WineLovers Discussion Group

Get out your iron skillet! A dry iron skillet makes a wonderful, chewy taco shell that has a flavor advantage from charred spots the tortilla picks up while it cooks. It's labor intensive because you have to stand there with a pair of tongs and manage each corn tortilla individually (and gently fold it while it crisps up), but the effect is well worth it. Remove the finished shells to the bare rack of a warm oven as you go.

Only when I started making my tacos this way did I quit missing the hot, greasy, salty pan-fried taco shells of my childhood.

Jenise wrote:Get out your iron skillet! A dry iron skillet makes a wonderful, chewy taco shell that has a flavor advantage from charred spots the tortilla picks up while it cooks. It's labor intensive because you have to stand there with a pair of tongs and manage each corn tortilla individually (and gently fold it while it crisps up), but the effect is well worth it. Remove the finished shells to the bare rack of a warm oven as you go.

Only when I started making my tacos this way did I quit missing the hot, greasy, salty pan-fried taco shells of my childhood.

You can take tortillas and warm them over an open flame on your stove to get that charring, too. But I like your idea better....sounds safer

Yeah, Tim, you'll get the charring that way but faster, so the tortilla won't dry out/crispen up as well as in an iron skillet. Or so I would think. I put the tortilla in the pan, soften it on one side then flip it and let it start crisping on the other. When it starts to stiffen, I fold it over and hold it there with tongs, and finish the cooking on that side, then flip it to do the other side. If it gets too stiff before you fold it, it cracks in the middle. Somehow I can't imagine accomplishing all that on an open flame. But for a tostada? Yeah, that wil work.

I spray a non-stick heavy pan, then put either my flour or corn shells in and flip a few times, then fold. Keep warm in the oven.

It's labor intensive because you have to stand there with a pair of tongs and manage each corn tortilla individually (and gently fold it while it crisps up), but the effect is well worth it.

Hmm...I wonder if I could get my metal working buddy to fold over a couple of pieces of sheet steel rounds for me. I could set them in the oven to bake them crispy-held in place by the forms.

I wonder what "liquid" payment I would have to offer for the service? 6/12/24 beers. This sounds like a 6 beer payment if I supply the steel.

Maybe I've just been watching too much Alton.

Scott

Jenise wrote:Yeah, Tim, you'll get the charring that way but faster, so the tortilla won't dry out/crispen up as well as in an iron skillet. Or so I would think. I put the tortilla in the pan, soften it on one side then flip it and let it start crisping on the other. When it starts to stiffen, I fold it over and hold it there with tongs, and finish the cooking on that side, then flip it to do the other side. If it gets too stiff before you fold it, it cracks in the middle. Somehow I can't imagine accomplishing all that on an open flame. But for a tostada? Yeah, that wil work.

I don't do tostadas....too many gals on a diet order that dish. I can't be associated with such nonsense.

Your method sounds pretty darn good, TBH.

Scott, that would work. But if you use an iron skillet, you get a unique singed taste that merely baking wouldn't produce. Try it.

Tostadas? Diet? I must not be eating the same kind of tostadas that they are. Or I have a vast misunderstanding of what a diet entails?

Skye Astara wrote:Tostadas? Diet? I must not be eating the same kind of tostadas that they are. Or I have a vast misunderstanding of what a diet entails?

LOL

It is what my Gal Pals order when on that proverbial diet, more often than not, during the times we get to go to lunch. Which isn't all too often...Public Educaters only get 30 minutes to inhale our meals.

Me? I'm a Carne Asada, Fajitas [I know, Tex-Mex] or Burrito kinda guy. I want to know I had a meal when I'm done.


There's little hope for my petite, ballerina figure anymore.