How to Make Ground Beef and Cheese Enchiladas and Tacos al Carbón

[Music] um [Music] today on america's test kitchen aaron shows julia how to make perfect ground beef and cheese enchiladas jack challenges bridget to a taste test of six-inch tortillas and keith makes bridget fool proof grilled flank steak tacos it's all coming up right here on america's test kitchen [Music] when it comes to enchiladas there are many different types we've cooked quite a few of them here on the show save one ground beef enchiladas and that's because nobody takes those seriously i mean most recipes call for convenience products like canned sauce or seasoning packets it's basic cafeteria food but today aaron's going to take the ground beef enchilada back to its roots i certainly am julia a traditional mexican beef enchilada is made with braised shredded beef and a long slow simmered chili sauce so i wanted to make a quick version using ground beef but i wanted to maintain that authentic chili flavor and the first step is to begin with chili's so we're going to start off with one and a half ounces of dried ancho chilies a dried ancho chili is a dried poblano so i'm going to show you how to prep the inches you want to just kind of open it up let the seeds fall out and remove the stem you just want the meat of the ancho and i'm just going to tear this into one inch pieces so we're just going to toast these over medium-high heat toasting dried chilies really improves their flavor just a couple minutes and we're going to know that they're ready when you can start to smell them all right you don't want to go too far if you go too far the chilies will get too bitter so you really want to trust your nose can you smell that yes you can smell that raisiny floral flavor yep that means that they're ready i'm going to turn the heat down and put these into this bowl and two tablespoons of vegetable oil over medium heat this is gonna be for our onions but first i'm gonna add two cups of beef broth i'm gonna microwave this on high power for two minutes then we're gonna let them stand until they're softened for about five minutes okay so we are gonna move on to our onions the onions are gonna be the base of our sauce and also of our filling so i'm gonna add two chopped onions and we're gonna cook them for about five minutes and what we're doing is we're just softening the onions and we're going to cook them until they're translucent okay so it's been about five minutes and as you can see our onions are nicely translucent and they're softened beautiful all right so now we're gonna add some garlic so i have minced six cloves of garlic so we're gonna cook this for about a minute now what i'm going to do is i'm going to divide this mixture in half so i'm going to remove half of it from the pan and just put it into this bowl over here and the other half we're going to keep cooking all right all right so this half of the onion mixture is going to be for our sauce i'm going to add a quarter cup of tomato paste and we want that acidity and also sweetness in our sauce so to the tomato mixture we're going to add a teaspoon of cumin it's going to give our sauce a nice earthy flavor we're just going to cook this for about five more minutes until the tomato paste starts to turn brown and that means that the flavors have really developed and we're ready for the next step do you notice a difference in the color big difference also a big difference in the aroma now we're just going to take this off the heat okay that's it for a minute so these are our ancho chili peppers that would microwave for two minutes and reconstituted now they're like soft and flexible so i'm gonna pour these into our blender bowl and now i'm going to add a tablespoon of minced chipotle and adobo this is basically smoked jalapenos that are reconstituting rehydrated with a tomato and vinegar sauce now we're going to add our tomatoes and onions and garlic mixture blend it for about one minute until the sauce is smooth okay we are good we're gonna let that sit we're gonna go back to our pan we're heating one tablespoon of vegetable oil over medium heat until it's shimmering and we're gonna move on to our beef so we're not using slow braised shredded beef but we are using ground beef okay and we tried 80 ground beef and that just yielded a very greasy sauce and very greasy dish so we're using one pound of 90 gram beef we're gonna season this we're gonna add a half a teaspoon of table salt one teaspoon of ground cumin in addition to the cumin we're gonna add one teaspoon of ground coriander the ground coriander really just kind of like gives it a little citrus notes and a little bit more complexity now we're going to cook this for about two minutes and i'm going to break these into quarter inch pieces okay so now i'm going to add the reserved onion and garlic mixture that we have and we're going to continue to cook this for another three to four minutes until you see no more pink okay so we've all had that experience when you buy ground meat at the supermarket and you bring it home and it's nice and bright pink on the outside but when you break it open it's a little discolored on the inside with grayish bluish sometimes pinkish colors and the question is is it bad beef's color comes from a muscle protein called myoglobin which contains iron whole fresh muscle meat is purple on the inside as the myoglobin molecules contain no oxygen when the butcher grinds the meat it's exposed to the air and as oxygen binds to the iron in the myoglobin the purple myoglobin converts to bright red oxymyoglobin after ground meat is packaged in patties or loaves its surface stays red but the interior fades to a grayish brown in the absence of oxygen this is the most common way we encounter supermarket ground beef and it's good to eat over time however the iron in the meat will oxidize and turn into a rusty brown colored metamyoglobin and when the meat