Poll of the Day > The Taco Thread

(+) Yeah! (+)

So yeah, this is a thread about......you guessed it.....TACOS!!!

Why you ask? Well, I love tacos and most of us have been at home/self isolating etc for a year+ now. This makes getting good tacos (if they are even available in your area) very hard if impossible!!

Also, I have a ton of taco recipes and different ways to make them. I use tons of different cooking methods including, Grilling, The oven, The insta pot, The air fryer and the microwave (yes it's quite useful in a few situations!!).

I will try and post a new recipe each day or close to that, and I'll try and post both vegetarian tacos and carnivore tacos since I have good tacos of both kinds.

Today I will start off with my favorite taco and my favorite Veggy taco.

My favorite over all taco to make at home is a steak taco (use a flat iron steak on the grill), with lettuce + tomattos and salsa (no cheese for me but you can add it if you like of course). This is a very classic combo and is hands down my favorite way to eat lettuce (which isn't naturally on the top of the list for things I like to eat!!).

The flat iron steak is very tender and tasty. I let it come to room temperature then I add all the spices to it before adding salt/season all (this helps it absorb the other spices!!). I usually use black pepper + onion powder + garlic powder + season all last. I do this to both sides, then I let it rest for at least 10 minutes (to absorb it all).

Next up you grill the steak. Now this is going to sound blasphamous to some steak grillers, but, my trick is pretty simple a flat iron steak is about 1 1/4 to 1 1/2 inch thick (it varies but pretty much always over 1 inch). I grill both sides till they have a nice char and then (don't cringe) I Cut them into long cubes that are the same width as height (so 1 1/2 inches apart). I do this ON THE GRILL but using the slots between the grill. This makes it easy to do, and no juice is really lost.

After doing this, obviously I flip them so the uncooked sides are down. This makes grilling them VERY fast, and allows you to completly avoid any chance of over cooking etc. It gives you pleanty of outside crunch flavor as well.

Once the strips are done (basically just need to watch the outside of the 2 last sides, they are done when you have a good char on both. Remove the steak to a nice plate that you can cut it with. You still need to wait a bit for it to cool and recollect it's juices before cutting. But since you can literally make a taco at a time, you don't have to wait that long for the first piece (just about 2 minutes max). Any juice that does spill out, you just lay the tortilla in before placing the steak pieces on that side.

I then take the tortilla WITH the steak pieces on it, put it on a paper plate (used to also eat said taco) and nuke it for 30 seconds.

Why?

Well 30 seconds just reheats the meat and gets the juices flowing a bit (if it's cooled off that is) and doesn't over cook it at all, but it ALSO softens the flour tortilla shell, and lets it absorb the juices a bit more.

Then I remove the plate and add the tomottoes + lettuce and finally a nice line of hot taco salsa.

The end result is amazing. The steak is in small cube sized pieces, easy to bite into, but very juicy with a nice crunch as well. The juices that explode while you bite into the taco mix with the lettuce and tomattoes + salsa to make an extremely delicious flavor.

The end result is honestly better than most tacos you can find even in California, and you can make that anywhere in the world you can get a flat iron steak. Hands down my favorite taco by far.

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these sound like some white people tacos, no thanks. No way in hell that recipe tops even a middling taqueria in California.

Next up is my favorite veggy taco. There are actually quite a few yummy veggie tacos. I like asparagus tacos a ton, potato tacos also count as a veggy taco, but my favorite is actually a mushroom taco!!

Mushroom tacos are the most un-veggy like veggy taco in my opinion and can taste very much like your eating a meat taco!! They also go well with other kinda of tacos (especially chicken tacos) so you can reduce how much meat your eating, but still get it's flavor in the taco.

But for the pure Mushroom taco I like to focus on a bit different flavor and cooking method. The first point is to ensure your muchrooms are thick enough to have a good bite to them and juice left inside. I cut my shitake or button mushrooms in half basically and then fry them either on the stove or in the air fryer (stove is better. Air frying you need to use aluminum foil + oil on the botton and flip em halfway). Get a nice golden brown on the outside of your mushrooms, and then remove them to a plate. Now you have to choose the TYPE of mushroom taco you want, different flavors all work. I'm partial to butter flavored mushrooms with lettuce + tomatoes, but terryaki sauce works very well also. Sliced carrots also work well in combo with this (I don't normally like carrots but thin sliced carrots work well here to add a bit more crunch. This would also be one of the ONLY tacos that I would add cheese to (Although still a white cheese like swiss or mozzerella, I don't like the yellow cheeses). Mozzerella + mushroom tacos are extremely yum escpecially with a garlic butter sauce (oh I forget the spices, basic ones as always, season all + pepper + garlic). Finally both onions (grilled which you can do while doing the mushrooms) and bell peppers (also grilled for some extra yum) work great with these. The mushrooms are the main event, but there are tons of things you can add to the mix to change things up.

