Justin & Meredith Winokur's Kitchen Cooking Notebook
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Home > tacos
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Breakfast tacos with homemade tortillas -- back to top
The tacos were filled with a simple egg, black beans, onions and cheese mixture. We put them into homemade tortillas done like we did here. I do not remember what we did last time, but for these, we split the recipe and then made 6 (instead of 4). We also used almond milk and olive oil
Original Wordpress ID and Date: 1494, 2011-10-29_111923
Sautéed Mahi Mahi Tacos -- back to top
Meredith and I made fish tacos (it was a week ago so I may not remember everything).
The fish was mahi-mahi. We mixed together some flour, salt, pepper and seasonings. I_think_ it was cajun but I'll confirm with Meredith and come back. We then put the sliced fish into the mix, covered it, and shook to coat. This let us get a nice coating without using much flour. We sautéed that on the pan until it looked done.
We also made a roasted corn side/topping. We microwaved the corn in the husk for 1 min 30 sec then put it in the broiler to brown. We cut off the kernels and Meredith mixed in some salted butter (only a little), and some Chesapeake Bay Seasoning (aka fake Old Bay). FInally, she added some feta. The stuff was good, though a bit salty. I thought it made a nice topping.
We also warmed the tortillas in the oven (wrapped in Al foil) while the broiler was on. Note for next time to leave them in the oven for less time. They got too cooked. If I want to be really good, I should warm them on a dry pan but that takes too long. The microwave with a wet paper towel would work fine too.
Other toppings were:
We forgot cilantro. We'll have that next time
Original Wordpress ID and Date: 6468, 2013-08-10_112042
Breakfast Tacos -- back to top
I threw together breakfast tacos. I scrambled some (really fresh) eggs, mixed with a bit of sriracha. I served them on warmed tortillas (warmed on a dry pan), some cherry tomatoes and salsa. Topped it with a bit of smoked salt.
Pretty quick and simple....
Original Wordpress ID and Date: 6473, 2013-08-15_124234
Korean Beef Bulgogi Tacos -- back to top
Meredith and I made korean beef tacos. We used this beef bulgogi recipe as the marinade. We actually made the marinade Sunday night but didn't add the beef until yesterday. We followed the recipe pretty closely except used less beef (0.675lbs -- see photos below) but the same amount of marinade. Anyway, we marinated it overnight and then cooked it on the grill pan (warmed up at 7-8/10). The grill pan was good since the marinade dripped down but it was still hard since I couldn't see the meat well. Actually, next time, I think I would cook a whole piece of meat, let it rest, then cut it.
Anyway, on my plate, I also quickly heated 3 corn tortillas (50 cal each) and had some lettuce. Meredith just had it on lettuce.
The rest of the toppings were:
Overall, it was pretty good. And rather low in points -- especially the ones served only on the lettuce, though the corn tortillas weren't too many points.
We will make this again!
Some of this I said above but in the future I would:
Fajita Tacos and Green Beans -- back to top
I made fajita tacos since we wanted something (relatively) quick and not too many calories.
I made the fajita mix with:
I combined everything but the hatch peppers in the cast iron with some oil and cooked them. At a certain point, I added about 1/2 Tbsp of butter. As it was closer to being finished, I peeled the hatch chiles and added them.
We also had about 1/2 lbs of bottom round, grass-fed steak. As you can see in the photos below, I cooked the whole thing on the pan. I really struggled with the steak. First, the pan was way too hot and the oil just burned. Then, despite thinking I had overcooked it, as you can see in the photos, it was super, super rare. I had to cook it a little but more. The net result was an acceptably done but very tough steak. I used McCormick Grill Mates Montreal Chicken Seasoning on the steak.
I served them on two pan-heated corn tortillas (50cal each) with extra filling in a bowl.
Finally, for me, I also roasted green beans. I did them at 450°F in the convection toaster oven. When they were finished, I was distracted and they sat in the oven (off but still warm) for a little while. I do not know if it was due to not adjusting the heat for the convection or if it was the extra time, but they were overcooked. And I forgot to season them going in so the seasoning didn't stick well and they lacked flavor. Not my best showing.....
I made us Korean Tacos. I did it just like I did back in 2015-09-09. I used the regular Beef Bulgogi recipe except I added a tablespoon of Gochujang to the marinade.
Actually, I let it marinate for a really long time. I did it since Sunday, so 4 days. There wasn't much beef so I also did a block of tofu as you can see from the photos below.
Other than the beef, I used the same pickled onions as I did the first time (they were pickled so hopefully they were safe) and I made the same curtido (again, without carrots) as before.
I heated the tortilla and spread a tiny bit of Gochujang on the bottom which was just enough to get the flavor without being overpowering.
The beef was a bit too undercooked but other than that, it was really good. The flavor was all of the way through and they were really good. I think they only thing they could have needed was a bit of cheese or something.
Jerk Chicken Tacos -- back to top
Meredith has been really wanting to make something like Torchy's Taco Brushfire. Their description is:
Brushfire:
Jamaican jerk chicken, grilled jalapeños, mango, sour cream & cilantro. served with diablo hot sauce on a flour tortilla.
So we tried to make something similar. We used a Nigella Lawson via The Food Network recipe (local -- with lots of reformatting).
