Black Bean and Bacon Flautas

Last month flew by so quickly that I wasn't able to hang out in the kitchen with my foodie bff, Leslie for she made, ella hace. But we're back this month, and you'll never guess what ingredient we decided to bring with us! Okay, maybe you will. I mean, I've only been using the same ingredient in full-force all month long. Mmm hmm, it's BACON!

Fortunately, when I asked Leslie if she'd mind if we chose bacon {as if} as our theme this month, she said that she was thinking the same thing. See, there's a reason why she and I get along so well.

When trying to decide what I wanted to share today, I knew I wanted it to be something with a Mexican twist. You may know that we eat Mexican food on a regular basis. We also eat bacon on a regular basis. But when thinking about it, I was hard-pressed to think of a time when the two were combined. Huh.

Crispy Shrimp Tacos w/ Savory Tomato Broth & Pickled Vegetables

Around this house, if we're running low on food and looking for something to make, one of the first go-to's is flautas, or crispy tacos.  Have some leftover chicken in the fridge?  Let's have flautas!  Shredded beef or pork from a meal yesterday?  Flautas.  A couple potatoes sitting in the crate?  Cook 'em up nice and tender and mash in some chipotle and maybe some chorizo if we're lucky.  What do we have?  Mmm hmmm, you guessed it.  Flautas.  Same goes for beans.  They make a super tasty flautas filling.

But before yesterday, I had never put any sort of seafood into my flautas.  The thought never even crossed my mind.  I don't know why.  Fried fish?  Yum.  Fried shrimp.  Oh yes.  I just hadn't even contemplated rolling them up in a hot tortilla instead of dipping them in a batter or tossing them in bread crumbs.

That's all changed now.

Personally, these little shrimp morsels bathed in a rich, tomatoey broth are delectable enough to eat alone.  And in all honesty, I may prefer it that way.  But I'm down with rolling pretty much anything in a tortilla.  This girl loves her tacos, after all.

I think the best part was the contrast that bathing crispy little tubes of shrimp in a hot savory tomato broth imparted.  The outside edges staying crispy while the insides started to lose that crunch and gain that tortilla-casserole essence.  And then add some pungent and slightly crispy quick pickled veggies to the top of the whole shebang. Oh yeah.  

Crispy Shrimp Tacos w/ Savory Tomato Broth & Pickled Vegetables (Tacos Dorados Estilo Escuinapa con Caldo de Jitomate y Verduras Escabechadas)

by Heather Schmitt-González

Prep Time: 30-45 minutes

Cook Time: 45-60 minutes

Keywords: fry entree tomatoes shrimp Mexican

Ingredients (serves 4-6)

for tomato broth:

• 1 (15 oz.) can fire-roasted diced tomatoes w/ juices
• ½ small white onion, roughly chopped
• 2 garlic cloves, peeled
• 1 Tbs. olive oil
• 2 c. fish, shellfish, or chicken broth
• ~½ tsp. salt

for pickled vegetables:

• ⅔ c. rice vinegar
• 1 c. water
• 1 bay leaf
• 1 sprig fresh thyme (or a big pinch of dried)
• 1 tsp. sugar
• ½ tsp.
• 2 medium carrots, cut into thin matchstick-style sticks (to yield ~4 oz.)
• ½ small white onion, thinly sliced
• 4 c. (loosely packed) thinly sliced Napa Cabbage

for tacos:

• 1 Tbs. olive oil
• small white onion, cut into 1/4" dice
• 3 garlic cloves, minced
• 3 serrano chiles, stemmed, seeded, & finely diced
• 1 (15 oz.) can fire-roasted, diced tomatoes w/ juices
• 12 oz. peeled & deveined shrimp, cut into 1/2" pieces
• ¼ c. chopped cilantro
• salt
• oil, for frying
• 18-22 thin corn tortillas

Instructions

Tomato Broth:

Puree the tomatoes and their juices along with the onion and garlic in a blender until smooth.

Heat oil in a medium saucepan over medium-high heat. Set a strainer over the top and pour the puree through it. Press through with a wooden spoon or rubber spatula. Remove strainer and stir until noticeably darker and thicker, ~5 minutes.

Add broth and bring to a boil. Partially cover and reduce heat; simmer 30 minutes. Season to taste with salt.

Pickled Vegetables:

Combine vinegar, water, bay leaf, thyme, sugar, and salt in a medium saucepan. Heat to a simmer. Place carrots in a heatproof bowl and pour the vinegar mixture over the top of them. When they are cool, add the onion and cabbage and toss.

Crispy Tacos (flautas):

In a large skillet, heat oil over medium heat. Add onion and cook, stirring regularly, until translucent, ~3-4 minutes. Add garlic and chiles and cook for another minute. Add tomatoes wit their juices and cook, stirring from time to time, until the mixture is thick. Stir in shrimp and cook for 1 minute, or until pink. Remove from heat and allow to cool a bit. Stir in cilantro and salt.

Pour a couple of inches of oil into a deep-sided skillet and heat until shimmering (~360° F).

