Tacos | Basics with Babish

Hey guys, welcome back to Basics with Babish. This week, I partnered with Blue Apron to help transform taco night. Blue Apron is a meal kit delivery service that makes it easy to cook healthy meals at home, and the first hundred people who sign up using the link in the description of this video will get $50 off their first two weeks of deliveries. Later we will use this kit to make some Asian-inspired Hoisin Chicken Tacos. But for now, let's put all our new toys in the refrigerator and get to the

basics

{Basics with Intro Music by Babish}. Well, first things first.

I feel like corn tortillas. If you want to make flour tortillas, watch the Fish Tacos episode of Binging with Babish. Otherwise, follow me as we combine 2 cups of Masa Harina with one and a quarter cups of water. Mix gently with your hand and pat into a ball. That's all. Cover the microphone with plastic wrap and let it sit for 20 minutes before pressing it into the tortillas using a tortilla press and a plastic food storage bag that you have opened like a book. This prevents the tortilla dough from sticking to the tortilla press. So now, simply roll out golf ball-sized balls of dough, close the tortilla press, and let it do what it does best. "But Babish," you may be wondering, "What if I didn't spend $30 on a 10-pound cast iron unitasker that I'll probably only use once a year?" Well, the answer lies in the heavy bottom of a good old-fashioned frying pan.

Just press firmly on our plastic bag contraption, oops... a little more firmly than that. Put your whole body inside and...Presto! You will be greeted with the same high-quality homemade tortilla. Once you've removed the tortillas from whatever press you're using, you'll want to move them to a waiting preheated nonstick or cast iron skillet. Make sure it's very hot and turn it over after 30 seconds to 1 minute, or until you have some brown spots. Let it sit for maybe another 20 seconds on the other side before removing it from the heat and keeping it warm in a tortilla warmer or low oven, wrapped in aluminum foil.

Alright, now that we have our tortillas finished, it's time to address the question of what to put inside them. I'm going to make 3 different types of

tacos

. I'm going to start by making a chimichurri for steak. In a food processor, I place one Fresno pepper, a few cloves of garlic, a handful of parsley (or cilantro, if that's your thing), a quarter cup of olive oil, and a few tablespoons of red wine vinegar. I'll also season it lightly with salt and freshly ground pepper, and then it'll be time to taste it until it's lightly chopped but not completely pureed.

This will act as a sauce and marinade for our skirt steak. Oops, don't forget to fold the top of your bag down so there is no meat juice on the outside of the bag, and add about half of our chimichurri, reserving the other half for later application. Squeeze out all the air and give it a nice deep tissue massage, making sure the marinade is evenly distributed. Place in a glass container and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes and up to overnight. Now, let's make some chicken. We didn't have much time to film this episode, so I'm going to make 3 different types of

tacos

, all at once.

I hope you don't mind. We start by butterflying the chicken, placing it in a similarly equipped bag, and preparing a simple marinade, courtesy of America's Test Kitchen. A few cloves of minced garlic, the juice of two limes, a good shake of white pepper, cumin, smoked paprika, oregano and, for spiciness, cayenne pepper. You can skip this, if you're a coward. We're also going to add a good drizzle of olive oil, a healthy pinch of salt and a few grinds of freshly ground black pepper. We are also going to add a little sugar. This will help the chicken brown later.

Whisk and dump that bad boy into the marinade bag, give it a massage, put it in a bowl and refrigerate for 1 to 4 hours. Lastly I'm going to make some tacos with chorizo ​​​​and potato. To do this, we will start by simply peeling and cutting our potato into small bite-sized cubes. And then we are going to put them in a pot and cover them with cold water, which we are going to slowly bring to a boil. We're going to salt the water a little to flavor it and speed up the boiling, which takes a long time when using a blowtorch.

It's a joke. We are also going to add a little white vinegar. This will help the potatoes retain their structure. After parboiling for about 10 minutes, drain and place on a rimmed baking sheet to cool completely. Next, the seasonings for our chicken. We're going to make Rajas Con Crema, which are roasted poblano peppers cooked in a sort of Mexican sour cream. You can tell I'm excited to roast some peppers, because it means I can burn things over an open flame, and that's just what we're doing. Put these guys directly on the stovetop grill until they turn black on the outside.

Then we wrap them in aluminum foil to soften them, let them rest for 10 minutes, unwrap them and remove all the black part. I often like to leave these things on, but apparently they're bad for your health, so I can't recommend them. Anyway, now that we have them properly peeled and safe for consumption, we will cut them into strips. And these look too long, so I'm also going to cut them crosswise so they're nice and bite-sized. Now, also for chicken tacos, let's make some quick pickled radishes, aka one of the few beautiful comforters in an otherwise cold and indifferent universe.

Simply scrub, wash, and thinly slice the radishes, place them in a heatproof bowl, and pour some boiling apple cider vinegar on top. If you're just making them as a snack, like I do, you can also add things like mustard seeds, whole peppercorns, and fresh dill, but they'll work great for our purposes. We will let them pickle quickly for about an hour or until they have cooled. The last addition is some simply diced onions, combined with some chopped fresh parsley (or cilantro) and the juice of a lime. Mix it together and let it sit for 15 minutes. Now, finally, it's time to move on to the stove.

This is a pretty interesting episode of Basics, because it's the workload you would have if you were making these 3 tacos for a dinner party or something. Anyway, we start by browning some chorizo ​​that we have removed the skin, and in another non-stick pan we put a little onion with a little olive oil. These will be for Rajas Con Crema. Once they have softened a bit, it's time to add the rajas, also known as the roasted poblano chiles from before. We will season them with a little dried oregano and let them get to know each other a little.