has turned completely brown it's an indication that it's no longer fresh but meat doesn't always turn brown some beef processors expose ground beef to carbon monoxide or other treatments which can preserve the bright red color of the myoglobin and potentially mask meat spoilage so what this all means is that color is not the best indication of spoilage and no matter what color it is you should always give it the smell test before cooking all right so we are there julia there's no more pink the beef is cooked all the way through now we're going to add this back to our bowl that had the onions in it and adding a quarter cup of our chili sauce the meat is going to soak it up and it's going to rehydrate and it's going to be perfect i'm going to add one and a half cups of monterey jack cheese which is a really nice melting cheese as it melts it's going to coat the beef and give it that luxurious texture that the shredded beef would have had we're also going to add two tablespoons of chopped cilantro you have to have cilantro when you have enchiladas right so now i'm just going to stir this up and let that meat soak up that sauce cheese is going to melt and now we're going to put that aside and we're going to move on to our tortillas we're just going to use two tablespoons of vegetable oil brush both sides of each tortilla not only is this going to make them more pliable and prevent them from drying out but it's also going to waterproof them have you ever had an enchilada where the tortilla as you eat them they just kind of turn to mush so this is going to prevent that from happening so we are using 12 6-inch tortillas and we're going to put these into a 400 degree oven on the middle rack just for about five minutes until they warm up and they soften okay so our tortillas have softened and i'm going to add a half a cup of our chili sauce to the bottom of our 9 by 13 inch baking dish and i'm just going to spread it over the bottom okay are you ready i am ready all right so here are the tortillas i'm gonna roll six and you're gonna roll six you have a quarter cup okay i have a quarter cup all right and each tortilla gets a quarter cup of filling right in the center if you are going to lay them out like we're laying them out you need to work quickly or else the tortillas will dry out we're going to roll them okay as we roll we're just going to place them seam side down in the pan and two rows of six there we go there's the last enchilada beautiful so now we are going to top our enchiladas with the remaining sauce such a beautiful sauce isn't it it smells delicious now i'm going to top it with just a half a cup of monterey jack cheese just a little bit it's going to melt on top of our enchiladas and make them really beautiful we're going to put these in a 400 degree oven for about 15 minutes on the middle rack and we want them to be heated through and we're going to know that they're finished when the sauce starts to bubble around the edges and the cheese on the top is lightly browned you can see the bubbling right along the edges that is hot cheese has melted yep we are going to let this cool for about 10 minutes okay julia i'm ready i'm 10 minute rested enchiladas are ready so now we're just going to finish them off with two tablespoons of minced cilantro this adds a nice fresh flavor to our really roasted chili sauce we're gonna add two scallions that i sliced thinly so i'm excited to try these oh good you need the sour cream to kind of cool off the heat a little fresh lime juice all right aaron diving in i'm diving in that's delicious isn't that good yeah you know i actually just went right for the filling yeah it has a ton of flavor and it's not cafeteria food not even close it has so much of that ancho a little kick of that chipotle and the ground beef is juicy and tender and the tortillas are holding up yeah you waterproof them so they've really stayed together they're holding their shape this is delicious i mean the chili flavor is roasted it's complex it has like multiple levels awesome aaron just awesome thank you so there you have it for the ultimate ground beef enchiladas make a delicious sauce using ancho chilies after toasting and rehydrating the chilies blend them into a smooth sauce for the filling use 90 lean beef and cook it before combining with the cheese and some of the sauce brush the corn tortillas with oil and warm them in a hot oven before filling rolling and assembling the enchiladas in the dish and cook it in a hot oven for 15 minutes and let them cool slightly before serving so from america's dust kitchen to your kitchen a killer new recipe for ground beef and cheese enchiladas yes good stuff yes yes i'm glad we made 12 of them [Music] on a rare occasion i will make my own flour tortillas but usually i just buy them from the supermarket they're so convenient and jack's here he's going to tell us which ones we should pick up while shopping at the market yes so these are flour tortillas you can jump in if you like we warmed them slightly she thinks yeah i mean we made quesadillas we served them with a saucy juicy pulled pork filling and then we did this well this is actually a hard tasting the flavor here is pretty much the same across the board flour flour a little bit of salt a little bit of fat water being the fourth main ingredient texture is a bigger difference so i'm gonna make this easier for you since i think this is a difficult tasting in general thinner and fattier is a good thing our favorite brand had just over three grams of fat per serving lower rated brands tended to have two or even fewer grams of fat and our favorite tortilla was just under 1.5 millimeters thick the lower rated brands tended to be over two millimeters and believe it or not that made a difference the big thing here is also the additional ingredients so when you make them at home it's just flour and fat traditionally lard or you can use shortening