Wrap tortillas in a clean kitchen towel and microwave until very hot and pliable, 3-5 minutes. You could also give each tortilla a quick dip (few seconds each) in hot oil and remove to paper towel-lined tray to drain. Which ever way you choose, stack 'em up.

Spoon a line of shrimp filling across the bottom third of the tortilla (scant 3 tablespoons each) leaving about an inch border on each edge; then roll up tightly. Roll them all and line them up on a tray until your filling is used up. If you need to, skewer the rolls with toothpicks or thin skewers to keep them together.

When you're ready to serve, fry the tacos in hot oil until crisp, 2-3 minutes. Don't crowd the pan, do this in batches. Remove from oil using tongs onto a paper towel-lined tray until all of the tacos are fried.

To serve, ladle some hot broth over the tacos and top with a pile of the pickled vegetables and eat immediately.

slightly adapted from Fiesta at Rick's

Powered by Recipage

I am sharing this post with:
IHCC theme: Wrap it Up!

Tacos & Flautas...oh my.

You know I love tacos in all forms...don't you? I never really thought about how often we actually eat taco-ish dishes. If we're in a hurry, we'll heat up some beans, add some chopped veggies and cheese or if I've made some sort of meat and have extra, I bag it up and use it as a filling...then heat up some tortillas, wrap and eat! Usually I'll make up a batch of taco seasoning and put it in a jar to sprinkle on ground beef or turkey. Sometimes I feel lazy and just buy a seasoning packet (low-sodium, no MSG). Yeah, I said it. Believe it or not, I am actually eating a couple of shredded beef, salsa & queso quesadilla soft tacos as I type this up. And in all honesty, if I want hubby to do the cooking, I end up with some for of Mexican food...but I'm not complaining, that's one of the reasons I married him (kidding! sort of.). I love to cook a pork butt or a chuck roast, shred it and package it up for other meals...and it's much easier for hubby. Especially if it's in the front of the fridge. Seriously, anything in the "second layer" may as well not even be there. Where is it? There's no meat in here. Sour cream...I don't see any. Usually it makes me laugh. I go in, pick up a container, grab what's behind it the meat, the sour cream and keep doing what I was doing. Sometimes it's not so humorous. Whatcha gonna do? On to this week's taco highlights...a joint effort. I cooked up some ground turkey, added taco seasoning and then we rolled them into flautas. Now, if you read my other flauta post, you'll notice that I like to roll up all of the flautas, secure them with toothpicks and then fry the whole batch; do it in steps. When hubby (should I call him mexichef?) makes flautas, he rolls a few, then gently lowers them into the oil (sans toothpick) and goes on to rolling a few more. Since we were making them together, we did it his way. I filled and rolled, and he lowered and fried. They turned out mighty tasty. Here's the process: Seasoned Turkey Flautas by girlichef & mexichef cook as you would any ground taco meat: ground turkey your favorite taco seasoning water Heat a stack of corn tortillas, wrapped in a clean kitchen towel, in the microwave for about 3 minutes, or until hot & pliable. Put cooked meat in a line across one edge of a tortilla and roll tight. Either secure with a toothpick, or pray it holds tight while you roll some more. In preheated vegetable oil (frying temp...hot!), carefully lower flautas and fry until golden all around, flipping after a minute or two. Remove to a paper towel lined plate until ready to serve. Serve with your favorite toppings. Some of my favorites are lime & salt cured cabbage, crema, queso fresco, avocado, salsa....I made a Chipotle Tomatillo Salsa this time. If you go back to my recipe for Salsa Verde, make it as stated, then add a couple of canned chipotle chiles w/ some of the adobo sauce, to taste, to the blender and voila! Some more of our taco adventures from the past week...all made by mexichef... the picture on the top right is flautas filled with a mixture of red potatoes, chorizo & salsa all mashed up together (this was killer!)....bottom left was black bean & chorizo tacos (yup, yum!). It was a good week for taco-ish foods.Be sure to head over to Tex-Mex Foodies to check out Gloria's Taco Tuesdays. One can never have too many tacos.

Flautas de Pollo....with Salsa Verde

If there is one meal that I have a long-running love affair with, it's this one. I've always craved Mexican food...it's a long-running joke (or fact, depending on who you are) that since my first solid food as a baby was refried beans, therefore I fell in love with all Mexican food at an early age. I'm of the school that sees it as fact. About 8 or 9 years ago, a (then) friend of mine taught me how to make flautas. His mother made them this way in her restaurant in Mexico...of which, unfortunately, I don't remember the name or location.

I have been making this the way he taught me ever since. It is very simple, yet a little time consuming. I have never met a person who didn't LOVE it! Certain persons, who shall remain unnamed, have been known to hold off eating for an entire day leading up to the meal, just so they can eat more. There is something strangely addicting about this dish...especially if assembled as I am going to show/tell you. All of the ingredients meld together so perfectly to build a mouthwatering, habit-forming, finger-licking mess of deliciousness.