When Camelia Valdivia Carnero’s son asked her for her tacos dorados recipe, he’d hoped for exact measurements.
How much salt should he add to the ground beef? How much pepper? But thatap not the spirit of the dish. “Tantéale,” she said, or feel it out.
Tacos dorados are made by feel, with techniques passed down through relatives. Many have even learned how to prepare them by simply being in the kitchen when they’re made.
“Itap very visual,” said Estefania Valenzuela, whose TikTok video about the tacos racked up over 10 million views and spurred a healthy discourse over how to make them.
Valdivia Carnero, whose family has lived in Ojinaga in Chihuahua, Mexico, for six generations, still makes them as her mother and grandmother did, with seasoned ground beef, black pepper, garlic salt and her personal touch, chopped cilantro. The meat is spread raw on a corn tortilla, then fried in oil in an esquile, a cast-iron skillet, until golden and crisp. She serves them with a salsa de molcajete, shredded cabbage, sliced tomatoes, an avocado if one’s ripe and crema.
No one can trace exactly where this style of taco comes from or how far it has traveled, though there are some clues. Spanish colonization brought waves of soldiers, miners and ranchers who sought out portable, ready-made meals, cooked with what was on hand: tortillas, beef, lard. (The word “taco” is even thought to come from mining culture — what miners called the wrapped explosives they used to excavate ore — according to Jeffrey M. Pilcher, author of “Planet Taco,” though some historians also point to the Nahuatl word tlahco, which means half, as the etymological source.)
With their ease and convenience, they eventually became a weeknight staple of the region.
Koyana Flotte is an anthropologist and ethnographer who traces her ancestry to the Lipan Apache and the Indigenous people of La Junta, who share a name with the confluence of rivers where Ojinaga sits today. Flotte said her grandmother, who grew up in a mining settlement, had most likely introduced tacos dorados to her family. “We grew up eating them,” she said. “There’s not a lot of places that sell them, even in Ojinaga. Itap an intimate kind of meal. Like knowledge, it gets passed on.”
That, too, is how Valenzuela learned to make them. Growing up, she would spend almost every weekend and summer in Ojinaga, where her Tía Ninfa made tacos dorados at least three times a week and served them with a pitcher of lemonade.
“You know how moms at least once a week have to make spaghetti for the kids?” Valenzuela said. “Thatap what tacos are for us. They have to be on the menu.”
She said that the first time she made them for her husband, who grew up in nearby Coyame, he took issue with her spreading the raw ground beef on the tortilla.
“Oh, you’re doing it wrong,” she recalled him saying. “Thatap not how it goes.” But she assured him it was.
Variations are common. Some, like Valdivia Carnero, prefer to fry them folded, gently dropping in the seam first to let it soften into shape before placing the rest of the taco into the skillet. Valenzuela likes to immerse the beef half of the taco in the oil, while holding the other half above, until the tortilla has softened enough so as not to crack when folded.
Both serve another Mexican classic alongside the tacos: sopa de fideo, an easy weeknight staple that makes the most of a few ingredients. And maybe thatap how recipes survive, how memories are made, when everyone, including the cook, looks forward to enjoying the same meal, again and again.
Recipe: Beef Tacos Dorados
Crispy tacos dorados are standard weeknight fare all over the U.S. and Mexico, though every cook seems to take a slightly different approach to the recipe. This version comes from Camelia Valdivia Carnero, whose family has lived in the town of Ojinaga in Chihuahua, Mexico, for six generations. Instead of cooking the filling, crisping tortillas separately to create shells and then stuffing them, many locals there collapse the process into one simple method. Seasoned beef goes straight on a tortilla and is fried in oil until the shell is crisp and the beef is cooked through. No crumbly beef falls from your taco here; instead, an albondiga-like filling keeps these deliciously crispy packages intact, and a jalapeño-forward salsa de molcajete cuts through the richness with bright heat. To complete your meal the way generations of Ojinagans have, pair tacos dorados with a classic sopa de fideo. For a traditional vegetarian option, you can also fill tortillas with lightly seasoned mashed potatoes and, using the same technique, fry until golden.
