Tomorrow is Cinco de Mayo. It’s on Taco Tuesday. That would be exciting except for the fucking ‘rona.
We alabaster-ass motherfuckers have ancestors who invaded half the world in search of spices, yet still can’t be bothered to use them. Case in point: this fucking recipe. I know you’re stuck at home, but step away from the Old El Paso kit, because this is a bit better. I mean, it’s white people better, but it’s quarantine, so suck it up, pendejo.
Here is a white people story.
When I was a kid, we’d spend summers with my dad in northern British Columbia. He had the 1971 double album by the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band titled Will the Circle be Unbroken. On that album was a cover of the 1948 Hank Williams song “Honky Tonkin’.”
My sister wore the grooves off that album. And so when I went to write about white people tacos the term “honky tacos” immediately popped into my head. I googled and it turns out I didn’t make it up but being a total white people I’m gonna steal it anyway because stealing from others is just a thing we do.
Speaking of stealing, for a little while we tried one of those food delivery companies called Hello Fresh, and I stole this recipe from them, but since you can’t copyright a recipe (the story is copyrighted, but the ingredients and how to use them isn’t) Ima steal it cuz the law says I can. Just like the pope said it was okay to steal the Americas.
By the way, I showed a pic of these tacos on my Facebook page a while back and got the expected shrieking about how these would make Pancho Villa roll over in his grave, so they are confirmed honky tacos.
Motherfucking Ingredients
This first ingredient is the most honky part of the recipe, because these are pork tacos. Carnitas are Mexican slow-cooked, pulled-pork tacos. Using such a method allows you to use less expensive cuts like pork shoulder.
But remember that I stole this from a meal deliver company. So …
- 5 – 2 lbs of pork tenderloin. Tenderloin means you don’t need to slow cook / shred that shit.
- 2 bell peppers, but you better not make both of them green. Max one green one, because I said so.
- 1 can of corn kernels. You know, the niblet shit.
- 1 medium-sized red onion
- 1 lime
- Some cilantro if you don’t have the “it tastes like soap” gene
- 3 – 4 cloves of garlic
- 1 jalapeño pepper, unless everyone in your family is a whiny little white people who can’t handle spicy stuff, in which case, skip it, or go really light.
- A dozen or so small (6-7”) white flour tortillas
- Mexican seasoning
- Sour cream
Motherfucking Instructions
I remember the first time I got these Hello Fresh meals and they were all into zesting lemons and limes and shit I was all like “Dafuq do people want to eat rinds from that shit for?” because I am a white people who is afraid of new things. But I tried it, and zesting is a good thing.
So zest that fucking lime. That means using the small holes on the cheese grater to grate the outside of the lime into a pile of lime rind shavings. Speaking of cheese graters, this recipe doesn’t have cheese. Weird, right? Yeah, if you can’t handle a taco without cheese, you are definitely a white people. But if you want a cheese overload, check out my pasty person motherfucking chicken enchiladas.
Also, chop up the cilantro. Put both the lime zest and the cilantro into a bowl of sour cream and mix that shit up. You’ll notice that in my photo there has no cilantro in the sour cream. That’s because my kids are fucking mutants. My wife and I both love cilantro, and the kids got the soap gene. And yes, they are my kids, so fuck you in advance.
Anyway …
Chop up all the veggies. Except the corn. Don’t chop that. And don’t chop too fine, except for the jalapeño. Chop that one fine. The others, more like strips or some shit.
Throw all of the veggies, bell peppers, jalapeño pepper, corn, and onion into a big ass frying pan on medium high heat. No oil! Just straight in the pan. You are “charring” the veggies. Stir every once in a while. Gonna take about 7-8 minutes until they’re a little brown. While that’s happening, cut up the pork tenderloin into small strips.
When the veggies are charred, remove to a plate. In the same pan, reduce the heat to medium, add a couple of tablespoons of oil to the pan (olive is good) and throw in the pork strips. Stir pretty regularly until all the pink is gone.
Then add in taco seasoning to taste. I use a couple different kinds mixed together. Here you go:
Eat a strip or two to make sure you have enough seasoning, then add the veggies back in, plus the garlic cloves, which you should have crushed up. Squeeze some lime juice from a few wedges into the mix. Stir and keep cooking for a couple more minutes.
Then, assemble your motherfucking honky tacos. Plop a bunch of the pan mix onto a tortilla, spoon some of the sour cream mix on top, eat it, and wash down with a Corona. The beer, not the virus.
Happy Cinco de Mayo, motherfucker.
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James S. Fell, MA, MBA, has bylines in the Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, the Guardian, TIME Magazine, and many other publications. His blog has millions of readers and he is the author of two books: The Holy Sh!t Moment: How Lasting Change Can Happen in an Instant (St. Martin’s Press, 2019), and Lose it Right: A Brutally Honest 3-Stage Program to Help You Get Fit and Lose Weight Without Losing Your Mind (Random House Canada, 2014). Order them here.
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