During which time, we can throw our steak in a preheated cast iron skillet. This is a skirt steak, so you'll remember that we want it to be piping hot so we can cook it as quickly as possible. The same goes for our beautiful and fine butterfly-shaped chicken. Next, we added about a quarter cup of heavy cream and the juice of half a lime to our poblano pepper and onion mixture and simmered it for about 5 minutes or until thickened. We are also going to season it with a little salt and pepper. The lime helps emulate the type of "spiciness" we would have gotten from authentic Mexican crema.

Now that the chorizo ​​is well browned, we are going to put it on a plate and set it aside. Reserve some of that sausage fat, adding a little vegetable oil. While it's heating up, check the browning of our fillets, give them a flip if they're done, and once the pan drippings from the chorizo ​​are nice and sizzling, we'll add our parboiled potatoes, leaving them intact. over high heat for about 2 minutes, to get nice, crispy brown spots. Get some steak flame, which totally uploads on Instagram, and remove once the inside of our steak reaches 130 degrees Fahrenheit. Cover with aluminum foil and let rest.

Give the potatoes a turn now that they have browned and crisped a little. Give the chicken a turn, making sure it doesn't overcook. We do not want those that exceed 165(F). Try to keep tasting and tasting as you go, so you know how you want to adjust the seasoning of each element of a dish. I'm going to add a little salt and a splash of olive oil to help these guys finish. Once the potatoes are a nice brown color, add the sausage back in and you're done. Simply heat the mixture completely while the chicken stubbornly comes up to temperature.

The steak and chicken have rested, so it's time to carve them. We cut the fillet along the grain and then cut it into small pieces. The chicken, cut it however you want, just make sure it fits in a taco. And finally the time has come to prepare the dish. One taco with a healthy serving of our chorizo ​​and potato mix, one with some strips of our steak, and one with some chicken strips. Obviously you can accessorize them however you want, but I like to put Rajas Con Crema on the chicken, with some pickled radishes, a little of the reserved chimichurri sauce on the steak, our onion, and "false cilantro." (parsley) on the chorizo-potato, and all 3 with a generous portion of Cotija cheese.

If you can't find Cotija, feta cheese is an acceptable substitute, sort of. And there you have it: 3 delicious, if a little labor-intensive, tacos that are sure to spice things up at your next dinner party. But how about something a little more midweek? A little healthier, a little easier, Blue Apron has oops, shoot, Blue Apron has us covered with some Asian-inspired Hoisin Chicken Tacos. Start by cutting the 4 included sweet potatoes into wedges and then we'll make a batter to blend them together. We will start by putting a little white miso paste, a tablespoon of water and two tablespoons of olive oil in a large bowl.

We will also season it with salt and freshly ground pepper. Then we want to beat everything until there is a homogeneous mixture. I regret not having used a small blender, into which we are going to add the sweet potato wedges. Mix them together a little until they are evenly coated with the mixture. Next, we place these guys on a baking sheet lined with parchment or foil and place them in a 425F oven for 25-30 minutes. Time during which we will have the fillings for the tacos ready. We're removing the stems and seeds from 4 ounces of lovely, sweet peppers which we then cut in half and thinly slice.

We'll put them in a bowl with 2 cloves of crushed and coarsely chopped garlic, then we'll get out our woefully inadequate backup vegetable peeler and peel a small 1-inch portion of fresh ginger, which we'll then finely chop, you can also pass this by a microplane if you wish. That's the great thing about Blue Apron; If you follow the instructions exactly, you'll end up with a great meal, but you can also put your own spin on it or use your own techniques. Next, I follow the instructions and thinly slice 2 small cucumbers cut in half, along with the white parts of two spring onions, I will give them a thick cut so that they are a little less intrusive and I will add them to the cucumbers along with the little bottle of rice vinegar you've ever seen.

We will also add a splash of olive oil and season it with salt and freshly ground pepper and let it marinate for about 20 minutes until the tacos are cooked. A little more equipment to take care of, we're going to thinly slice the green parts of the chives and season a small dollop of crème fraîche with a little salt and freshly ground pepper. And now it's time to move on to the stove. We must start by heating our flour tortillas in a preheated non-stick pan. You can also microwave them between two damp paper towels, but either way, as soon as the pan is free, we're going to brush it with a little vegetable oil and add our two pounds of ground chicken, which we're going to break into pieces. a little, season with salt and pepper and let it rest for about 3 or 4 minutes until it browns a little.

Optionally, practice your throwing skills. Either way, make sure the chicken is cooked through before adding our sweet pepper, garlic and ginger mixture. Mix them together and cook for 2 to 3 minutes more until those flavors have come together, then add the two packets of Hoisin sauce and the small cup of black bean sauce. Mix and let simmer for another minute, and we have a taco filling. Turn off the heat, keep it warm, while we assemble our tacos. Oh, and by the way, our sweet potato wedges were amazing. Now we can serve them together with the main dish. This whole thing only took about 35 minutes to prepare, it was the perfect little dinner for me and for me to eat again when I have leftovers tomorrow.

Blue Apron is an amazing way to start cooking at home, learn new cooking skills, and help your familyeat healthy. They use farm fresh ingredients, all of their meals are between 500 and 800 calories per serving, they've even partnered with Bob's Burgers and Alvin Cailan to bring some of Bob's punny burgers to life in your kitchen. And as I mentioned earlier, the first hundred people who sign up using the link in the description of this video will get $50 off their first two weeks. I hope you try it yourselves, now if you'll excuse me, it's taco time.