As the title suggests, this post is definately NOT about Thai food. But after living here for nearly seven years now, one does get the odd craving for some Western-style food. Rather than satisfying this urge by eating at overpriced and underwhelming restaurants, I usually just make it myself.
My latest craving was tacos. Not Old El Paso crispy shell ground beef iceberg lettuce American tacos, but real tacos, as illustrted in this fun New York Times piece. This, coupled with the blog mentioned in the article, The Great Taco Hunt, put me over the edge; I had to make tacos. Luckily, or coincidentally, or both, it just so happened that Mark Bittman recently did a piece on making tacos. Following his recipe for Pastor, marinated pork, I went out, bought the ingredients, and here are the results (not the greatest pics--I was really anxious to try them!):
They really came out quite nicely. Bittman's recipe involved marinading the pork overnight in a mixture of dried spices (coriander, cumin, peppercorns and cinnamon) and orange and lime juice. The next step required roasting the meat in an oven, but as I don't have an oven, I just simmered the meat in a bit of water in a large pot. After about two hours I took off the lid to allow the liquid to evaporate and the meat was incredibly tender and fragrant.
Here you can see the condiments:
I made a guacamole (with Thai avocadoes), a salsa fresca (with Thai jalapenos and some nice tomatoes) and a chile colorado sauce, recipe courtesy of the excellent RollyBrook Mexican food blog.
Even the tortillas were made in Thailand, an included a semi-decent corn tortilla:
And a less decent flour torilla:
Will definately be making tacos again.