The Impatient Chef Recipe: Ground Beef Tacos.

The Impatient Chef Recipe: Ground Beef Tacos!

As a rule, The Impatient Chef is impatient, and prefers to buy taco shells from a local natural food store.  Every rule is meant to be broken, however, and everything must be tried at least once (in case it's really good).  I had heard that home made taco shells were the cat's meow, so when I found blue corn masa at a farmers market at Portland's venerable People's Co-Op, I took the plunge.

Ground Beef Taco

A diversion first... 

Previous experiences with phographing foods for this blog in my dimly lit, cluttered kitchen were somewhat less than enjoyable, and somewhat more than frustrating.  I will leave choice words to your imagination.  For this project, I needed a better lighting setup.  My studio strobes are way to big for such a small area, so I found a used set of smaller strobes, and, along with a pair of umbrellas and stands that I've carried to location shoots over the years, a new studio was born.  

Yup, it's still cluttered.

The paint splatters on the right umbrella were from a shoot that I did years ago with a nekked model flinging paint at a 6-foot canvas (No, you can't see it.  This blog is family friendly).  

With this setup, I should be able to get better pictures of the food and the preparation.  

I will remind readers that this is a working kitchen.  My cast iron pans date back to the 1800's, and I don't scrub the bottoms of my stainless steel.  The Impatient Chef has a day job, and a photography business on the side.  

The one disappointment about this house is that the kitchen was designed for folks who eat elsewhere.  There is no pantry, very little cabinet space, and cetainly not enough room for adventurous cooks (considering that the dining and living rooms also occupy the same space).  We have made do, but if you are expecting Harriet Nelson's prim and proper kitchen, you will be disappointed.  We keep it clean enough to eat off of, but there ain't no room for the stuff.

To the Recipe!

Things to do ahead:  

1.  Cube a large tomato.  

2.  Slice a few leaves of romaine lettuce into ribbons.  

3.  Make or buy your favorite salsa.

4.  Make sure you have sour cream.

5.  Slice a lime or two into wedges.  

Keep these things in the refrigerator until ready to serve.  

Things to keep in mind:

1.  The Impatient Chef likes spicy food.  Your mileage may vary.

2.  These recipes aren't emblazoned on stone tablets by an ancient god.

3.  The Impatient Chef isn't above thievery (with attribution, of course).

Which Brings Us To...

Blue Corn Tortillas.  

Recipe coutesy of Isabel Eats.  

I had never made these before, so I needed to start somewhere. These seemed simple enough.  

Ingredients:

8 oz blue corn masa*

1 1/2 cups hot water, plus more if necessary.

1/2 teaspoon sea salt (I use kosher salt)

*The original recipe on Isabel Eats didn't specify blue corn, but The Impatient Chef loves colorful flavors.  Masa is starting to show up in natural food stores such as Whole Foods, and even some supermarket chains.  Soon, Trader Joe's may even carry it, if they don't already.  You can get it online if you must.  The Impatient Chef is waaaaaay too impatient to make his own masa.  Another change that I made was to weigh the masa.  Using weights rather than measures makes cooking with any kind of grain easier.

Adding the water

Directions:

In a large bowl, mix the salt and masa together.

Pour 1 1/2 cups of hot water (I fired up my tea kettle for the occasion) into the mixture, and mix with a spoon at first, and then by hand as it cools a little to form a big ball.  The dough should be firm, and springy when touched, and not dry, or super sticky.  If the mixture is too dry, and it needs some more water, add it in small amounts until the dough is the right consistency.

Cover the bowl with a cloth napkin, and let the dough rest for about an hour.

Pause the tortilla recipe.  We'll return to it in a bit.

While your masa ball is resting, it's time to make the taco meat.  You want to time the completion of the taco meat to be about the same time as it takes your dough ball to rest.

The Taco Meat Recipe!

The Usual Suspects

Ingredients:

1 pound ground beef (not the lean type; you need the fats)
1 medium red bell pepper, diced
3 jalepeno peppers, diced (remove the seeds and membrane for sensitive palates; adventurous types can leave them in.)
1 Cubanelle pepper, diced (or another mild, green pepper other than a green bell pepper if you can't find cubanelles)
1/2 bulb garlic (crushed while laughing maniacally)  
1/2 medium onion, diced
3 scallions (optional), chop the oniony bits off, and reserve the rest.  
2 tbsp bacon grease or grapeseed oil
Salt to taste, both coarse sea salt, and kosher salt.
1/4 cup ground cumin (yes, that much)
1 tbsp ground, dried aleppo pepper
1 tbsp red chili powder
freshly ground pepper
A good handfull of fresh parsley or cilantro (about 1/4 cup rough chopped), and the same amount of fresh chives.  
Corn, about a half cup freshly cut off of the cob, but pre-cooked (optional)

Directions:

Melt the bacon grease in a large skillet or cast iron pan with the burner set just on the high side of medium.  My stove has numbers 1 through 10.  I use 6.  Add the peppers and onion (aromatics).  

Sautee until the onions are translucent, and the peppers are soft.

While the aromatics are cooking, rough chop the garlic, parsley (or cilantro), and chives.  Use a mortar and pestle with a good-sized pinch of coarse sea salt to crush them.  You want to release the oils in the herbs.  The salt is used to help grind the garlic and herbs as well as to season the dish.  

Once the aromatics are sauteed, add the spices, and continue to sautee for another minute.  You may have to add more oil if the mixture is too dry.  You don't want too much, though, because the hamburger will add a little more fat to the party.  Then, move everything to the outer edge of the pan, and add the hamburger.  Use a flat-tipped wooden spoon to chop it up as fine as you want it as it cooks.  Then, stir everything together, and cook until the ground beef is done.

Add the Meat, and Chop, Chop, Chop!

When the meat is chopped up, start heating the griddle (or large frying pan), and in between stirring, start forming the masa dough into golf ball-sized balls.  I got eleven this time.  You should be able to get twelve out of it. 

When the hamburger is just about cooked through, add the herb and garlic mixture to the pan, stir, and cook for an additional minute.  Add the corn if desired at this point as well.  

Turn the heat to low.  

Press the Masa dough balls into tortillas.  Use wax paper in between the press plates to make the tortillas easier to release.  

Gently remove the flattened masa from the wax paper, and cook on the hot griddle for 30 seconds to 1 minute, depending on how hot the griddle is.  You want the tortilla to have some brown marks on it. 

Flip the tortilla over, and cook on the other side for another 30 seconds to 1 minute.  The tortilla may start to puff up in the middle.   That's okay.

Remove the tortilla from the griddle, and place it between a cloth or tortilla warmer to keep it warm.  Repeat until the dough balls are gone.  

Serve by placing some lettuce, and chopped scallion ends onto the tortilla, add a small amount of the meat mixture, and place a few strategically located cubes of tomatoes on top, followed by salsa and sour cream.  A wedge of lime finishes the plate. 

Served

I'm still working on the photography part of this.  I''m suddenly feeling in awe of the people who make this look easy, and good.