Avocado Tacos

Recipe from Enrique Olvera

Adapted by Jeff Gordinier

Avocado Tacos
Karsten Moran for The New York Times
Total Time
45 minutes
Rating
4(544)
Comments
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Most top chefs will tell you the same thing: When they finally escape from the elaborate labors they oversee in the kitchen, they crave late-night street food that’s poetically simple and satisfying: hot dogs, fried rice, a bowl of noodles. For Enrique Olvera, the chef at Cosme in New York and Pujol in Mexico City, that hand-to-mouth haiku can be found in avocado tacos, which he scarfs down around the clock. They serve as both “a comfort,” he said, and “a cultural expression.” In its most basic form, an avocado taco is like a two-bite couplet in praise of Mexican ingredients: a chewy corn tortilla enclosing creamy slices of the-butter-that-grows-on-trees. Spare additions elevate that avocado: a pinch of salt, a spray of lime juice, a sprinkle of chopped onions and cilantro. But the chef takes elevation one step further with a salsa made of pasilla chiles and tomatillos. —Jeff Gordinier

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Ingredients

Yield:12 tacos
  • 4pasilla chiles
  • ½teaspoon coarse sea salt
  • 2garlic cloves
  • 10tomatillos, boiled in salted water for 15 minutes or until soft
  • 3avocados, sliced thin
  • 12corn tortillas
  • ¾cup white onion, finely diced
  • ½cup chopped cilantro
Ingredient Substitution Guide
Nutritional analysis per serving (12 servings)

115 calories; 5 grams fat; 1 gram saturated fat; 0 grams trans fat; 3 grams monounsaturated fat; 1 gram polyunsaturated fat; 17 grams carbohydrates; 5 grams dietary fiber; 2 grams sugars; 3 grams protein; 94 milligrams sodium

Note: The information shown is Edamam’s estimate based on available ingredients and preparation. It should not be considered a substitute for a professional nutritionist’s advice.

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Preparation

  1. Step 1

    Make the salsa: Snap the stems off the chiles and remove the seeds. Using tongs, carefully hold the chiles over a medium flame to char on all sides. Transfer chiles to a food processor, add the salt and process into a powder. Add the garlic and tomatillos and purée until smooth. (This makes 1 pint salsa, more than needed; refrigerate the rest in an airtight container for up to 2 weeks.)

  2. Step 2

    To serve, place 3 or 4 slices of avocado on each tortilla and top with salsa, onion and cilantro.

Ratings

4 out of 5
544 user ratings
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Comments

Analisa

Dried, Suz. Pasillas are dried by definition Fresh, they're called chilaca, though I don't see them often. Also, any time you're talking about grinding chiles into a powder, you know that you're dealing with whole dried chiles to start.

Chilewheel

Easy, tasty, cheap. What's not to like? My local store was out of pasillas, so I subbed in guajillos. After toasting them, instead of pulverizing, I then softened them in hot water before adding them to the processor with the tomatillos, which added a little body to the sauce. I had some queso fresco, so I laid slices of that down underneath the avocado, onions and cilantro. Fresh lime juice pulled everything together. Sabroso!

Phill

-Be careful not to open the top of the blender or food processor when grinding dried chiles. If you don't give the dust time to settle, you'll be treated to your own home-made pepper spray. I made that mistake once but never again.

Jennifer Rowe

The salsa is bland. I recommend adding more salt.

Cherie

Made exactly as written, added scrambled eggs for protein and eat them for breakfast. Family loves them.

Chris

Didn’t have salsa ingredients so made instead with dried 4 Hatch chilies and green Sungold tomatoes with lime. Was smokily excellent even without charring but very spicy even after removing seeds. Fresh white onion is important, mine were a bit old and sulphuric so consider soaking first in cold water if so. Don’t skimp on the avocado. It’s the star of the show!

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Credits

Adapted from Enrique Olvera, Cosme, New York

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