So my favorite over all including sauce + topping is:

Shitake mushrooms cut in 1/2, grilled to have a nice char with white onions + green bell peppers also grilled (but only a small amount added) + a light coating of mozz cheese (just nuke for 30 seconds on the tortilla since it softens the shell, melds the flavors and melts the cheese). I don't put any lettuce on them, but I do put diced tomatoes on at the end (after microwaving). No sauce is added as you add the butter + garlic (I used minced in this case) while grilling the mushrooms etc.

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JigsawTDC posted...

these sound like some white people tacos, no thanks. No way in hell that recipe tops even a middling taqueria in California.

I've been to the best taco places in CA, and sadly Safeway used to have an even better steak in CA formaking tacos with (god they were good). This is the best solution that is available anywhere though that I have found and are really good.

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90s kids: were Choco Tacos the best dessert to get from ice cream trucks?

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burritos > tacos.

sadly my favorite burrito place is in the bay area, and I'm in southern ca now....

san francisco also had a nice burrito place where one of the items was a foot-long burrito. (not skinny either, about as thick as a regular subway sub)
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What's the biggest taco you ever eaten?

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Sarcasthma posted...

90s kids: were Choco Tacos the best dessert to get from ice cream trucks?

I was more into the deranged Sonic head and the Whopper cups

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Krazy_Kirby posted...

burritos > tacos.

sadly my favorite burrito place is in the bay area, and I'm in southern ca now....

san francisco also had a nice burrito place where one of the items was a foot-long burrito. (not skinny either, about as thick as a regular subway sub)

Is your favorite burrito place on Tennyson Blvd in Hayward CA? Cause that place is freaking epic.

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Also ya'll feel free to post your own favorite taco recipes if you want!:)

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I enjoy a good chorizo taco. When I make them I use a soft shell and put in chimichurri, jalapenos, avacado slices, cotija, a little Valentina, and sour cream.
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I love tacos partly b/c they're fairly simple to make for how good they taste. So yeah...would never got to much lengths....

I mostly make ground turkey tacos. Packaged seasoning, packaged shredded Mexican cheese blend, lettuce, tomato, black bean salsa, and the extra touch that really works wonders: freshly squeezed lime over the meat.

i also make fish tacos, which are even simpler.... Buy the frozen fried fish fillets, bake them, put lemon juice on, add lettuce, tomato, and sweet chili sauce or salsa.

Both on soft tortillas / wraps. I don't like hard taco shells.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-cKNb1TLfCY

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wolfy42 posted...

Is your favorite burrito place on Tennyson Blvd in Hayward CA? Cause that place is freaking epic.

concord, though apparently they opened another in sf.
el faro's
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Krazy_Kirby posted...

concord, though apparently they opened another in sf.
el faro's

Ahh, never tried that place. But when I go back I will have to (prob the on in SF though).

The all meat burrito place in hayward though (not it's name, but what everone called it). They had the juiciest most delicious burritos. You didn't need anything in em but meat and a hot sauce (or mild) and it was so good. You could get em with all the other stuff in it, but why? Lol.

I still dream about them.

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Never thought of using bacon in my tacos that is genius!!

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White people taco night:
Ground beef from the grocery store
Taco spice packet from the grocery store
Shredded cheese from the grocery store
Taco shells from the grocery store
Shredded lettuce from the grocery store
Taco sauce from the grocery store
Sour cream from the grocery store

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streamofthesky posted...

Both on soft tortillas / wraps. I don't like hard taco shells.

it always boggles my mind that people need to clarify this. All tacos are "soft"/normal tortillas unless otherwise specified as fried to me.

Krazy_Kirby posted...

burritos > tacos.

burritos are delicious but I disagree because I like variety and tacos let you have that without eating too much

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grimhilde00 posted...

it always boggles my mind that people need to clarify this. All tacos are "soft"/normal tortillas unless otherwise specified as fried to me.

In my experience, "taco" can mean either to people, so I wanted to clarify.
Because hard shells fucking suck.

Never once in my life, not one time, have I eaten a hard shell taco and said "wow, I'm so glad this is a hard shell taco instead of a soft shell taco". Never.

Seriously soft shell corn tortillas are 100% better than hard shell ones, and you don't even have hard shell flour ones that I know of.

But some people really like em (not me).

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Taco for today is a simple and very cheap fish taco. I just use gordons beer battered fish portions, each is the perfect size for 1 taco. I toss 2 in my air fryer for 10 mins, and they come out super freaking crispy (I spray the top side with oil (canola) at first, and then the other side when I flip it halfway through.

