A while ago my friend Emma and I spent a morning cooking and shooting this recipe, but for some reason or another, I only got to post the results today. These tacos are, by far, one of my favourite Mexican 'antojitos'. Antojito literally means small craving, but it is a word used in Mexico for light suppers mostly made with a big component of masa (in this case a tortilla) and a tiny hint of guilt. My mother would always serve them with a bowl of sopa de fideo, a chicken soup with very fine strings of pasta, similar to angel hair.
Mexicans love beans... that's a fact! You give any Mexican a bowl of beans, some chilies and some tortillas and dinner will be ready in a giffy! So it is no surprise at all that I have written several times about beans in the blog. One of the most popular and most commented posts in the blog is the one where I show you how to make black beans from scratch.
Today I was feeling a little run down and tired. I've been struggling with a headcold for a week and I couldn't hack it any more. I headed to the kitchen determine to make something tasty that would make me feel better.
Tacos al Pastor (or Shepard's Style Tacos) are one of my favourite tacos EVER and I don't say that lightly. In the north of Mexico they are called 'Tacos de Trompo', because they are cooked in a vertical spit called 'trompo' (spinning top) similar if not identical to the one Kebabs are cooked on, with a piece of fresh pineapple and a big onion on top. The cooking method and the gadget were brought by Lebanese immigrants to Mexico in the late 1910 and early 1920's.
After the excitement of the last two weeks, life is back to normal and I found myself itching to post again. This is a recipe I have made a lot in the past for friends and family and it has always been a favourite. It used to be very complicated as I was unable to source its main ingredient, poblano peppers; however, since I finally found them tinned for the shop, I am able to post it now and make it much more simple for you all to make. 'Rajas' means slices, so this dish is mainly made of slices of Poblano peppers.
When it comes to enchiladas, this is by far, my favourite way to make them; not only are they delicious, but very easy to make. They are perfect for any leftovers of your Sunday Chicken roast and my Tomatillo Salsa Verde and with the adition of the Irish Mossfield Organic Cheese, they are incredibly good and practically half Irish (like me!).
I totally blame this post on two fabulous friends who are big into their craft beers: the ingenious Kate Packwood, from The Wild Flour Bakery, and the super mad Steve Mooney (AKA @pasty_face), who is well known on twitter as the outrageously funny guy behind the entrepreneurial Anto (his alter ego).
Salsas are at the centre stage of Mexican Food. A taco is not a taco without a good salsa, so there are so many recipes for them it will make your head explode! One funny thing I discovered last year is that a lot of people seem to think that chopping fresh tomatoes and adding onion, chilli and other raw stuff makes a salsa... In Mexico, mostly all our salsas are cooked. What Irish people refer to as 'salsa' is really a salad for us, a sort of pico de gallo that we use to garnish or accompany a dish with.
When I first moved to Ireland, I found the lack of Mexican food ingredients really depressing; I had to make do with what was available and the one thing I could find with no problem was hard taco shells. They weren't precisely very Mexican, more of a Tex-Mex thing, but in time, I learned to like them and they became a regular super at home.