water and salt but these all have dough conditioners because of course these were made weeks ago maybe months ago this just gets better first of all i'm trying to wrap my head around fattier and thinner if i can't do that i would be a very rich woman well i'm not sure i can help you with that but i'm going to help you with that so doe conditioners are designed to make these things uh more stable so that they can sort of take that transit from the manufacturing plant to your dining room table the one that we liked the best was something called glycerin which was only in our winter which is designed to help reheat as well as to freeze and thaw better and so that was one dough conditioner that we felt like it was a really good addition to the mix anything that you're noticing this one seems the most seasoned which this one's actually not bad too this one feels like it would make for a really good taco okay this one not too sure of not crazy about the texture just feels very lean but i would say that this is my winner this is your winner yeah did i get it wrong yeah you got it wrong [Laughter] actually this brand is recommended flip it over all right so this is mission these are thick and sturdy but they were also delicate it was the one brand that was really thick that we felt like actually cooked up nicely substantial substantial so it's a fine choice it just wasn't the winner which is there yeah so that's old el paso these are six inch we also tasted they're ten inch they're identical except for the fact that they are larger i'm a fan you're not a fan we thought they were super flaky and they were very crisp and delicate and lovely in the quesadilla and yet in here they're not flaky delicate and crisp because you didn't make me a quesadilla this is called sabotage america and then here this is ortega that was at the bottom of the rankings we felt like this one was just kind of dense and wasn't as delicate and light and flaky as we wanted it to be so the winner is the old el paso flower tortillas for soft tacos and fajitas and it's about 2 50 for 10. thanks jack sticking with this one though [Music] the town of sonora mexico is famous for cattle ranches as well as its signature dish tacos al carbon now al carbon means to cook or grill over coals and that's what it is it's meat usually steak cooked over coals tucked into soft tortillas and served with garnishes like charred scallions lime juice and so much more but the real question is why isn't keith making this already as i'm talking i'm a huge fan of these steak tacos they're very simple to put together very flavorful traditionally it's made with a thin cut of steak so we have a pound and a half flank stick here you want to use about a pound and a half to a pound and three quarters but one thing we're going to do is i want to leave an eighth of an inch of fat all around the surface here what you want is that you want the fat to render those juices to come out and hit those hot live coals and vaporize now there's not a ton of fat on flank steak so we don't have to do much trimming but i'll take this off that's fine right there so just any really deep pockets yeah and you can feel them they're really kind of firm and you'll feel them as you run your hand over it so that fat on there is going to give us flavor but we also are going to do a little trimming so i'm just going to cut this into three strips about two or three inches wide with the grain the grain is running like this i'm just going to cut it like this and again like this so these small strips are going to be perfect in our tacos now when it comes to spices we're going to make a really really quick spice paste so i have one tablespoon of extra virgin olive oil in there and i'm going to add two teaspoons of minced chipotle chilies now these chipotle chilies are smoked jalapenos they're packed in the adobo sauce they're spicy they're smoky they're going to add a lot of flavor one and a half teaspoons of kosher salt and three quarters teaspoon of ground cumin now cumin plays really nicely with those chipotle chilies nice so i'm just going to stir the thing together here you see that we don't have a lot here we don't want to overwhelm that steak flavor so just a small amount i'm just going to take this and rub this all over the steak try to get it down on the edges a little bit okay so i'm just going to transfer this over to our tray here and i'm just going to hit the other side of this you could do this with your hands if you wanted to okay so our steak is ready but we're not going to just grill the steak today we're actually going to make a salsa when we're outside so i have 20 scallions here and i have two jalapenos we're going to go outside and we're going to grill them we're also going to grill our 12 corn tortillas and they're going to pick up a nice little char on the grill a little bit of smokiness it's all going to tie together really great so you grab the steak i'll grab these and we'll go outside you ready to grill some tacos so ready to grill chocolate okay i've preheated this grill for 15 minutes until it's nice and hot i'm just going to shut off one of these burners right here to create a kind of cooler zone that we're going to use later on okay shut that off and now we want to clean our grill before we put our steak on there to get rid of any stuff that we've grown before now i'm just going to take some oil and a paper towel it's going to make sure the steak doesn't stick or any of the vegetables don't stick so we're going to grill our steak and our jalapenos at the same time i'm going to put those in the back and then i'll take our stakes put these on the front like this we want to grill on the hotter side here now with flank steak those muscle fibers are really long right so what we found is if we just put them on there and just flip them once during cooking that the steak would have a tendency to curl up and buckle and we