Tacos...the god of foods...

Mwalimu-G

Mwalimu-G

Elder Lister
How to make Mexican tacos

LONELY PLANET WRITER
Lonely Planet Writer
3 APRIL 2020
Mexico’s superstar street food, tacos, is a Central American culinary cornerstone that was adored by the Olmec, Maya and Aztec civilisations alike.
Three meat tacos (with ingredients encased in a corn tortilla) rest on a circular black plate. The tacos are also stuffed with various vegetables and sauces.

Tacos have been a Mexican staple food for hundreds of years © burwellphotography / Getty Images
What is it?
If maize is the heart of Mexican food, then the ubiquitous taco, a soft corn tortilla stuffed with all manner of delectable ingredients, is its soul.
Ingredients (serves 8)
500g (1lb) minced (ground) beef
garlic salt, to taste
16 corn tortillas
olive oil, for frying
3 serrano chillies, chopped (you can substitute jalapeños)
1 medium onion, finely sliced
1 tomato, diced
1 bunch coriander leaves (cilantro), chopped
2 avocados, sliced
2 limes, cut into wedges
salt, to taste
Three fish tacos: battered fish in corn tortillas with lettuce and sauce, served on a speckled plate.

Fish tacos are another popular variant of the dish served across Mexico © Lindsay Lauckner Gundlock / Lonely Planet
How to cook
Step 1: In a frying pan, cook the ground beef with a couple of dashes of garlic salt until browned. Drain off any fat and set aside.
Step 2: Take your tortillas and lightly brush them with olive oil. Put a large frying pan on a high heat and lightly fry the tortillas so they are still soft but have got a bit of colour on them.
Step 3: Remove from the heat and let them drain on paper towels.
Step 4: Now to assemble the tacos. Place a spoonful of meat on each one, then add the chillies, onion, tomato, coriander leaves and avocado. Squeeze a wedge of lime across it, sprinkle with salt, roll it up and serve. You can also add grated cheese, shredded lettuce, salsa – whatever you like.
An aerial view of Mexico City's Fine Arts Museum, a grand building with a domed ceiling, which is surrounded by busy streets.

A single bite of a taco will transport your taste buds to the streets of Mexico City © Jess Kraft / Shutterstock
Tasting notes
If it’s a good taco stall, there’ll be a queue. As the scent of cooking meat and warm tortillas mingles with cigarette smoke and diesel fumes, your appetite will be honed to an unbearable edge. Don’t worry if the stall is little more than a bicycle with a propane heater, or a rundown pushcart. It’s the food, not aesthetics, you’re after. Four tacos make a civilised start, and you can always come back for more. Extra lime, salt and hot sauce will always be close by, so you can personalise and pique the palate. The taco might seem simple, but that contrast between soft tortilla and crisp pork is sublime. If food here is religion, then the taco is God.
 
By the way, the Mexican palate is quite similar to ours.
Stuff like tacos reminded me of dried chapo from home and then you fill it with nyama wet fry, maharagwe, avocado, nyanya... ata mchele yao huwa wanapika kama sisi in a way
 
Domestication and history
Corn was first domesticated by native peoples in southern Mexico about 10,000 years ago. Modern corn is believed to have been derived from the Balsas teosinte (Zea mays parviglumis), a wild grass. Its culture had spread as far north as southern Maine by the time of European settlement of North America, and Native Americans taught European colonists to grow the indigenous grains. Since its introduction into Europe by Christopher Columbus and other explorers and colonizers, corn has spread to all areas of the world suitable to its cultivation. It is grown from 58° N latitude in Canada and Russia to 40° S latitude in South America, with a corn crop maturing somewhere in the world nearly every month of the year. It is the most important crop in the United States and is a staple food in many places.
 
oboho said:
Domestication and history
Corn was first domesticated by native peoples in southern Mexico about 10,000 years ago. Modern corn is believed to have been derived from the Balsas teosinte (Zea mays parviglumis), a wild grass. Its culture had spread as far north as southern Maine by the time of European settlement of North America, and Native Americans taught European colonists to grow the indigenous grains. Since its introduction into Europe by Christopher Columbus and other explorers and colonizers, corn has spread to all areas of the world suitable to its cultivation. It is grown from 58° N latitude in Canada and Russia to 40° S latitude in South America, with a corn crop maturing somewhere in the world nearly every month of the year. It is the most important crop in the United States and is a staple food in many places.
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History Stories

Indian Corn: A Fall Favorite


UPDATED:AUG 22, 2018ORIGINAL:SEP 20, 2013

Indian Corn: A Fall Favorite
Flint corn, or Indian corn, those ears with the multicolored kernels, crops up in all sorts of fall decorations. How is it different from other types of corn, and can you eat it?
ELIZABETH NIX

A symbol of harvest season, they crop up every fall— those ears of corn with multicolored kernels that adorn doors and grace centerpieces. So how does this decorative corn, known in America as flint corn or Indian corn, differ from other types of corn? How long has it been around? Also, is it grown solely to look good next to pumpkins, gourds and scarecrows in those seasonal displays, or can you actually eat it?
Corn does not grow wild anywhere in the world. Instead, this domesticated plant evolved sometime in the last 10,000 years, through human intervention, from teosinte, a form of wild Mexican grass. Originally cultivated in the Americas, corn was brought to Europe by Christopher Columbus in the late 1400s; thanks to other explorers and traders, it soon made its way to much of the rest of the globe. In America, the early colonists learned how to cultivate it from the Indians, for whom it was a dietary staple.
Consumed by both animals and humans (by some accounts, corn is contained in 75 percent of all grocery items) , corn also is used in a wide range of non-culinary products, including ethanol, pharmaceuticals, fabrics, makeup, explosives, paper goods and paints. The United States is the planet’s top producer and exporter of corn, the majority of which is grown in the Midwest. By far, the most commonly cultivated kind of corn in America is dent corn (also called field corn), which is used primarily to feed livestock. Dent corn, which also is used in the manufacture of industrial products and processed foods, gets its name from the indentation that appears on the outside of its mature kernels, a result of the hard and soft starch contained in each kernel shrinking unequally during ripening. The kind of corn people usually eat is sweet corn, which can be cooked and chowed directly off the cob, and is also sold canned or frozen. Like dent corn, its kernels are usually yellow or white.

Flint corn, or Indian corn, is one of the oldest varieties of corn, a type that Native Americans taught the early colonists how to cultivate. Its kernels, which come in a range of colors including white, blue and red, have “hard as flint” shells, giving this type of corn its name. Flint corn kernels contain a small amount of soft starch surrounded completely by a larger amount of hard starch, which means the kernels shrink uniformly when drying and are dent-free and less prone to spoiling (and therefore ideal for autumnal décor). Despite its tough exterior, this type of corn can be consumed by livestock and humans, and is used in such dishes as hominy and polenta.
 
mzeiya said:
Huku KE huwa tunafanya such value addition? Ama nisha kula block hehe
Click to expand...
Value addition requires ideas. Ideas come from reading stuffs and actively seeking knowledge. That is why we have to try and influence how our young people use the time they have for they definitely can't get revolutionary ideas from serieses, video games and peer to peer social media.
 
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