May
12
Taco Tuesday…
As has become the tradition of late, we took a few hours off on Tuesday to take care of things outside the house. The day started off great, internet was busy as was the bodega. We had lunch and then closed for a few hours. First stop was the cemetery to pay our respect to some departed loved ones. After that we went downtown to take care of a few errands, inventory for the shop, a few things missing to prepare dinner, etc.
It has been cold here… Literally cold. Monday the temperature dropped to 65 overnight. Normally it does not get any cooler than about 75 at night. People are bundled up like Eskimos, that is pretty amusing to see. During the day it has not been too hot either, about 85. Normally . I can live with that. But I digress… The point is, when it cools off here, I generally get inspired to do something… usually involving cooking.
Thus, Pucallpa Taco Tuesday was born! I made Tacos. I wrote about the lack of prepared ingredients a few weeks ago and said, ‘Screw it!’ I can do this myself and I did. Total cost, about 12 soles and enough to feed 4 people.
Taco Checklist:
Meat – Yup.
Cheese – Sort of, it passes as cheese.
Veggies – Yeah.
Taco Seasoning – Hell No.
Flour Tortillas – Double Hell No.
What to do when you don’t have pre-packaged crap?!? Well you do what people around the world have done for 1000′s of years, you make them!
I made my own Taco Seasoning using: Fresh Onion, Fresh Garlic, Cumin, Oregano, Turmeric, Paprika, Salt, Pepper and Aji Rocoto. Pretty simple and damn good. Recipe? Yeah right. I saw like 611,000 of the on the internet and did not care for any of them, so I made my own.
I let that mix rest for an hour or so… In the meantime, I prepared the tortillas. So damn easy to make it isn’t even funny. How easy? Well you only need 5, count them FIVE ingredients!!!
Flour, Baking Powder, Shortening, Water and Salt. That is it. Mix the dry ingredients together and rest, using a fork to complete the process. Leave it for about 20-30 minutes and you will have this:
Divide it into equal pieces and use your hands to form them into balls. 
Roll them out on a cutting board and if the pastry gods have smiled upon you, they shall look like this…
Recipe, screw that… just make ‘em. It is easy and if done right they won’t even stick to the cutting board.
Finally the meat is done cooking as well:
That was pretty much it. Took about an hour of prep time and was done in a few hours. I let the meat simmer for an hour or so to really absorb the full flavor of the spices. Sorry, I forgot to take pictures of us actually eating… Maybe next time!