wouldn't get nice even browning so instead what we're gonna do is we're gonna flip these every two minutes and that's just gonna even out the cooking prevent some of that buckling and we're gonna get much better browning great okay so it's been two minutes we'll just check on our steaks no buckling no buckling it's gonna be perfect and we'll just give these jalapenos a quarter turn and let those char so i'm gonna continue to cook these flipping every two minutes giving those jalapenos a quarter turn every two minutes as well and it's gonna take seven to ten minutes for those jalapenos to cook seven to twelve minutes for those steaks and we're going to look for about 125 degrees for those steaks it's time to check the steaks see if they're done medium is the doneness that we like for flying steak 126. you settle for that i will definitely settle for that so we're just going to let these steaks rest for 10 minutes before we slice into them i'm just going to tent it with some foil to keep some warmth in there now we'll take our jalapenos off now can i ask you to put the plastic wrap on jalapenos while those are steaming we're going to grill our scallions for the salsa now i'm just going to put these on the hotter part of the grill we're going to let those go about a minute and a half they're going to get nicely charred on this side so it's been a minute and a half oh beautiful see they're nicely charred on this side greens are already nicely cooked but the whites we want to soften a little bit more so what i'm going to do is i'm going to flip them over i'm going to have this green parts over the cool side but keep the whites over the hotter side okay now we just want to get a little color and cook on the whites one and a half to two minutes and we'll come back and take those off okay i think our scallions are ready oh beautifully charred they smell great they smell good if we can ask you for that bowl to take the wrap off you got it thank you man plastic goes back up glass it goes back on it'll help those steam and stay nice and soft now there's one last piece of these tacos which are the corn tortillas i have 12 tortillas here i'm going to do them six at a time now these are pretty quick they only take 30 to 40 seconds you can start to see their puff and they're nicely charred lovely flip those over so it's been another 30 seconds on the second side so these look perfect so i'm just going to wrap these in foil so they stay nice and moist and pliable okay so everything is grilled we're just going to let our steak finish resting and i'm going to start building our salsa so we have our grilled jalapenos i'm just going to take the top off that cut these in half no need to skin them no need to skin them if the skin does come off you can just set it aside that's fine i am going to set the seeds aside and then you can suit your taste as far as how spicy you want that salsa so i'm just going to finely mince these so just run across it with your knife like this spin it 90 degrees okay i'm going to coarsely chop our grilled scallions here they still have some moisture to it it's going to be a nice accompaniment to that steak transfer these over to our mixing bowl here i have two tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil one and a half tablespoons of lime juice and i have a teaspoon of the adobo sauce so this is the adobo sauce that the chipotles are packed in so a little bit of tomato a little bit of vinegar still has some of that heat from the chilies and a half teaspoon of kosher salt and this is going to kind of bring everything together here beautiful now i just want to stir this together and if you don't mind i'm going to add the jalapeno seeds to this please do okay okay salsa is done now our steak has been rested under this foil i'm going to cut this into thin slices across the grain so we first cut it with the grain but now we're going to cut it across the grain and the idea is that we want to shorten those muscle fibers okay so it's not chewy when we get into our tacos i'm going to give you the fully loaded please taco we're going to start with our steak here and we have our salsa and we also have some cilantro leaves and some sour cream and a final squeeze of lime juice for you great i almost don't want to fold it up it smells so good all right first thing is a beef first thing and the last thing is beef it is beautiful it's got this charred flavor from being on the grill but it's not overbearing you get a little bit of spice in there too starting to creep in there the charred scallions a little bit of jalapeno just a touch of flame on those two oh these are spectacular but very simple very simple and that is key so to make great tacos all carbon start by cutting the steak lengthwise into strips and then rub with the chipotle and cumin mixture grill the steak flipping every two minutes along with jalapenos grill scallions and then tortillas and bring it all inside chop the jalapenos and scallions and mix with lime juice to make a very easy salsa slice the steak and then assemble the tacos with salsa lime cilantro and sour cream so from america's test kitchen to your kitchen the absolute best grilled flank steak tacos and you can get this recipe and all the recipes from this season along with tastings testings and select episodes on our website americastestkitchen.com thanks for watching america's test kitchen what'd you think well leave a comment and let us know which recipes you're excited to make or you can just say hello you can find links to today's recipes and reviews in the video description and don't forget to subscribe to our channel see you later i'll see you later

Channel: America's Test Kitchen

Views: 156,078

Keywords: americas test kitchen, cooks illustrated, cooks country, tacos, steak tacos, enchiladas, beef enchiladas, cooking, mexican food

Id: 5nP58Z66-d0

Length: 23min 29sec (1409 seconds)

Published: Thu Mar 18 2021