The plan was for two kinds of tacos: steak and greens. We got some lacinato kale in our CSA box, and I browned a red onion, added the shredded kale, chicken stock, and red pepper flakes, and stewed it until tender. Meanwhile, I browned and sliced some lime-marinated flank steak. Slicing flank steak, either before or after it’s cooked, is one of my favorite kitchen tasks.
It was at this point that I realized the tortillas weren’t going to work out. Trader Joe’s sells a dozen varieties of tortillas, some great, some terrible. These were the latter, some kind of thick corn tortilla as pliable as corrugated cardboard. I found one flour tortilla in the fridge and magnanimously offered it to Iris. Laurie and I each got a big bowl of greens topped with steak and a squeeze of lime.
Need I say that this was as good as any taco? It was also real home cooking, in that I can’t imagine how anyone would get away with serving it in a restaurant: not enough meat to call it a steak dish, too steaky for a vegetable side dish. I’m going to make it again.
I had almost the same thing with “pork cookies” last night (leftover jiaozi filling shaped into balls and baked in the oven — too lazy to fry them).
Ooh, that’s a good idea.
That sounds suspiciously like something from a Low Carb menu…
I’m working on becoming good enough at making tortillas so that eventually I can just think to myself “hey, you know what would be good with this dinner? some tortillas” and then whip them out. Right now they’re still somewhere in between pasties and homemade chili on the “it’s a special day” scale.
Will you be able to whip them out in three minutes? That’s how much time I had.
I hear you on the Trader Joes tortillas. Seems like there are more misses lately than hits over there. As for tacos, what better way to keep the kiddies intrigued. Ours will eat fish, bean, shrimp, pork–whatever, as long as there’s a tortilla wrap involved.
Um, yeah, I’m not sure I could thaw frozen storebought tortillas within three minutes, much less make them from scratch.
I, too, have suffered intermittently at the hands of Trader Joe’s tortillas. Like the 100% whole wheat variety we tried a couple weeks ago. “Unpalatable” would have been a step up from these things.
Before that, our biggest problem was tortillas stuck together in the bag. Separating them would often tear a hole in one of the tortillas. Just bad quality control somewhere along the line.