7 recipes that use shredded lettuce, with photos, step-by-step instructions and cook times. The quickest, Cauliflower tinga tacos, takes 35 minutes. It is most often cooked with garlic, white onion and cumin.
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Navajo tacos, also called Indian tacos, are what the queues are for at powwows, state fairs and roadside stands across the Navajo Nation and the Four Corners. A freshly fried, crisp-edged fry bread is piled with beef and pinto bean chili, shredded lettuce, tomato, onion and cheese, and eaten with a knife and fork. Chef's tip: make the chili first and fry the bread last, so it is still crisp when the toppings go on.
Enchiladas mineras were the supper of Guanajuato's silver miners and are still sold every evening under the arches of the city's plazas and at the Mercado Hidalgo: tortillas dipped in guajillo sauce, fried briefly, rolled around fresh cheese and onion, and buried under fried diced potato and carrot, shredded lettuce, pickled jalapeños and crema. Stalls often add a piece of chicken on the side; this recipe leaves it out and the vegetables make it a full plate. Chef's tip: dip each tortilla in the sauce before frying, not after; that's what gives the slightly crisp, chilli-coated finish.
The puffy taco is San Antonio's own: a ball of fresh corn masa pressed flat and dropped into hot oil, where it puffs into a light, crisp, hollow shell, then shaped into a U and filled with seasoned beef mince, lettuce and tomato. Family-run Tex-Mex restaurants on the West Side have served them since the 1950s, and the city's baseball team even has a puffy taco mascot. Chef's tip: as soon as the dough puffs, press a spatula into the middle to make the fold, before it sets.
Around Puebla's zócalo and in the evening stalls outside its churches, molotes are fried to order: masa turnovers rolled into long spindles with pointed ends, crisp and blistered outside and soft inside. The favourite filling is potato mashed with pork chorizo, though stalls also sell them with tinga, quesillo or huitlacoche. They are eaten hot from a paper plate, split open and spooned with salsa, cream and crumbled cheese, as an evening snack or a light supper. Chef's tip: press the dough between two sheets of plastic cut from a freezer bag, so the thin disc lifts off cleanly and doesn't tear when you fold it.
Pambazos are a Mexico City street classic, sold at night from griddles outside metro stations and at the fondas that open for Lent and village fiestas. A soft, light roll is split, filled with potato fried with pork chorizo, then dipped in a garlicky red guajillo sauce and crisped on the griddle, so the outside turns deep red, slightly crunchy and a little messy. Inside go shredded lettuce, cream and crumbled cheese, with salsa verde for heat. Eat it straight off the griddle with plenty of napkins. Chef's tip: use day-old rolls; fresh, soft bread soaks up too much sauce and falls apart on the griddle.
Tinga comes from Puebla, where shredded meat is simmered in a sauce of sweet sliced onion, tomato and smoky chipotle chillies and piled onto tostadas or tacos. Here roasted cauliflower takes the place of the chicken: browned in a hot oven so it turns nutty and holds its shape, then folded through the brick-red sauce so every floret is glossy and smoky. The result, tinga de coliflor, is sweet, tangy and properly spicy; serve it in warm corn tortillas or on crisp tostadas with avocado, shredded lettuce and lime. Chef's tip: cook the onions slowly until soft and sweet before the tomatoes go in; the sweetness is what balances the heat of the chipotle.
Sopes are a classic antojito of central Mexico: small, thick discs of corn masa cooked on a comal, pinched up at the edge while hot to make a little rim, then crisped in a film of oil and piled with refried beans, salsa, lettuce, crema and crumbled cheese. The base is crisp underneath and soft and steamy inside, with the sweet, earthy taste of nixtamalised corn. Serve two or three per person as a starter or a light supper. Use masa harina for tortillas, made from nixtamalised corn; cornmeal or polenta will not hold together. Choose queso fresco made with vegetarian rennet, or use a mild feta. Chef's tip: pinch the rims as soon as the sopes come off the comal; once they cool the masa sets and cracks.
American
Mexican
