Monday, July 7, 2008

When life gives you shredded beef, make Carne Asada Tacos

I bought a huge package of thinly-sliced beef for our July 4th BBQ because I wanted to make kabobs, but it was sliced even thinner than I realized. Half of it was too thin to put on skewers so we had to cook it in our grill wok. Saturday night we used the leftovers to make teriyaki stir-fry, which was fabulous. Then last night we marinated and grilled the rest of the meat to make carne asada tacos from a recipe I found on http://www.allrecipes.com/, called Taqueria Style Tacos - Carne Asada. They were SO good. Here's the recipe, with a few changes I made:

2-3 lbs carne asada (very thinly sliced beef)
soft corn tortillas
taco toppings
Marinade:
1/3 cup white vinegar
1/4 cup soy sauce
4 cloves garlic
2 limes, juiced
1/2 cup oil
1/2 - 1 tsp salt
1 1/2 tsp pepper
1 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp chili powder
1 tsp dried oregano
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp paprika

1. Mix all ingredients of marinade and add to beef in large Ziploc bag. Mix well and refrigerate 1-8 hours (the longer the better - it makes it so flavorful and tender). Grill over medium high heat in grill basket. Since the meat is so thin, it will cook very fast. Chop into smaller pieces if needed.
2. Fry corn tortillas in very thin layer of oil over medium high heat. I use my big pan so I can do 3 at a time. Cook just until it starts to turn light golden. Turn over and cook the other side the same. Drain on paper towels. Don't overcook or else it will be too stiff to fold.
3. Fill tortillas with meat, lettuce, tomatoes, shredded cheese, salsa, sour cream, guacamole, and cilantro, although we liked the meat so much we put fewer and fewer toppings on it because we didn't want to cover up the flavor.

1 comment:

Ellen said...

That sounds wonderful. I miss beef.