I add lettuce+ tomatoes + a dash of salt and pepper and the juice from a lemon (no other sauce).

It's freaking divine, and super cheap. The bag of fish is normally 7.99 but I just wait till it's on sale at safeway for 4.99 and stock up. That is 12 fish tacos for 5$....so even with lettuce/tomato, it's about 50 cents a taco. It's always ready (10 minutes from start to eating), and it lasts forever in the freezer (I usually buy 2 of em when they are on sale, and have not ever been done with both bags before another sale started.

It's one of the great (argh i'm out of fresh food) options I have.

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I should quickly talk about the lettuce and tomotos which are featured in so many of these tacos (and more to come).

Lettuce is pretty simple, I get a head of lettuce for 99 cents usually (depends on sales). I have a crisper, and a head of lettuce stays good (even once I start tearing pieces off of it lol) for 3 weeks or so, sometimes even 4 weeks. It really depends if I go shopping again. IF i'm shopping every 2 weeks, I just replace the head (it's only 99 cents) when I do. That is very easy to always have fresh lettuce. I use it for tacos, lettuce wraps, salad etc (but one head generally lasts me at least 2 weeks).

The tomatoes are a different story but I have and do, get them to last 2 weeks without any deterioration. I get the roma tomatoes (small and firm) because they are the perfect size to use 1 tomato per meal, and I individually wrap each one with a napkin/paper towel. This keeps light off them and keeps them dry. Occasionally i'll see a bit of deterioration by where the stem was by the second week, but I just cut that off and the rest is perfect. This lets me have plenty of fresh tomatoes for 2 weeks (between shopping trips in the age of the virus).

Anyway that is how I have fresh ingrediants for my tacos. The above mentioned flat iron steak btw, generally has a use by date about 7-9 days out from purchase. I tend to just use them by then and not freeze. If I'm gonna use frozen steak I generally use tri tip etc instead.

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Zangulus posted...

Had double decker tacos last night. I always eat too much. Theres left overs and I low key want it for breakfast.

I can one hundred percent honestly say I have NEVER had leftover tacos:)

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https://youtu.be/2IGmuyEsiDs?t=158

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I like home tacos but I sure do miss all the legit taco places there are in Victoria. Since I moved, there's not much of quality.

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https://youtu.be/2IGmuyEsiDs?t=302

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I prefer soft tacos. Crunchy ta os tend to fall apart too easily.

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This is now the THACO thread.

I had a mage with a 12 not too long ago.

kukukupo posted...

This is now the THACO thread.

I had a mage with a 12 not too long ago.

My first ever D&D game, the DM was new to it, too.
Thought you were supposed to roll a d20 for all of your stats (obviously, it's 3d6 or 4d6 drop the lowest, duh).
...Including THAC0 (not THACO btw, the fuck is that?)

So there we were, level 2 or 3 I think for a one shot adventure. Warrior dude had THAC0 19, and my Elf Fighter/Mage had THAC0... 5
Needless to say, none of the fights were challenging and I just hit everything.
Good times.

streamofthesky posted...

My first ever D&D game, the DM was new to it, too.
Thought you were supposed to roll a d20 for all of your stats (obviously, it's 3d6 or 4d6 drop the lowest, duh).
...Including THAC0 (not THACO btw, the fuck is that?)

So there we were, level 2 or 3 I think for a one shot adventure. Warrior dude had THAC0 19, and my Elf Fighter/Mage had THAC0... 5
Needless to say, none of the fights were challenging and I just hit everything.
Good times.

Yeah, good call. I had a O instead of a 0.

i haven't played since the 2nd edition - I understand THAC0 isn't a thing anymore, is it? Do the new Baldur's Gate games still use is?

kukukupo posted...

Yeah, good call. I had a O instead of a 0.

i haven't played since the 2nd edition - I understand THAC0 isn't a thing anymore, is it? Do the new Baldur's Gate games still use is?

They got rid of THAC0 with 3rd edition, the best D&D edition.
Ever since then, armor class (AC) is just a positive number and you have additive attack bonuses, so higher numbers are always better, on both fronts. You roll d20 + total attack modifier, and it has to equal or exceed AC.

Baldur's Gate used mostly 2nd edition rules but some bits of 3rd edition and of course was tweaked for a computer game anyway. I do think it had THAC0.... Definitely had 2nd edition style full attacks (happen over the entire round, not all at the same time, then on to the next turn, which I do miss....), saves, etc...

I'm going to tell my kids that THAC0 is just a thic taco.

Thaco is a Taco with a little bit of hot sauce in it:)

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