/ck/ - Food & Cooking

Taco is a vague term. Tacos can be whatever combination of meat and veggies (pork, chicken, beef, lamb, ram, rabbit, fish, onions, lime, beans, chilies, avocados, cactus, etc) you put inside a tortilla (99% of the times a corn tortilla; different varieties of corn exist) or a flour tortilla (1% of the times, like the tacos called gringas). All tacos usually use different types of hot sauces, onions, lime and cilantro on top. However, there are “specific” recipes. The most popular taco recipes are:

>Al pastor
Made from pork loin seasoned with achiote (a type of plant) sauce (with some types of chilies), and cooked in a rotating spit, with a slice of pineapple on top. Influence of the Lebanese diaspora. (Gringas are these type of tacos, but in a flour tortilla and with “oaxaca” cheese)
>Barbacoa
Made from lamb meat, wrapped in palm/agave leaves, and steamed-cooked for over 8 hours in a stone oven dug in the ground until you have the softest meat you’ll ever taste. You can add lime or other juices to the steam process, but not usually
>Cochinita pibil
Made from shredded pork meat, seasoned with adobada (a specific type of red chilies preparation) and achiote (the plant), cooked in orange juice. It typically uses red onions, instead of the regular ones, and habanero sauce (the spiciest type of chili in Mexico, but this is optional)
>Carnitas
Made from pork meat cut into tiny pieces, and fried with butter in a frying pan
>Suadero
Made with flake steak, seasoned in lime juice, and then cooked in a frying pan
>Arrachera
A beef steak in a tortilla

And not as mainstream (but still common), which I personally like:

>Chicharron
Fried pork skin, with avocado, nopales (a type of cactus), and “pico de gallo” (chopped tomatoes, onions and green chilis)
>Mixiote
Ram or rabbit meat, seasoned with chilies, wrapped in a maguey plant (where tequila comes from) and steam-cooked

Other recipes: birria, basket, cecina, dorados, chilorio, fish, nopal, avocado, salt, etc

How important is lime with Mexican food?

>>8159018
Fuck no.