Beef Tacos

Tacos is a Mexican dish which is made out of corn or wheat tortilla served with a variety of fillings like beef, chicken, fish and vegetables. Usually eaten by hand and often accompanied by a variety of garnishes such as tomatoes, cilantro, avocadoes, lettuce and onions. Taco is one of the oldest dishes in Mexico; it even predates the European colonization as there was anthropological evidence that the indigenous people from the lake region of the Valley of Mexico ate fish tacos.

Tacos can come in different shape and sizes, there are soft and hard variants, but I guess the most popular ones are the hard shell ones, at least from my perspective as I grew up with this type and it was popular in the canteen from the school where I had my primary and secondary education. But tacos did was not invented as hard shell, that famour  U shaped corn tacos was just recently invented and the earliest evidence of its existence was from a cookbook by Fabiola Cabeza de Vaca Gilbert which was published in Santa Fe, New Mexico in 1949. It was manually fried at first until a device was invented by a New York restaurateur named Juvenico Maldonado in the 1950’s which enabled the mass production of these shells.

I love tacos as a quick meal, for me it’s like nachos that you can hold and bring along the only issue I had with this is it’s a bit messy to eat, I never had perfected eating the taco, and how about you do you find it messy? if not what are your tricks in consuming them? Have you tried ordering this on your first date?

Ingredients

500g lean beef mince
1/2 cup chopped onions
1 cup chopped lettuce
3 large tomatoes, seeded and chopped
1/2 cup cheddar cheese, grated
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 tbsp onion powder
1 tsp dried oregano
1 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp paprika
1 tsp cayenne pepper
1/2 cup beef stock
salt
freshly ground black pepper
taco shells
oil

Method

1. In a pan add oil then sauté garlic until golden brown.
2. Add minced beef, oregano, cumin, paprika, powdered onion and cayenne pepper. Mix well until beef mince is completely separated to each other.
3. Add beef stock then cook beef until liquid dries out and beef is brown in colour. Season with salt and freshly ground black pepper.
4. Remove from pan, place in taco shells then garnish with tomatoes, lettuce, onion and cheddar cheese.