as flautas where I grew up, are corn tortillas that are stuffed, rolled, and fried. Shredded chicken or beef is the traditional filling, but here I use mushrooms and pair them with a tart tomatillo salsa for a great vegetarian dish.

Fish breathes new life into the “sandwich” of Mexico and the Southwest, replacing mystery meat with an identifiable fillet of delicate white fish like cod to make fish tacos, a rarity on the East Coast. Instead of frying, as is common in tacquerias, I like to steam the fish in its own juices, which can be done on top of the stove or in a microwave oven (in fact, this is one of the few cooking tasks at which the microwave excels).

If you have had only the fast-food variety of tacos or made them using a mix, these will come as a revelation, yet they’re quite easy to make. Top them with sour cream, any salsa (pages 610–612), Guacamole (page 22), or a combination; they are also delicious on their own. There is a wealth of variations here; if you’re not interested in frying, see the soft taco version. The chicken can be cooked by any method you like; poaching with aromatic vegetables and spices will work, along with producing a decent stock.

Fish tacos, long a staple of coastal Mexico (and coastal California), have become popular throughout the U.S. I prefer the fish fried, but you can grill or even steam it if you like.

GINA Fish tacos—you gotta love them. But of course seafood has always been my thing. The key to this dish lies in the freshness of your coleslaw. You can always use store-bought, but our recipe is so quick, and making it fresh adds a crispness that I’m not too sure store-bought can provide. Also, the jalapeño pepper in the slaw, combined with the chipotle mayo, makes our slaw smoky and spicy! I think catfish works better than other fish, because it has a good way of standing up to the heat of the frying pan . . . plus, I just love the flavor. This may be because our family had a tradition of eating catfish every Friday night for dinner. (We were probably making fish tacos before they got a fancy reputation.) And I have this thing about wraps—because you can pile everything into them and then just munch it down.

The creamy red-cabbage slaw can also be served on sandwiches or as a side dish. For a toasted flavor, quickly heat the tortillas over a gas burner until blistered in spots, holding each with tongs and waving it from side to side.

Radish and avocado are traditional Mexican toppings for tacos. Here they are combined in a salsa that can be served with tacos or as an appetizer with tortilla chips.

Taco seasoning can cover all manner of sins, but when I first saw textured vegetable protein, I was a bit apprehensive: could it possibly taste any better than driveway gravel? As it turns out, it’s pretty amazing stuff. In water, it expands to more than twice its original volume, and it picks up the flavors of whatever you combine it with. It has the texture of ground beef, but it’s way cheaper. This all makes it perfect for these classic tacos in a crispy shell, which are usually filled with seasoned ground beef. You can buy it at your local produce market or natural foods store in the bulk food section.

We have two recipes for tacos in this book, which may seem repetitive, but the only similarity is the tortillas and cheese. This version has the great combo of black beans and corn, with a little bit of zip from the sauce.

Puffy tacos have become modern-day icons of the San Antonio food scene. You can find the meat-filled, deep-fried corn tortillas throughout the Alamo City and—believe it or not—on the baseball field, too, where Henry, the Puffy Taco, serves as a mascot for the San Antonio Mission, a minor league team. I propose a build-your-own puffy taco party, where guests crowd into the kitchen to feast on hotfrom-the-skillet tacos stuffed with bison chili, a dab of guacamole, and whatever other fixings you set out. Ask friends to act as revolving fry cooks, so nobody gets stuck by the stove for too long, and in the meantime, assign others to shake up batches of Silver Bullet Margaritas (page 175). Diana Barrios Trevino, friend and the restaurateur behind San Antonio’s La Hacienda de los Barrios, gave me permission to use her famous puffy taco recipe. It was the recipe that beat TV chef Bobby Flay in a puffy taco “throwdown” staged for Flay’s popular Food Network show. If you can find fresh masa dough, use it to make the tortillas. Otherwise, dried masa mix will work just fine.

Shrimp and citrus make such a natural match, I often combine them in tacos, but they call out for something with a little heft, such as black beans. Depending on the size grapefruit you use, you’ll probably have more than you need for this recipe, but that’s not a problem. Just eat the remaining sections for breakfast with a little yogurt, for dessert instead of the oranges in the Yogurt Parfait with Mulled Red Wine Syrup (page 161), or in a smoothie with banana and milk. I like to sometimes double up the salsa on this taco, drizzling on a little Salsa Verde (page 14) in addition to the on-the-fly grapefruit–black bean salsa, but these tacos are plenty flavorful without it.

After moving from Austin to Boston, I would periodically get such a jones for Tex-Mex food that nothing would satisfy it but a casserole dish full of enchiladas stuffed with chunks of smoked turkey and slathered in a spicy-sweet green mole sauce. They had been a favorite of mine at Z’Tejas, at the time a funky place on 6th Street, but now a small chain with outposts in Texas, Utah, California, Arizona, and Washington State. I was thrilled when the Austin American-Statesman ran a recipe for the enchiladas a few years after I left town. It enabled me to invite over a mix of fellow Tex-pats and native New Englanders and have everyone marveling at the revelation that is a chocolate-free mole sauce. All these years later, the revelation for me was how easily they morphed into soft tacos, still with that unusual combination of smoked turkey breast and mole verde. For this, the smoked turkey should be cut from a very thick slice, so either buy a whole or half smoked breast yourself and cut it from there, or ask your deli to custom-cut a 1/2-inch slice or two.