KANKUN tacos al pastor

Tacos al pastor means "shepherd's tacos". I would expect British readers to have visions of mince and peas and carrots topped with mashed potato.

But "shepherd's tacos" has nothing to do with shepherd's pie. In fact, I don't think it has anything to do with shepherds, really.

Whereas in the US tacos have been corrupted by Taco Bell into a ridiculous (usually stale) U-shaped crispy thing nearly always stuffed with the same hardly Mexican ground beef filling, in Mexico a taco is usually a fresh (soft) corn tortilla which can be filled with just about anything.

There's even a verb, taquear, which means "to put (something) in a taco".

And yet despite this endless possibility, there are some fillings which are so popular they can be put on a Top Ten Favourite Tacos list. If tacos al pastor is not top of that list, it's got to be pretty close.

But that doesn't mean you can get them outside of Mexico.

I myself first heard of them in the book Fiesta en la madriguera. And a lot of Mexpat food bloggers complain of how much they miss them.

So what are they? Tacos al pastor are pork and pineapple tacos in a spicy sweet and sour sauce made of chiles and achiote paste (recado rojo).

I've read one recipe that uses chiles guajillos for the chile element, but my preference is for chipotles.

And one of the best - and most authentically Mexican-tasting - chipotle sauces you can buy is from KANKUN.

Now, before we get to the recipe, I have to warn you: these are "al pastor-style" tacos, rather than literal tacos al pastor. The reason for this is that there's more to these tacos than the sauce.

Normally you'd expect Mexican pork tacos to use fried pork or slow-cooked carnitas. You wouldn't expect this:

Again, I'm sure my British readers are thinking "Kebabs!"

And indeed, these most popular of Mexican tacos were apparently first developed by Lebanese immigrants! Which just goes to show that Mexico, home of one of the world's first "fusion cuisines", remains adventurous and open-minded even it comes to food.

However, this also means that in the absence of a spit-roaster you can't make proper tacos al pastor at home. The flavour will be right, but the texture of the meat will not be quite the same.

One Mexpat blogger, Mely from Mexico in my Kitchen was driven to extremes to replicate the authentic texture:

That's one hell of a piece of kit, Mely!

Perhaps we could all get together and ask the UK's kebab shops to add tacos al pastor to their menus. Who's with me?

KANKUN pastor-style tacos

Ingredientes

500 - 750 g pork shoulder for carnitas
Half a pineapple, diced (I actually used tinned pineapple)

1 red onion, diced

1 recipe recado rojo (about 50 g)
4 tbsp KANKUN Chipotle Sauce
90 - 100 mL pineapple juice
A few pieces of diced pineapple

Tortillas and some extra KANKUN (to serve)

Procedimiento

First make carnitas: trim the gristle from your pork, rub it with some ground spices like black pepper, allspice, a dash of cinnamon and a pinch of cumin, put in a casserole dish, cover with about 500 mL of water (taking care not to wash off the spices), cover and roast at 180° C (160° fan) for 3 - 5 hours.

When it's done, shred it and leave it to one side.

This recipe works really well with leftover carnitas. Or, you could dice the pork shoulder, marinate it in the sauce (see below) for at least an hour (preferably overnight), then brown it in a frying pan along with the red onion, then cover and stick it in the oven at 160° C (fan) for an hour.

Now make the sauce. Blend the recado rojo (achiote paste) with the KANKUN Chipotle sauce and a few chunks of pineapple. Then add the pineapple juice a bit at a time until the sauce is thin but not watery. If you're using diced pork shoulder, this is what you use as a marinade.

If you're using carnitas, heat some oil in a pan and sweat the onion. Then fry the carnitas until they take on a bit of texture. Now add the sauce and continue cooking until the pork is completely covered and heated through. Then add the pineapple and continue frying a few minutes longer. 

Serve with warm tortillas (preferably homemade corn tortillas, though I once made this into a burrito) and a little extra KANKUN Chipotle sauce on the side.

The combination of the inimitable achiote paste with the smoky chipotle heat and the sweet and sharp pineapple is unbelievably addictive. I can really see why these are so popular.

Mrs MexiGeek called it a kind of Mexican Sweet and Sour, and there definitely is something "Asian" in the flavour profile, which isn't surprising considering the origin of these tacos.

If you've never tried tacos al pastor, you really need to. It's one of those things that will re-educate you about the flavours of Mexican food. And maybe some day we'll even get them from kebab shops!

Also, my mom sent me some jicama, so I whipped up a "Mexican raita" out of jicama and cucumber in sour cream and lime juice, sprinkled with some tajin of course, and served on the side. I "julienned" the jicama but peeled, seeded, and diced the cucumber. The tacos al pastor are pretty spicy, so it's good to have a "cooling" constrast dish on the side.

This recipe uses a fair bit of KANKUN (nearly 100 mL). Obviously I went for "hot". They make a mild version as well, if you're not such a heat freak. However I should warn you that it's Mexican mild, which is still pretty hot. For Edinburgh locals think of the so-called "mild" curries at Kebab Mahal.

One of the many reasons I love this sauce!

Quesadillas con rajas: starring queso fresco from Gringa Dairy

Note the colours of the Mexican flag. Most delicious flag ever.

