Tacos

Tacos constitute one of the staples of my diet. I grew up with Mexican food, and my fridge is almost never without corn tortillas, cilantro, tomato, onion, cheese, beans, and hot sauce, so that I can always whip up something delicious in a hurry. Although I eat tacos year-round, they have been essential to my quick-and-easy meal prep during this hot summer of finishing the dissertation. In fact, I’ve managed to prepare them several times with almost no cooking at all: heating the beans over the pilot light, and giving the tortillas just a quick moment in the skillet to warm them up. (To be fair, the stove in my apartment has an unbelievably hot pilot for some reason.)

Though I prefer to cook my own beans, I usually simply used canned pinto or black. I drain and rinse them, and put them in a saucepan with a touch of oil, salt, and a mixture of spices including cumin, cayenne, ancho chili or chili powder, garlic powder, and oregano. A spice blend like the Spice Hunter’s salt-free Mexican seasoning or Penzey’s Adobo works great, plus some extra cayenne for heat in the latter case. Cumin is the base flavor here, so be sure not to skimp on it. I’ll sometimes toss a bit of chopped onion and cilantro in there, and a wedge’s worth of lime juice. Just heat those babies up, and you’re good to go.

For toppings, I use chopped red onion, tomato, cilantro, lettuce, and avocado if I’ve got it. Unless I’m having company, I usually just throw everything in a bowl and mix it together. A recent addition that has proven delicious is chopped mango, which lends a sweet tanginess to the blend. A little salt and lime juice on the avocado is a good idea.

For cheese, I recommend a mild, creamy, good-melting kind: queso quesadilla, chihuahua, monterey jack, or a mild cheddar if you like a bit of tang. In a pinch, mozzarella is perfectly serviceable — when we lived in Berlin, my husband and I could find nothing that worked better and that came pre-grated (our apartment had no cheese grater).

I consider corn tortillas a must, preferring them by far to flour; but use flour if you prefer (or if you live in a place where corn tortillas are unobtainable — we experienced this in Berlin and had to import/get them from friends who worked at a military base). I usually warm them in a fry pan, sometimes with a touch of oil if they are dry. I like to melt the grated cheese on the tortilla after it’s been warmed on both sides.

Putting the cheese between the warm stuff means that it stays nice and melty.

Order of toppings is important. One of the things I have never understood about burrito places like Chipotle is that they put the cheese in at the end, next to all the cold stuff, instead of at the beginning, between the warm tortilla and the warm meat/beans. (Why they don’t steam the cheese on the tortilla like they do at Anna’s is a mystery to me.) So, if you like your cheese melted, like I do, whether or not you melt it on the tortilla in the pan, you should definitely follow a topping order that looks something like: tortilla, cheese, hot filling, followed by cold stuff. It’s only logical.

Order of toppings is important. Cold stuff comes last.

I like to squeeze a little lime juice on each taco, and then to finish it off top with sour cream or whole milk plain yogurt and a dash of good hot sauce. Tapatío is my personal favorite among the easily obtainable non-vinegar-based sauces of the Mexican variety, but you should use what you prefer.

And there you have it: delicious, easy dinner. My usual beverage pairings include a nice cold beer (lately, the New Glarus Moon Man, though I am partial to the Bell’s Third Coast Beer) and a glass of sparkling water with lime. Yum!

Ready to eat, with all the trimmings.

If you have leftovers, I highly recommend incorporating them into breakfast tacos the following morning. Just heat up the beans in the skillet with a little oil, throw in the remaining toppings, and add the makings for scrambled eggs, plus a little cheese melted in at the end of cooking. The resulting scramble is delicious wrapped in warmed tortillas with a little hot sauce and sour cream/plain yogurt. Mmm!