Every week someone at the bar asks which taco is the best one on the board. Chef Mateo refuses to answer, so we polled the staff. Birria won on comfort: six hours of braising, a crispy cheese edge and a cup of consommé do a lot of work on a January night. Al pastor won on craft: marinated pork shaved…
Dessert is where our pastry cook, who would prefer not to be named, gets to show off. The churros are piped and fried to order, rolled in cinnamon sugar and served with cajeta, the goat milk caramel we cook down in house. The tres leches cake soaks overnight in three milks and comes out with a torched meringue. For something…
This started as a staff meal and ended up on the fall specials board. Here is the version you can make at home. Halve a pound of Brussels sprouts and roast them hot with a little oil until the edges blacken. Cook four slices of thick-cut bacon until crisp and chop. For the salsa, char four Roma tomatoes, half an…
Our guacamole has four ingredients: avocado, lime, salt and white onion. Everything else is optional, and here are three variations the kitchen stands behind. Classic: mash two ripe avocados with the juice of a lime, a quarter cup of minced white onion and a good pinch of salt. Leave it chunky. Smoky: add a charred jalapeño and a spoonful of…
This salsa shows up on our spring specials board the first week the farmers market reopens outdoors. It is sweet, salty and a little hot, and it goes with fish tacos, grilled chicken or a bag of chips on the patio. Dice two ripe mangoes and half a red onion. Mince one jalapeño, seeds in if you like heat. Crumble…
Small changes, big difference. Here are six things we do in the kitchen that work just as well at home. Warm the tortilla on a dry pan until it blisters. Double up corn tortillas for anything saucy. Salt the onion and cilantro, not just the meat. Add acid at the end, always lime, never bottled. Keep the salsa on the…
Patio season in Edmonton is short, so here is the list to work through before the heaters come out. Birria tacos with consommé. Baja fish tacos with cabbage slaw. Street corn rolled in cotija and chili. The saskatoon margarita. Chicken tinga tostadas. The carnitas burrito, eaten on the patio with a view of the Avenue. Republic nachos for the table.…
The word taco likely comes from the silver mines of 18th-century Mexico, where miners used paper wrapped around gunpowder, called tacos, to blast rock. The food version, a tortilla wrapped around a filling, is far older than that and goes back to the nixtamalized corn of pre-Hispanic Mesoamerica. Tacos al pastor arrived with Lebanese immigrants to Puebla and Mexico City…