Quesadillas are not a complicated dish, but they are good for two things:

• They're doable when you don't have a lot of time to cook because you have a three-month-old baby

• They're perfect for testing out the new queso fresco you bought from Gringa Dairy in London

Actually I've been "testing" the cheese since I got it. So has my family. We keep testing it just a little more, to make sure it's still delicious.

It always is.

The cheese has been a major player in my sandwiches all week as well. It even stood up to my homemade chipotle sauce.

For those of you who are whisky drinkers, my favourite single malt is Ardbeg, which should give you an idea of how smoky I make my chipotle sauce.

You might expect a fresh white cheese like queso fresco to get lost when paired with such bold, spicy flavours, but on the contrary it was present in every delicious bite.

My family and I also got through quite a bit of cheese just on its own (pieces of queso fresco are apparently served as botanas - the Mexican equivalent of tapas - in some parts of Mexico).

Until Gringa Dairy started up, you couldn't get queso fresco in this country, so a lot of us won't know what it's like.

Especially confusing to the uninitiated is the variety of substitutes recommended by various recipes, even in the same cookbook. How can one cheese be the equivalent of feta, mozzarella, ricotta, cottage cheese, and halloumi?

Well, there are different styles of queso fresco, which accounts for some of the above, but the cheese does combine several attributes we don't often see together.

Gringa Dairy's queso fresco holds together in a block but can easily be pulled apart into small pieces (not quite the same as crumbling, as it's a bit softer than feta).

It also slices easily.

On the palate it has a gorgeous texture. I've heard some people call it queso fresco creamy; personally I find it has more firmness than that (it's not a soft cheese like brie or Philadelphia), but it does practically melt in your mouth.

It's nowhere near as salty as feta, but slightly more salty than mozzarella, and whereas some mozzarellas are so mild they almost taste of nothing, this cheese has a definite personality.

Best of all for me is the subtle tang it has, sort of like sour cream, that tells your palate "Hey, don't sit down, cuz this is a party!"

So: this cheese is delicious on its own, as a sandwich filling, or as a topping. But what I dying to do was cook with it, and I chose quesadillas con rajas (strips of chile poblano).

(Chiles poblanos aren't in season in Britain yet, so I had to use tinned.)

By far the best way to make quesadillas is to make some tortillas and fill them with cheese before you cook them, but I didn't have that kind of time so I used premade tortillas, filled them and toasted them in a dry pan.

As usual, I recommend the
Cool Chile Company's tortillas if you're not making your own.

And as you can see from the photo, I basically "sandwiched" two tortillas instead of doing the traditional fold-over.

This was purely to fit more cheese into the quesadillas.

I really love this cheese!

And of course an antojito* is nothing without a salsa or two, so I decided to make salsa verde and a red chipotle and tomato salsa cocida (meaning I fried the salsa once more before serving.

For the salsa verde I used tinned tomatillos (fresh ones are not in season here yet), fresh jalapeños, one diced white onion, two cloves of garlic, and lots of chopped coriander.

Everything but the onion goes in the blender.

Pulse-blend until you have a thick, textured salsa (some lime juice wouldn't hurt if you need to loosen it a bit, but you shouldn't need to).

Then add the onions and stir well.

(You can blend the onions too if you don't want a chunky salsa.)

Tinned tomatillos are better than no tomatillos, but because they are less tart than fresh ones, this salsa benefits from frying before serving to intensify the flavour.

("Frying" a sauce to reduce it is one of the most typical Mexican cooking techniques and really makes the difference between a Mexican salsa and a nearly equivalent one from another cuisine.)

I think I've given this chipotle sauce recipe before, but here it is again:

3 tomatoes, roasted on a dry frying pan or comal until they come up in blackened spots

2 cloves of garlic, roasted with the tomatoes

One white onion, roughly chopped

3-6 chipotles en adobo (or to taste)

1-2 (or more) tsp of the adobo sauce
1 tsp Mexican oregano

When you roast the garlic, leave the papery skins on.

It will cook faster than the tomatoes, so keep an eye on it.

When it starts to blacken, turn the cloves over and let them start to blacken on the other side. Then let them cool and the skins should just slip off.

Everything goes into a blender; just like the salsa verde, you're looking for a textured consistency (though you could also strain it for a more "refined" salsa.

I let this chill in the fridge overnight so the flavours could mingle and develop and fried the sauce again before serving.

I served one salsa on each side, with more cheese down the middle, going for the classic Mexican flag theme.

Simple, but delicious! And the cheese makes strings when it "melts", which is another reason people compare it to mozzarella.

I can already see Gringa Dairy is going to change the way I think of cheese in Mexican recipes.

Before, I would think "What's the best substitute for this type of cheese?" Now ink starting to think "Maybe we can get this cheese in Britain soon!"

(Gringa Dairy is planning to introduce more varieties in the near future.)

And finally, I served the quesadillas with fried plátanos machos ("macho bananas" ie plantains).

These were Caribbean style, rather than Mexican style, meaning the skins were still slightly green (in Mexico, they usually wait until the skins turn black before cooking plantains).

Of you've never had fried plantains before, these were kind of like potatoes, only denser, with just the faintest hint of banana flavour.

Next time I'll wait for them to ripen. Maybe.