Impostor al Pastor by Alison Roman

I’m from Southern California, and I’ve experienced the true delight of the same L.A. street tacos that Alison is trying to replicate in this recipe. Alison’s right: no one can perfectly recreate the crispy yet tender al pastor tacos of L.A. Those street vendors know pork better than anyone. But dang, Alison’s impostor al pastor tacos get pretty darn close. Taco bout a good taco! 

Heads up – this recipe isn’t a-whip-it-up-in-an-hour type. The meat really benefits from a few hours of marinating, and the marinade itself is somewhat labor intensive. But if you have the time, it’ll be well spent on this recipe. 

I prepared the marinade in the morning before the work day started. Notice my coffee next to the pineapple :). The marinade also serves as a fabulous sauce to drizzle over the tacos, chips, romaine lettuce, etc. The sauce is a blend of white onion, pineapple, spices, guajillo peppers and pepper water. The pepper prep includes toasting the peppers in a skillet until they look charred and puffed up by the heat. Then they need to have their seeds removed and cut into thick rings. The rings of peppers sit in hot water for 10 or so minutes to soften. Then the peppers are transferred to a blender with the other aforementioned ingredients, along with a cup of the pepper water. The whole process took about 20 minutes, with another 10 minutes of cleaning up. I cut the pork into 1-inch thick slabs and placed them in a large bowl to marinate with two-thirds of the sauce. 

After work ended, it came time to cook the pork! This took a little while. Alison recommends cooking the pork through once, cutting it into smaller pieces, and then doing a second round of cooking to get a slightly crispy exterior. I was not able to achieve the level of crisp like in L.A., but the flavor was pretty darn close! FYI – the pork did a number on my cast iron skillet. It was very hard to clean. I might try a non-stick skillet next time. 

Now, for the fixings. I followed Alison’s recommendations almost to the letter, including chopped tomatillos, cilantro, limes, cotija, and pineapple salsa. The marinade only calls for half of the pineapple, and Alison includes a recipe to combine the other half with onion, cilantro and lime juice for a salty-sweet taco topping. I received rave reviews from Madeline, Sam, and Jordan. All of them openly admitted that this one falls in their top meals from the project – and they’ve had a lot of them! 

123 recipes cooked, 102 to go.

Butcher’s Steak with Dried Chiles and Salted Peanuts by Alison Roman

I appreciate when a single recipe creates an entire meal. There are days when I don’t mind flipping between pages to follow three separate recipes to make three separate dishes simultaneously. But most days, I just want to look at one page and end up with everything I need to feed and satisfy the people at my table, which is usually just J and I. 

This recipe contains instructions for two key components: the salsa and the steak. But it also gives plenty of fabulous ideas for sides and fixings, including some helpful quick tips that I will be using for all kinds of future taco nights. 

The salsa. Generally speaking, I’m a salsa verde type of gal. I’m incapable of turning down tomatillos and lime. But this dried chile salsa is made from red chiles, New Meican and Guajillo chiles to be exact. (FYI, Whole Foods is rather reliable for their dried chile selections, if you have a hard time finding some.) First step is to remove the stems of the chiles and toast them with garlic and oil in a small pot. However, every time I’ve cooked with dried chiles, I find a layer of dried dirt hidden in some of the chile crevices. I have yet to see a recipe or a package instruction that says to wipe off said dirt, which sort of flummoxes me. But you’ve heard it from me, look out for the dirt and use a lightly dampened paper towel to clean the chiles before cooking with them. 

Once the chiles and garlic are toasty, the nuts get tossed into the pot for a quick coating in oil before all of the ingredients get transferred to a blender or food processor to be roughly pureed. Lately I’ve been having issues with raw peanuts and my stomach not getting along. So I’ve been sticking with almonds instead of peanuts. Yes, they’re different flavors, but they’re both still nutty! I think cashews could also have been a fine substitution here, but sadly, J can’t stand cashews. The pureed salsa can go into a bowl and be mixed with some apple cider vinegar and more oil, until it’s the consistency of a “spoonable sauce.” 

Dried chile salsa can be made ahead, covered and refrigerated for up to 2 weeks! If there are just two of you eating this recipe, then you’re bound to have a lot leftover. We ended up doing a second taco night a few days later with some chicken instead of steak, and used all the leftover salsa, tortillas, and other fixings that didn’t get eaten. 

Now onto the steak. Alison says you can use any kind of butcher’s steak: hangar steak, strip steak, etc. I chose a strip steak, rubbed it with salt and pepper, and cooked it over high heat in a cast iron skillet. 

Alison provides instructions for two other elements in the taco smorgasbord. Red onions - slice them very thinly into rings and soak them ice water before serving. I don’t know why I had never heard this trick before, but it’s brilliant! By soaking them, the red onions lose their strong, sometimes overpowering bite. They still retain a lot of their flavor, but they didn’t take over the tacos. Secondly, watercress marinated in lime juice and salt and pepper. I could not find any watercress -- I searched three stores! So I used a head of chopped romaine instead, and honestly it was a wonderful choice. I also served up some leftover mexican brown rice and cilantro, in addition to the corn tortillas. 

This recipe was a crowd (of 2) pleaser. I see more taco nights like this in our future.

48 recipes cooked, 177 to go.