Street Tacos

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Soft shell street tacos served with fries
Soft shell street tacos served with fries

This recipe is going to make enough pork, chimichurri, and onions for a lot of tacos. Anything you don’t use you can put in a deli container or whatever works and it will only get better the longer you keep it.

Ingredients

  • Pork (+marinade):
    • 1 pork loin
    • Salt
    • Pepper
    • Lime juice
    • Soy sauce
  • Pork sauce:
    • 2 tbsp white vinegar
    • 1 tbsp water
    • black pepper
    • 2 tbsp butter
    • ¼ cup heavy cream
    • juice of ¼ lime
    • salt to taste
  • Tacos

Instructions

  • Pork:
    1. To the pork loin, generously cover with and rub in the salt and pepper.
    2. Place the pork in a ziploc bag (or any container) and fill with equal parts soy sauce and lime juice (enough to submerge). Let marinate for at least an hour.
    3. Remove the pork loin from the marinade and pat dry.
    4. To a heavy-bottom pot or pan on medium-high heat, add clarified butter.
    5. In the pan, sear the pork loin on all sides and then set the pork loin to the side.[1]
  • Pork sauce:
    1. Mix the vinegar and water together.
    2. Deglaze the pan by adding the vinegar solution, aggressively scraping the bottom of the pan as to free up the fond.
    3. Reduce heat to medium.
    4. Add butter, cream, lime, and pepper to the pan. Mix everything together.[2]
    5. Season to taste with salt and set to the side.[3]
  • Pork:
    1. Against the grain, slice a 1 in. cutlet out of your pork loin.
    2. To a pan on medium-high heat, some clarified butter and sear the pork on both sides.
    3. Remove from the pan and let sit for 5 minutes.
    4. Slice the cutlet up into thin strips, about ⅛ in. in thickness.
    5. Reduce the pan heat to medium-low, place about a tablespoon of the pork sauce on it, and toss in the pork strips.
    6. Cook for around 2 minutes and then remove the pork, keeping as much of the sauce in the pan as you can.
  • Tortillas:
    1. Place the tortillas on the skillet, rotate and slide it around a few times to lap up as much of the residual sauce as you can.
    2. Let it sit there until the underside of the tortillas are slightly crispy.
    3. Remove the tortillas from the skillet and set it to the side.
  • Assembly:
    1. On the serving plate, set the tortillas, crispy side up.
    2. Add the cilantro, pork, chimichurri, pickled red onions, and asiago.
    3. Serve.
  1. Don’t be afraid to burn the pork a little. The idea is to get a thick seared crust on the pork loin. My best results came with a lot of smoke.
  2. At this point you can reduce is to make the flavor stronger and if you think it’s too harsh you can add some cream to it to round off the bitter/tart/salty flavor.
  3. Anything left of the pork sauce can be stored in a deli container and kept in the fridge for later meals. While in the fridge, it will solidify into something of a creamy butter compound. This can be delicately heated to return it to its cream state.