Beef Taquitos
Once on a work trip, I landed late at LAX still in my suit. With an early morning ahead of me there wasn’t much to do aside from grabbing some food before heading to the hotel. Cielito Lindo and their famous taquitos doused in a spicy avocado sauce had been on my to-do list and I thought they seemed perfect for a quick stop. However, when walking back to the rental car holding my prize, I noticed I had spilled spicy avocado sauce all over my clean suit. The taquitos were still amazing. But finding an overnight dry cleaner in Los Angeles late at night - not as amazing. Either way, I’ve been wanting to try my hand at this avocado sauce for quite some time. I hope you enjoy.
INGREDIENTS
SPICY AVOCADO SAUCE (makes about 3 cups):
4 cups water
2 yellow sweet peppers
1 jalapeño pepper
2 large garlic cloves
6 tomatillos, husked and washed (just under 1 lb)
Handful of fresh cilantro
1 avocado
2 tsp salt
BEEF FILLING (enough for 2 dozen taquitos):
2 lbs beef chuck steak
2 TBS canola oil
1 small onion, thinly sliced
2 jalapeño peppers, seeded and diced
4 garlic cloves, roughly chopped
2 TBS cumin seeds
1 orange, thinly sliced
⅓ cup fresh lime juice
¼ cup white vinegar
Salt and pepper
TAQUITOS:
24 white corn tortillas
Lots of canola oil
Toothpicks
GO FOR IT
SPICY AVOCADO SAUCE:
In a pot, put water, peppers, garlic, tomatillos, and cilantro
Bring to a boil and then simmer for 5 minutes
Drain pot (reserve some water) and place peppers, garlic, tomatillos, cilantro, avocado, and salt in a blender
Puree ingredients, adding water until you have a smooth, not too thick, sauce
BEEF FILLING:
Salt and pepper steak while oven preheats to 325°F
Using a dutch oven or oven safe pot, heat oil over medium-high on stove
Sear steak for 3 minutes per side to brown, then remove from heat and set aside
Turn heat down to medium in pot, then add onion and jalapeños and sauté until soft (about 8 minutes)
Add in garlic and cumin seed and sauté until fragrant (about 1-2 minutes)
Add in orange, lime juice, vinegar, and steak
Add just enough water to cover the steak then bring to a boil before placing in the oven, covered, for 1.5 hours (or until meat can easily shred using a fork)
When meat is ready, remove from pot and shred with a fork, discarding all other ingredients
TAQUITOS:
Fill large skillet or frying pan with 1-1 ½ inches deep of oil
Heat oil until shimmering
Fry tortillas for 5 seconds per side, and then drain on paper towels before turning off heat
Add a little beef to each tortilla and roll up, using toothpicks to keep together
Turn heat in frying pan back up, carefully place taquitos in oil in batched, frying for a few seconds on each side until crispy and golden brown
Drain on paper towels, remove toothpicks, and serve with avocado sauce, cotija cheese, guacamole, salsa, etc
NOTES:
The biggest thing of note here is that Cielito Lindo does not use jalapenos or yellow sweet peppers in their spicy avocado sauce. They suggest 3 to 4 yellow chile güero for this amount of sauce. Unfortunately, my pepper selection in New York isn’t as great as that in Southern California and I had to improvise. I like what I made here but if you want to try to make the restaurant’s recipe then see if you can find the güero. Otherwise, try what I did, and keep or remove the seeds from the jalapeño depending on you desired heat level.
Their sauce is also much thinner than mine. This is easily accomplished by adding more water to the blender but I did just tell a story of how this stuff got all over me so I went with a smoother sauce. To each their own.
I only used 1 pound of meat and made about a dozen taquitos. I’m doubling for you here because while these are amazing, the time it takes to braise the meat, fill the tortillas, and fry can be enough of a process that you may as well make a whole bunch of these to enjoy.