Ground Beef Tacos
If your children are anything like mine, they could eat tacos every night. As a matter of fact, every time I make a meal that they don’t like my boys remind me that I need not experiment, tacos would be fine.
So it’s no surprise that standard issue ground beef tacos are on the regular rotation in my house. When I don’t know what to cook, the beef starts sizzling in the pan, lettuce is shredded, cheddar is grated (or sometimes even poured from that horrid bag), salsa is popped and sour cream is opened. A “no complaints” dinner in a jiffy. I will tell you that I’ve never used those taco seasoning packets. I’m no purist but one look at the long list of ingredients had my head spinning. So I just season the meat with a pinch of salt, a dash of cumin and some chill powder. All done by look, smell and feel so I’ve never been able to share a recipe here on Sly Rooster. Until now…
An article entitled, “The Harder They Come” in The New York Times Magazine got me all excited. In it, Sam Sifton waxes nostalgic over the hard-shell tacos of suburban dinners of yore. As he explains, while often maligned, these hard-shell tacos (affectionately referred to as “gringo tacos”) served their purpose as ambassadors of Mexican food at a time when there weren’t as many Mexicans spread across the country. And they still serve the purpose of getting people around the table to share a meal.
Armed with an actual recipe, I decided to give these tacos a try. Same shredded lettuce, cheese, salsa, sour cream but this time I offered barely warmed hard shells along with the usual slightly charred flour tortillas. The ground beef was seasoned similarly to mine with the addition of paprika, crushed red pepper, corn starch and broth instead of the water that I normally add in increments to create a thick gravy.
The verdict…delicious! Not too different than my tried and true but slightly more flavorful. As a matter of fact, one of my sons determined that the taco didn’t need any salsa because it had enough zip. If you are using those seasoning packets, I am going to beg that you replace them with this recipe and if you are currently winging it with your ground beef tacos, I’ll only suggest that you incorporate a few of these tricks. Enjoy!
Beef Tacos