Man cannot live on roasted vegetables and skinless, boneless organic chicken breasts, alone. There’s just something a little too magical about the sound of hot oil sizzling and popping, to be able to withstand the mystique indefinitely.
Tossing caution to the wind, recently, I peeled and sliced a half-dozen good-sized potatoes, got out my special seven-quart popcorn pan, put a quart of canola oil in to heat up, and pulled off a highly successful double batch of piping hot French fries.
If I may be candid here, it does not require a great deal of culinary competence to be able to dump the raw fries into the hot oil, put the lid on and return to the living room to continue watching the playoff game, while drinking beer. Fifteen minutes later the fries need to be taken out and placed on paper towels over a drying rack, with salt being liberally applied.
Cut de taters, stick ‘em in de oil, and drink beer. Oh, and add salt.
Switching gears, I decided to up the ante yesterday and go after the elusive taquito, usually to be found only within the confines of a certified Mexican food establishment. As a prerequisite for even thinking about having taquitos, is the need for fresh avocados, so that guacamole can be prepared. Check.
First things first. What’s a taquito (tock-ee-toe)?
First, you take a corn tortilla, heat it up on a griddle so that it is easily bendable (30-45 seconds), and put a small amount of seasoned ground meat or shredded chicken inside. Next, you roll it up tightly and place it in sizzling hot oil so that the oil goes about halfway up the taquito-
Arrrrrrgggggghhhhhh!
[Editor’s note: Er, avoid sticking your finger(s) in the [sizzling] hot oil.]
Because I have a complete lineup of cast iron frying pans, I used the monster dog to brown two pounds of organic hamburger. I meticulously followed the directions on the taco seasoning packets that I had bought at Geiger’s, so after draining the excess grease, I added the packets and a cup-and-a-half of water. I cooked it down until the water had been reduced.
I have 32 tortillas and a huge skillet of ground meat; I wonder, will I have extra hamburger left over or extra tortillas? Or is there another option?
I took the eight-inch skillet and heated oil up in that, and I used the six-incher to heat up the tortillas, so that they would be malleable. If the tortillas are not hot enough, they just break apart when you ask them to bend in unbendable ways. Once the hamburger was set to go, I removed it from the stove and put it on the counter.
Gluten-Free Mama had cautioned me, saying, if I possibly could, I should allow for the just-cooked mixture to cool off.
Huh. I wonder what’s up with that… who has time to let it cool?
I was ready for action-I was ready for danger, except that I really wasn’t. Ready for danger, that is. GF Mama had advised me to just jump into it and establish a routine that worked for me. When I asked how many taquitos I should try to cook at a time, she said three was probably about right, but it was up to me.
I put a couple of heaping tablespoons of the mixture along one side of the tortilla, and spread it out with my fingers-
Arrrrrrgggggghhhhhh! Heck, darn, shoot, bull-ROAR! What did GF Mama say? “…if I possibly could, I should allow for the just-cooked mixture to cool off… “ Funny, now I remember.
I carried the taquito-in-waiting into the other room to consult with GF Mama, herself. She has been pumping these babies out for 35 years, so who am I to not take advantage of her savvy?
She looked at my arrangement, noted there could be just a smidgen more on the one end, but otherwise said it was nothing short of a great success. Back to the counter, where I rolled the mixture up and-
What the hell is smoking? Oh, the tortilla in the six-inch skillet…
Dang. I can probably still use it, so all good. I went back to my ready-to-go taquito, and proceeded to plop it into the [sizzling]-
Arrrrrrgggggghhhhhh!
[Editor’s note: Er-“Oh, shut up about the !&% finger, already!”]
Hot oil and finger tips are not compatible, but it took me three-count them-three times before I remembered what GF Mama had said, “You’ll want to uses the tongs to hold the taquito together, so that it doesn’t just flop open.”
Huh. Tongs. Finger in sizzling oil. Tongs. Let me try something here…
Voila! That Gluten-Free Mama thinks of everything. As soon as my little pea-brain figured out that God, in his infinite wisdom, had created tongs for exactly this situation, I was twirling those dudes around like pearl-handled six-shooters.
I stopped it though, when the hamburger kept flying out through the air to an eagerly awaiting Ellie Mae.
At the end I had two mis-fires, just disasters from the word go, but otherwise I ended up with 29 stellar taquitos, with fresh guacamole.
Wait a sec. 32-2=30. Why are there only 29?
Huh. And why is GF Mama licking her finger tips?
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