Beef Tacos

(Not an actual picture of our taco meat, but ours looked a lot like this)

I am in the middle of reading Jeffrey Steingarten's two books, and in one of them he writes about eating delicious beef tacos in Tijuana. Now, usually, when reading about Jeffrey's globetrotting culinary adventures I content myself to live vicariously, salivating at the descriptions of treif, forbidden treats. Surprisingly, though, the tacos he raves about contain beef (not pork) and no dairy! This last point is truly surprising, since almost all Tex-Mex dishes mix their basar and chalav.

In fact, it is a dilemma that I have still not, and may never resolve: are kosher Tex-Mex dishes better with real meat, and fake or no cheese, or the reverse? Here at SupperForTwo, our enchiladas, burritos, nachos, and tacos are always dairy. In fact, we were planning to have veggie burger tacos last Wed night. But Jeffrey's description of his beef taco would not leave me alone, and so I called Rachel at the last minute to inform her that, tonight, our tacos will be beef.

The biggest question here is: which cut (or number in Israel) of beef is right for tacos? I'm not talking about a cheap, ground meat taco, because that's not what Jeffrey ate. He says to use flank steak, which is commonly recommended for beef fajitas which, at the end of the day, are basically the same thing: beef wrapped in a flour tortilla with meat, guacamole, tomato salsa and chili pepper sauce.

True flank steak is a hind cut, which makes it unavailable in America - use skirt steak instead, if you can find it. Here in Israel, where we are blessed with nikkur and the hind cuts it permits, flank steak is #17. I asked the butcher for #17 and he pointed to a piece of meat that looked about right. But then I asked for it, and he changed his mind, telling me actually he thinks that piece is #14 (the bottom sirloin).

Now, this butcher might have been senile, but he might have also been lying to just get me to leave so he wouldn't have to cut anything (it was late and the store was nearly empty). The question, thus, was whether I should buy a piece of meat that might be flank steak but might be bottom sirloin.

What's the difference, you ask? It all comes down to tenderness. There are really only two cuts of beef that are naturally tender - rib eye and filet mignon. These muscles are low in collagen, the stuff that holds muscles together and makes meat tough. You cook up rib eye or filet mignon just till they are done, and the low-collagen meat will be juicy and tender. Any other cut of meat needs to be cooked slowly, at a low temperature - this breaks down the collagen and makes the meat tender.

However, there is one other way you can get around the tough collagen in a non-rib eye or filet mignon cut of meat. You can cook it briefly, and slice it thinly against the grain, which cuts up the long collagen ropes into little stubby pieces that your teeth can easily chew. However, some cuts are really too tough even for this. I once bought a shoulder cut, sliced it thin, and tried to make a Philly-style steak sandwich (no Wiz, obviously) - it was ok, but too tough. Therefore, you have to know if your tough cut is really tough, or just a little tough.

Back to Supersol. I bought the meat because I figured that if the meat was in fact bottom sirloin, it was close enough (on the cow) to the flank, that it would be a similar muscle. Maybe I also thought, in the back of my head, that the sirloin is one of the more tender of the non-tender cuts. Maybe I just wanted tacos, and took my chances.

It paid off. I sliced the piece of meat into three flat steaks, sprinkled them with salt, pepper, garlic, paprika and a little cumin, and then browned them in a hot cast iron skillet with a little oil. Just a couple minutes on each side, and then I sliced them super thin across the grain. The result - juicy, beefy, TENDER, savory delicious crust on each little bite...

Oh, right - also there were flour tortillas, which I fried. Yeah, I meat to just brown them but I ended up deep frying them. It was amazing, ok? Guac, diced tomatoes, lettuce, and Goya's ancho flavored salsita (our stash is dwindling. sigh.) were all the meat needed. SO GOOD.

Soo, just to recap: try and get #17 beef, but I may have gotten #14 by accident and, if so, it was just as good.