Mexican Beef Tacos with Cheese and Salsa Roja

I spent four years living in Mexico, and tacos de bistec con queso were one of my ultimate feel-good foods. There are a lot of great Mexican recipes, but this is one of my favourites: it’s super easy and one of the few things that I still make on a very regular basis.

So yesterday, when my boiler quit on me and I was left without heating or hot water and full of fear of the possibility of an impending lock-down & the implication that this meant I might be left in the cold for the length of quarantine, this was naturally what I turned to. And it worked to reassure me for a while - the familiarity was comforting and the spiciness warmed up my insides.
Mexican Beef Tacos with Cheese / Tacos de Bistec con Queso

Ingredients (makes 4):

Salsa Roja
3 medium sized plum tomatoes
1 small yellow onion
1 clove garlic
2 red chili peppers, deseeded (or more, if you prefer it extra-spicy)
few decent dashes olive oil
pinch of salt

Tacos:
200g beef steak
1 medium-small yellow onion, chopped.
Few good handfuls grated cheese
1 lime, cut in wedges
4 small flour tortillas
olive oil
salt
1/2 avocado (optional)

Instructions:
1. Start by making the salsa. Take all the ingredients and throw them in a food processor, processing until smooth.

2. Put on fire over low heat for 10-15 minutes, allowing the flavours to nestle.

3. Place the beef steak on a large cutting board and cover with a sheet of plastic foil. Taking a meat hammer, hammer until very flat.

4. Preheat a large skillet or flat iron grill plate. First, use it to heat the tortillas - make sure you get each side of each tortilla, and only lightly brown - otherwise they turn crisp. Place the warm tortillas in a tea towel so they stay hot.

5. Now, pour a bit of olive oil in the hot pan or on the hot iron plate, and add the beef steak, single layer so that it’s all flat. (NB: if it doesn’t all fit, then do this in two batches). Because the meat’s so thin it’ll cook quickly, so watch the pan and flip it when it’s browning. When cooked on both sides, add the onion. With your spatula, shred the meat into pieces and then add the cheese. Let it melt, flip over a few times.

6. When done, heap the mixture top of the tortillas. Serve with lime wedges and salsa roja, and if you like, with a couple of slices of avocado. Fold in half & enjoy :)

Beef Tacos with Cheese / Taco de Bistec con Queso

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