Mexican food! It’s simple, delicious, and spicy! And more to the point, the spice comes at a price…even if you’re making it at home. I’m sure you all know at least one purveyor of fine Mexican (style) food. They probably sell hard tacos, soft tacos (or tortilla wraps), salsa, guacamole style sauce (is that like Gangnam style?), and so on.
They also sell little packets of spices with names like “Taco Seasoning” and “Chilli Seasoning”. They normally cost about £1. I am about to save you several £1s. You are welcome.
Mexican seasoning
What is the taste of Mexico? According to the list of ingredients on the back of these seasoning packs, it my own holy trinity (salt, black pepper, and garlic) along with cumin, chilli powder, and assorted anti-caking agents and preservatives.
I have never been anti-cake, so I feel this is unreasonable to begin with.
After a little experimenting, I came up with the following:
- 1 teaspoon sea salt
- 0.5 teaspoon black pepper
- 1 teaspoon garlic powder
- 1 teaspoon cumin
- 1.5 to 2 teaspoons chilli powder
You can scale it up as necessary. It’s not exactly the same as the prepackaged stuff, but it’s not far off – and you can get all the ingredients for under £3. Mixed up, they’ll do way more than £3-worth of prepacked stuff.
So what are we making today? Mexican wraps, peeps, Mexican wraps.
La Tortilla Mexicana
Sort tacos, tortilla wraps, whatever you want to call them, this is basically a meat sandwich. I’m using chicken, because I like chicken. You can use beef. Or pork. Or turkey. I’m not.
Lob some chicken in a wok or large frying pan, and cook it on a mediumish heat until it’s just about done. Throw the seasoning on it. Mix it around for a few seconds.
When it’s done, it goes kinda brown
Serve it. Eat it. If you’re feeling adventurous, warm up some tortilla wraps, nuke some Gangnam Style rice, add in a splash of salsa, cheese, and sour cream, and fold it up nicely.
The sequence below was prepared by Real American™ Kat, who has experience of dining at Taco Bell. She swears these things are delicious, and muttered something about folding it like a burrito. Doesn’t matter. She ate it, and that’s what’s important.
For a truly international flavour, we may have used mozzarella cheese, but you can’t prove anything because you can’t taste the photo.
So, bad news – this is not a cake or dessert. Good news – I just saved you a fortune on seasoning.
TL;DR: Seasoning is not expensive. Chicken is great. Burrito.
