When I think of Mexican food, I think about my sister Sabrina, who loves cooking Mexican, and now I understand why – simplicity, convenience and most of all, deliciousness.  Living in Southern California, it’s not surprising that she has taken to this great cuisine.  The Mexican culinary traditions and flavors are very evident in the area, where you’re more likely to find the local taqueria than the steak house walking down main street.

Sabrina has told me a few times about her taco salad, and I’ve tried a few variations of it at her house.  This is my first attempt at making the dish myself and it actually turned out pretty well.  Hell, the way I see it, it’s not hard for a dish to be good when you add seasoned sour cream and guacamole to it.

The key to this dish was the meat – Aimee’s idea and specialty: ground turkey seasoned with a homemade Mexican spice blend that includes cayenne, cumin, salt, chili powder, garlic and onion powder and black pepper.  You can really add anything you want to this though, including ancho chili or fresh garlic that you can blend together in a mortar and pestle.  This spice blend gets added to the meat as it cooks together with some stock and creates a delicate, moist base to the salad (or tacos or anything else).

The rest of the salad is really up to you in terms of ingredients.  Being winter time, we chose to use cabbage and lettuce, but some fresh tomatoes and corn in the summer time would be surely welcome.  Here’s how it went:

For the Meat:

• 1 package ground turkey (or beef, lamb or pork) according to your tastes
• 1 medium onion – diced
• 2 cloves garlic – mashed
• 2 poblano peppers – rough dice
• 1 jalapeno pepper – seeded and diced
• 1 small habanero pepper – seeded and diced (omit if you don’t like it spicy)
• ~1.5 cups of chicken or beef stock
• Mexican spice blend: 1 Tbsp. each of: cayenne, cumin, garlic powder, onion powder, chilli powder, salt, black pepper – mix together in a small bowl or mortar and pestale
• Vegetable oil

For the Salad (add and remove ingredients as you like!):

• Romaine lettuce – shredded
• Red cabbage – shredded
• Red onion – sliced thin
• Shredded pepper jack and/or cheddar cheese
• Sour Cream
• Avocado – or Guacamole of mashed avocado, cilantro, diced onion, lime juice and salt
• Fresh salsa
• Prepared meat from above
• Chopped cilantro
• Black beans
• Sliced lime for garnish
• Corn tortilla – cut into strips and fried in a little vegetable oil

Method:

So start by preparing the spice blend from above – you can really adjust the levels of the spices as you so choose, but you might want to make a little extra to add to the sour cream (really good!) or just add more to the meat.  So start by sweating the onion in some oil over low-medium heat.  Add the peppers – mild to spicy, so the poblanos first, followed by the jalapenos and then the habanero.  Add the garlic and continue to cook down.  At this point, turn up the heat a little bit and add in your meat.

Cook the meat down, browning it a good amount.  Once it it almost cooked through, add 1/2 of the spice blend and a little of the stock.  With a wooden spoon, take up some of the meat bits that are stuck to the bottom of the pan.  Let the stock cook off and add a little more and repeat.  Once most all of the stock is cooked off, add the rest of the spice blend and cook until the meat reaches a consistency of almost a very thick stew.  Adjust seasonings as needed at this point.

At this point, you can mix up the guacamole, and assemble the salad, greens and vegetables on the bottom.  Remember, you can add what ever you want to this!!  Spoon the meat on top of the lettuce with some of the cheese and other fixings.  I found that mixing some of the spice blend with the sour cream makes a really good condiment.  But go nuts and add whtever you want!  This is tacos in salad form really, so whatever you want to add is great!  As a serving note, I would probably serve this in a big bowl next time (now I know why those big tortilla bowls are convenient).

Here are some other really good looking takes on the recipe:

• Small Kitchen, Big Taste
• The Crumbling Muffin Top
• The Street