Summer is a time for tacos. I got off to a great start this summer, enjoying, on June 20th, a surprise treat of oyster mushrooms that popped up due to a late rain. The log is about 50 feet from my house so I whisked them to my kitchen immediately after picking for a breakfast of egg and mushroom tacos, or tacos de huevos con hongos silvestres. 

Oyster Mushrooms behind my cabin waiting to be tacoed

I made a tasty salsa roja from chiles de árbol, chipotle, and guajillo. I soak the seeded, chiles in hot water for 20 minutes, then blend them in the water with salt and a couple of cloves of garlic.

Oyster Mushrooms and Chiles for taco filling and Salsa Roja

 

Oyster Mushroom & Egg Tacos with Salsa Roja & Cilantro

For lunch the same day I stopped by the El Gallo taco truck for a couple of beef tongue tacos, or tacos de lengua. They were basically delicious and nearly perfect except for being a bit too watery and causing the tortillas to mush out.

Two Delicious Tongue, or Lengua Tacos, from El Gallo truck

For dinner, I made Smoked Pork Chop tacos, which were expletively noshable. The chops came from Mercado El Gallo in Medford. I pan fried them in a little olive oil until they developed a caramelized crust, then simply cubed them for placement in some fine corn tortillas. The salsa is a fresh tomatillo/avocado salsa from La Esquina Taqueria in NYC. The chef kicked it down to me for inclusion in my Tacos cookbook. I can’t divulge it and anger my publisher (not to mention break my contract) but it’s really easy and really tasty. Whenever I make it, people gobble it up.

Smoked Pork Chop Tacos with Fresh Tomatillo-Avocado Salsa

This Chicken Neck Taco, or Taco de Pezcuezo, was grilled in a marinade of achiote paste, sour orange juice and some assorted spices. It’s not a secret. I bought all the ingredients from Mercado El Gallo. For the sake of honesty, I confess that I pulled the meat off the neck then made the taco. There was a blog post recently on Street Gourmet LA and another on Teenage Glutster featuring fried chicken necks. I believe the deep frying must make the neck vertebrae crunchy and edible. I would love to dive into some of those fried necks the Teenage Glutster posted on his blog.

Chicken Neck Taco aka Taco de Pezcuezo, marinated in Achiote Adobo

The Hot Dog Taco, or Taco de Salchicha, cannot possibly be new, and I wasn’t doing it to be cute. Hot dogs are my second favorite food after tacos. This one here is really a sausage made by our local butcher shop. I think it is a beer brat. The onion, from Mercado El Gallo, is a special grilling onion called a cebollita,  found in Mexican markets. It’s got a small white bulb and has the greens still attached. The grill up something nice. With both red and green salsa, and a strip of grilled nopal, or cactus, this taco rocked my little world.

Sausage & Steak Tacos with Tomatillo-Avo Salsa, Grilled Nopales & Grilled Onion

Lengua is awesome. Have you tried beef head, or cabeza? Animal heads have quite a bit of meat on them, and it’s tender. 

Three Tongue, or Lengua, Tacos & One Beef Head, or Cabeza Taco from El Gallo truck, Medford, OR

My favorite landlocked taqueria in the Rogue Valley, La Tapatia. There’s a market in front, a good butcher shop, and a restaurant in back. The tacos are fat and a reasonable $1.25 each.

La Tapatia in Phoenix, Oregon, damn fine tacos inside!

This was my birthday taco lunch. They have four salsas to choose from. The green is good, cumplidora, as they say. On the pastor, I put the roja that has a bit of chipotle in it. The buche, which is pig intestine, has a straight up spicy roja to cut through the earthy, salty flavor of the entrails.

What else does a taco obsessive eat on his birthday?

La Tapatia’s homemade pickles are tops: flavorful and spicy. They also throw in chunks of jicama, a very cool addition that I don’t often see.

House Made Spicy Jalapeños, Carrots, and Jicama

That’s me eating my last birthday taco, while watching a game of futbol on the telly. 

Taco Matrix blogger and author Scotty watching futbol at La Tapatia