Recipe from Camelia Valdivia Carnero
Adapted by Kristina Felix
Total time: 1 hour, 10 minutes
Yield: Makes 16 tacos
Ingredients:
For the Salsa (or use 1 cup store-bought salsa taquera):
- 1 garlic clove, peeled
- Fine salt or food-safe rock salt
- 6 jalapeños
- 2 plum tomatoes
For the Tacos:
- 16 corn tortillas (see Tips)
- Vegetable oil, such as canola or sunflower, for shallow-frying
- 1 pound ground beef
- 1 teaspoon ground black pepper
- 2 teaspoons seasoned garlic salt or 1 1/2 teaspoons garlic salt
- 1/2 cup chopped cilantro, tender leaves and stems (not packed)
- 1 large ripe Hass avocado
- 2 plum tomatoes, sliced into half-moons
- 1/4 small green cabbage, shredded (about 2 cups)
- Crema or sour cream, for serving (optional)
Preparation:
1. Make the salsa: Place garlic on a cast-iron skillet and heat over medium-high until it chars in spots, about 5 minutes. Transfer to a molcajete (mortar) or blender along with a teaspoon of salt.
2. Add the jalapeños and tomatoes to the hot skillet and cook, stirring occasionally, until softened and charred all over, about 10 minutes, then transfer to a cutting board. When the tomatoes and chiles are cool enough to handle, after about 5 minutes, peel off as much of the charred skin as you can and discard the skin, seeds and stems.
3. If using a molcajete, pound the garlic and salt to a paste with the tejolote (pestle). Add the jalapeños and crush them until they’ve broken down and look juicy. Add the tomatoes and continue to mash everything until the salsa is spoonable. (If using a blender, add the tomatoes and chiles to the jar with the salt and garlic and pulse to a spoonable consistency.) Taste for salt, transfer to a serving bowl and set aside.
4. Make the tacos: Separate the corn tortillas if they’re stuck together. If they’re brittle, stack them, wrap in a damp paper towel, set on a plate belly up (see Tips), and microwave on high for 2 minutes, or until warm and pliable.
5. Make sure your cast-iron skillet is clean and dry, then pour in enough oil to reach a depth of 1/2 inch. Heat over medium until it reaches 350 degrees or a small piece of tortilla sizzles when dropped in the oil, about 6 minutes.
6. While the oil heats, assemble the tacos: Add the beef, black pepper, garlic salt and cilantro to a bowl and mix with your hands until the cilantro is evenly distributed. Spread a generous tablespoon of beef on half a tortilla, belly up (see Tips below), leaving a 1/4-inch border, but don’t fold it just yet. Place it flat on a sheet pan or cutting board and repeat with the remaining tortillas and filling, overlapping them but keeping the beef uncovered.
7. To fry the tacos, place a large bowl lined with paper towels near where you are frying. Take one filled tortilla and fold it in half. Hold the upper part between your thumb and middle finger, using your pointer finger to create a small gap between the two sides of the tortilla. Place the seam of the tortilla into the hot oil and hold it there until the tortilla seam softens, about 5 seconds, then carefully lay the folded tortilla into the oil, beef side down, to finish frying. Repeat with as many tacos as fit comfortably in your pan and cook until the undersides of the first batch are golden, 2 to 3 minutes. Using tongs, flip the tacos and cook until crispy and golden, another 2 to 3 minutes. Transfer the fried tacos to the bowl, standing them vertically so any oil drains downward. Repeat until all the tacos are fried.
8. To serve, cut the avocado in half and remove the pit. Arrange the avocado halves, tomato and cabbage on a plate with a spoon so that everyone can open their tacos and scoop a bit inside. Serve with plenty of salsa de molcajete on the side and crema if desired.
Tips:
Look for corn tortillas that contain only 2 ingredients: corn and lime. Tortillas with added gums will not fry up as crispy, though the tacos will still be delicious.
Tortillas have a belly and a back; the belly generally shows oven lines more prominently and has a thinner skin that might pucker. Fill tortillas on the side with the thinner skin, so they don’t crack when you fold them.
This article originally appeared in .
