Tacos Dorados | Around the World with Recipes
Happy Friday! Is anyone else dying for the weekend to get here this week? It’s been a long one for me and all I want to do is spend a lazy morning in bed tomorrow before meeting a friend for brunch. Anyway, today kicks off the first of four recipe posts I’m really excited about. One of my favorite things about cooking is that there’s always a new challenge around the corner. Cooking through A Kitchen In France saw me through handling a whole chicken and repeatedly failing at baking a meringue. Cooking with Stanley took me through my first taste of mussels and a frustrating process to make homemade gnocchi. I love diving into projects where I’ll learn a new skill and experience something new, especially in the kitchen. While coming up with content for February, I decided I wanted to get cultural.
Around the World with Recipes is a concept I came up with while flipping through a few new cookbooks. I love food, all kinds of it whether it’s something from my childhood or something I’ve never heard of before. But I feel like I am very comfortable with traditional American, Italian and French cuisine. I wanted to mix things up! This series for February has two parts to it: original recipes and cookbook features. Each week, I’ll share one recipe created by yours truly and one post featuring recipes from a cookbook. Each will portray different cuisines from around the world. Today, we start with a Mexican recipe that I learned from my best friend in our college years: Tacos Dorados.
Known as a taquito in American culture, tacos dorados are shallow-fried rolled tacos. They can be filled with anything you like but I prefer potato. It was the first way that I had them and there hasn’t been another filling that met the greatness of the potato taco dorado since. They’re a really simple Mexican dish to make. The hardest part is making the filling which is pretty basic. I have two recipes for you here: potato and beef and cheese. You could also do beans or chicken. The options are endless. If you have something to fill the tortilla with that will allow it to roll up, you’re set. A word of caution, don’t set the heat to high when you fry these. Oil that is on too high of a heat will splatter and pop and it can get very painful. Make sure you wear an apron, stand back a step or so and use tongs. Hot oil is no joke, I have the scars to prove it.
Tacos Dorados
Ingredients for the Potato:
2-3 Potatoes, peeled and cut into small chunks
2 tbsp. Butter
¼ cup Milk
½ cup Cotija or Chihuahua Cheese shredded
Ingredients for the Beef & Cheese:
½ medium Onion, diced
1 Jalapeno, diced
½ lb. Ground Beef
1 Tomato, diced
1 cup Cheddar Cheese, shredded
Ingredients for the Tacos Dorados:
Vegetable Oil
Corn Tortillas
Directions for the Potato:
1 - Place the potatoes in a medium pot and cover with water. Bring to a boil and let simmer 15-20 minutes until fork tender. Drain.
2- Mash the potatoes with butter and milk. Stir in the cheese.
Directions for the Beef & Cheese:
1 - In a skillet, saute the onion and jalapeno until softened. Add the beef and cook until browned. Drain, if necessary. Add the beef and cook until browned. Add the tomatoes and cook 3-4 minutes to soften. Take off the heat and fold in the cheese.
Prepare the Tacos Dorados:
1 - Heat about one half of an inch of vegetable oil in a deep saute pan. Place a few tablespoons of the filling in the middle of the tortilla. Roll up and place seam side down in the pan. Cook 3-4 minutes per side until golden and toasted. Place on a paper-towel lined plate to cool. Repeat until you’ve run out of filling or tortillas.
NOTE: You can have a few tacos dorados cooking at the same time but don’t crowd the pan. It reduces the temperature of the oil and you’ll come out with soggy tacos.
