The Other Side of the Tortilla

Mexican recipes, culture and travel destinations

tacos

2 Meat

Tacos de chicharrón guisado in the slow-cooker

Chicharrón guisado is an easy, flavorful dish made from crunchy, fried pork skin stewed in salsa, and it makes incredible tacos.

The best part about this dish is that it’s incredibly easy to make, packs a ton of flavor, and using a slow-cooker means it’s mostly a hands-off recipe.

How to make tacos de chicharrón guisado in the slow-cooker via theothersideofthetortilla.com

There’s a taquería in Los Angeles I really love called Guisados, and lucky for me, they have a location right near where I work. They make a taco de chicharrón guisado that’s very similar to this recipe, and they serve it on a corn tortilla over refried black beans, and topped with a little dollop of avocado salsa verde, which is how I served them here as well, but you can serve it without beans (or different beans) and whatever kind of salsa you like on top.

There are lots of recipes out there for chicharrón guisado—mostly in Spanish—and there’s one key departure in my version aside from using a slow-cooker: I use chile morita, which is a small, dried and smoked chile. I also like to serve these on smaller tortillas (about 4.5 inches round instead of the standard 6 inches) because it makes you feel more like you’re in a taquería….

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0 Tacomiendo

Wordless Wednesday: What to eat at Lotería Grill in Los Angeles

Since moving to Los Angeles in 2013, we’ve eaten a lot of tacos. There aren’t a lot of places where we’ve returned to eat twice, but one place I like is Lotería Grill—specifically their location at the LA Farmers Market. It has a taco stand feel, the hustle and bustle of an open air market, a whimsical lotería board wall and the tacos I’ve eaten there are consistently good. I recommend this taco de carnitas, pictured below, which is made with Michoacan-style carnitas, salsa de chile morita (which is really not that spicy—although it says spicy on the menu—but is perfectly smoky), and is garnished with a slice of avocado, onion and cilantro. A few weeks ago I enjoyed lunch here with some girlfriends and couldn’t resist snapping a few photos to share.

Tacos de carnitas with a smoky morita chile salsa at Lotería Grill in Los Angeles | More Mexican food recommendations in other cities at theothersideofthetortilla.com…

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1 Meat

Tacos de longaniza en salsa verde

Quick and easy meals for weeknights are essential in most households, mine included. But if you’re like me, you still want to put something at least semi-homemade on the table to please your family at dinnertime. Longaniza en salsa verde is one of my go-to dishes that’s both easy and quick to make and can also use homemade or store-bought ingredients depending on how much time you’ve got to cook.

tacos de longaniza en salsa verde

If you have the time, you can make my salsa verde recipe from scratch (but I suggest that you leave out the salt until after it’s cooked; longaniza can be rather salty so you may find you don’t need to add any salt in the salsa). If you don’t have time to make the salsa, you can use your favorite brand of store-bought salsa verde. I often serve this dish with a side of black beans diced onion and chopped cilantro as garnish….

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0 Travel

Wordless Wednesday: Tacos al pastor in Kauai

We were visiting the Hawaiian island of Kauai last week for my sister’s wedding and look what we found: A taco truck with tacos al pastor! They had a proper trompo and everything. We didn’t get a chance to stop and eat there because we either were too early, too late or just passing through Kapa’a on our way to Lihue or Poipu to eat somewhere else. They were always busy when we passed by during business hours, so I figure they must be pretty good. I took it as a sign that we need to go back to visit again!

hawaii-tacos-al-pastor-truck-TOSOTTWe were fascinated with the availability of taco joints on the island and the amount of Mexicans we met. We even found a lady selling authentic Mexican tamales on the side of the road one day.

  • Have you eaten the tacos from this place? How were they? If you haven’t eaten there, tell me where you’ve encountered unexpected tacos while traveling in the comments below!

 

0 Holidays

Happy National Taco Day!

Because we love you, and because October 4 is National Taco Day, here are some of our favorite taco recipes from The Other Side of The Tortilla and our friends.

See below the slideshow for the links on where to find each of these 10 recipes that will make you say “Que rico.”

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