We followed the basic recipe with the following changes:
We shredded it with a bit of marinade paste (there was a lot). We made the tacos with heated corn tortillas, the chicken, sliced mango, cilantro, greek yogurt (instead of sour cream), and some bottled Diablo sauce from Torchy's. We actually made 6 chicken breasts and froze a ton of the chicken for another day.
The chicken was pretty good though not really anything like Torchy's. But the other toppings combined to make it at least resemble Torchy's (makes sense with the sauce).
Overall, I think we would do it again, but maybe with a different jerk chicken recipe (though we first have to use up these leftovers)
Home style Jerk Chicken (from Nigella Lawson via The Food Network)
Local Copy (U: guest, P: name of my dog, all lower case)
Kofta Style Tacos -- back to top
We had some more raw beef we had to use up (didn’t end up having time for beef jerky) and we wanted something easy. We had taco meat the other day, so decided to do something different and make kofta tacos.
We used the kofta recipe but instead of mixing it all in raw, we sautéed the onions and then added all of the other stuff.
We didn’t have cucumbers so we just made a dip with za'atar and greek yogurt.
I tried to heat the tortillas in the oven which worked ok but not as well as when you do it on a flat pan (or, say, a griddle). But it let me do more at a time.
It actually came out pretty good. The beef had a lot of flavor and it was easy enough to make. I would do this again. Though, I thought the beef was more flavorful without the other stuff.
Jerk Chicken Tacos -- back to top
I reheated the leftover frozen jerk chicken from 2016-04-07. I put it in a small pot with a tiny bit of water to steam and defrost it (which then used it's own water to keep steaming). I also added a bit of salt which it really needed.
I did it just like last time including using Diablo sauce from Torchy's.
It actually worked pretty well to defrost it like that. I liked having something easy. We will start keeping some stuff like this in the fridge.
Jerk Chicken Tacos -- back to top
Like 2016-04-18, I made jerk chicken tacos with the leftovers from 2016-04-07 (See that page for more details and inspiration).
Not much to it. I reheated it from frozen with a little bit of steam and then added salt. Other than that, it was pretty simple.
I had two as tacos and then one just the meat.
Kofta Tacos with Mango-Cucumber Israeli Salad -- back to top
We made Kofta tacos again like we did on 2016-04-14 with the regular kofta recipe though this time we used better beef (not frozen and/or only partially defrosted) plus I think we were more subtle on the spices which actually helped.
They were really good. Meredith also made her usual tzatziki (though we didn't have a ton of cucumbers).
Meredith also made a mango-cucumber Israeli salad from the cookbook Zahav. We thought it was interesting but not amazing. I do not know if the mangos were just too ripe or what. Maybe we would try it again, but we are excited either way for doing more things from this book.
Mango, Cucumber and Sumac-Onion Israeli Salad (from Zahav, book)
Local Copy (U: guest, P: name of my dog, lower case)
Simple Sumac Onions (from Zahav, book)
Local Copy (U: guest, P: name of my dog, lower case)
Jerk Chicken Tacos and Grilled Artichokes -- back to top
We made jerk chicken tacos. Actually, we made about 4+ pounds of chicken froze 4 servings.
We used the same recipe as last time with about the same changes. Except this time we went heavy on the peppers. We used 8 peppers and only took out the seeds of some. It was HOT!
I marinated all of it for about 2 hours (there was more than enough sauce for all of the chicken). Then I grilled it on medium / medium-high. Actually, I ran out of propane right around the time I put it on, so I had to pull it off, change the tank, pre-heat, and then I grilled it. I was actually pretty sure I over-cooked it based on the temperatures, but it was super moist. I guess the marinate/brine did the trick!
The chicken was really good. I am very happy with the recipe and the results.
I also made grilled artichokes mostly following this Simply Recipes] (Local 1) version. They were smaller ones so we made a bunch. I also did not do anything wit the stems. But I basically followed it otherwise. They were pretty good. I probably didn't get too much "meat" off the them and I barely used the dipping sauce (leftover tzatziki) but I liked the flavor.
This was also just an intense meal since, besides grilling extra chicken, I grilled food for other meals this week. But it was worth it and I was really happy with it.
We had frozen a good bit of the chicken. We reheated it in a pan with a little of water to keep it from drying out. It worked out pretty well. Maybe a bit more dry and chewy than when fresh, but still pretty good (and spicy). Also it was super easy to make and cook. If we have mango around, it is a great quick meal.
U: guest, P: name of my dog, all lower case ↩
Jerk Chicken Tacos and Stir-Fried Eggplant -- back to top
I made Jerk Chicken Tacos with the extra jerk chicken from 2016-07-31. We had made a ton of it then and froze a bunch. (I think we have one left). I reheated it from frozen by lightly steaming it to let the extra water pour off. I then drained it and cooked it right over the heat with a bit of water. Not surprisingly, they were a bit chewy. But still very good!
I also made some stir-fried eggplant. It was the asian style. I cut it into longish pieces and stir fried them with a bit of salt until they were soft. I then added a little bit of Soy Veh. Just enough to cook onto it and add flavor. I liked it a lot, though Meredith thought it was a tad salty.
