The Basic Beef Burrito
<snobbery>
Peeps around these parts don’t know burritos. There are a few places people go thinking they’re getting the good stuff. Newsflash! Chipotle is crap. Anna’s Taqueria is barely decent. I have yet to find anything over here that I would consider good. But I come from the birthplace of the burrito. Especially over on the east side of the Valley, there are all kinds of hole-in-the-wall taquerias and combo Mexican grocery store-burrito shops. Yeah, I’m kind of a burrito snob. Sorry.
More on the snobbery front: when I used to go to the make-your-own-burrito bar at the dining hall during freshman year, it was always obvious who the noobs and the pros were. Noobs just throw their burrito contents in haphazardly and in all the wrong ratios. Protip: line up everything in a nice, orderly column with the ends a few inches from the edge of the tortilla. Fold both ends in, fold one flap over the column, tuck it under the opposite edge of the column, and roll two-handed while keeping everything tight.
</snobbery>
Anyway, it’s too cold to grill up some carne asada, and I ran out of chicken, but ground beef is just fine. Making burritos in a small apartment kitchen isn’t the best, but it’s not too difficult. It’s easy to get a nice burrito skeleton recipe and build off of that.
The real clincher is spice seasoning and homemade guacamole from scratch. You could use store-bought taco seasoning, but it’s easy to do it yourself. By the way, the measurements for the spices are total guesstimates…I kind of just wing it and go by feel, but tweak it to your liking and see what happens. Guac is pretty fun to make - it’s quite the stress relief after a long and arduous day. MASH. SMASH. TAKE THAT, AVOCADO. Sometimes I also like to play a little Russian roulette, leaving the garlic chunks fairly large so when you bite down…*tingles* It’s clearly not a game for the weak.
- 3 avocados
- 1 tomato, diced
- 1/2 onion, diced (red onion is preferable)
- 3 cloves of garlic, minced
- 1+ tsp salt
- 1 tsp pepper
- A splash of lemon juice
- A dash of sugar
- 1 lb ground beef
- 1 onion, diced
- 5 cloves of garlic, minced
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 tsp pepper
- 2 tsp chili powder
- 1 tsp oregano
- 1 tsp paprika
- 2 tsp onion powder
- A splash of red wine vinegar
- 1 tsp chipotle, ancho chili, or habanero powder (optional)
- Tomato, diced
- Lettuce, sliced
- Mexican-style cheese
- Sour cream
- Beans (pinto, black, pink, refried - it don’t matta)
Slice open the avocados and remove the pits. Scoop out all the flesh into a bowl and slice into small chunks. Dice the tomato and onion (very teeny pieces!) and throw them in the bowl as well. Mince the garlic and add to the bowl. Add the salt and pepper, but be conservative at first. Splash in a bit of lemon juice (to prevent oxidation…it’s SCIENCE!) and a really small amount of sugar - we’re talking less than a 1/4 tsp here. Mash and mix to your heart’s delight. Taste test and add a bit of salt and pepper if you think the guac needs it.
Add the ground beef to a frying pan on medium-high heat. Ground beef makes its own juice so you don’t need to pre-oil/pre-PAM the pan. Once a little bit of juice appears, toss in the garlic and onion. Add salt and pepper and cook until the meat is no longer pink and the juices run clear. Add spices and red wine vinegar.
Turn the heat to low and add a small amount of oil to the pan. Heat each tortilla individually, about 30 seconds per side.
Then, assemble the burrito! Lay out the tortilla and add stuffins’ while referring to the protip above. Apply guac and sour cream liberally.
