Tacos Go Vegan

 The pandemic has hit the food industry, none more so than Mexican restaurants and food trucks. Yet it also has created a new kind of cuisine - vegan tacos. Chefs are using veggies when beef isn't available or is too expensive. The result - a tasty new idea that's quickly catching on.

Regular contributor and chef, Tejal Rao wrote about this phenomenon in today's New York Times Food section. Meat has had a dicey reputation in the last six months. Beef packaging plants have been breeding grounds for the virus along with the price of beef going up. Most restaurants had to change or rewrite their menus when beef prices tripled from three dollars to nine dollars a pound. Street vendors have it even worse, without the protection of a brick and mortar base. yet they can travel and have always catered to outdoor eating as well as to food trends, Some, such as chefs as Alex Garcia and Elvia Huerta of Evil Cooks ,went for a pork filled one call al pastor, popular in the Yucatan where it originated. It starts with pork rubbed with a mix of burnt tortillas and cacao. The two have also tried it on soy. Now many chefs are turning to veggies which is nothing new. Indigenous peoples have been making tacos with veggies and even fruits and flowers for flavor for centuries. It was the Spanish colonists who introduced pork into the cuisine.

Vegan tacos have been part of the Los Angeles scene for the last decade. Plant Food For People started selling jackfruit carnitas for the past ten years. Jackfruit is a wonderful fruit when it's cooked. It can be soaked in different marinades and juices and rubbed with a paste of achiote seeds and chiles. The flesh is soft and shredded but fries up into bacon like crisps as if they've been roasted on a spit. Diners prefer it to meat thanks to it' flavor and crunch.Vegan taco stands are also in the more gentrified sections of LA thanks to ones like Vegatinos which also produces such meatless classics as taco suaderos or beef from the shoulder bone and chicharrin , fried pork bellies along with pozole -pork shoulder and birria goat meat stew. Now they're opening up a second vegan one in the San Fernando Valley. Flowers are also being used as fillings too. Former Nordstrom make up consultant ,  and pop up restaurant owner Stephanie Villegas is using hibiscus which can soak up flavors like a sponge when it's rehydrated. She also has thinly shaved seitan too as a filling along with potato ones with a smoky matcha salsa. Her eatery, Alchemy Organics also sells vegan taco kits that has fried and marinated seitan along with veggies , salsa and A Kernel of Truth tortillas.

Vegan tacos are an old treat that's gaining new popularity. They're a great stand in to beef , thanks to  versatile chefs and ingredients. Veggie filled taco will be here long after the pandemic has left.

A Thoughtful Month Of Eating

November is that moment of quiet between two wild months. It starts off with All Soul's and All Saint's Days , which call for reflection and prayer and ends with Thanksgiving - a day where all give thanks for what they have. It's a month of eating simple as we ease into chillier weather and shorter days.

One of the simplest and delicious meals to make is chicken. Allison Roman gives us a good recipe for it in yesterday's New York Times Food section.It only takes an hour to cook a tender falling off the bone bird. She uses the thighs, always the friend of a home chef who work  long hours.It's braised in a Dutch oven.The thighs are then taken out to allow smashed garlic and sliced onion to cook with the chicken fat and skin bits. To give it a spicier bite, Ms. Roman adds tomatillo instead of tomatoes.Using them creates more of a sticky, soupy consistency thanks to the pectin in it. Fresh jalapeno also adds zing giving it some resemblance to the Mexican stew pozole where pork and red chiles or chicken with tomatillos are cooked for a long time.The chicken is returned to the pot where it's simmered with the veggies for twenty-five minutes to half an hour.It can be topped with a mixture of radish, the remaining onions and tomatillos. Lime juice is added for zest. Hominy is used as side to absorb the sauce but red beans or rice can also be used too.

Another easy and relatively simple dish is Melissa Clark's stir fried green beans with pork and chiles for her weekly column, A Good Appetite.Like Ms. Roman's recipe, it's a snap to make, inspired by Sichuan dry fried beans.It's dialed down a notch with the omission of the Sichuan peppercorns and preserved mustard greens. Instead coriander seeds and cilantro are subbed in to give the dish complexity. A big splash of rice wine vinegar gives it more layers of flavor. The dish can be cooked in a skillet or wok.The meat is cooked first, for only six to eight minutes until the pieces are browned and crispy. It's then transferring them to a plate and then cooking the green beans until they're tender and bright green. Chiles,  and ginger are added for fire and bite along with the coriander seeds and cilantro The pork is returned to this and cooked as soy sauce and half a teaspoon  of sugar is added. ( could dark honey be subbed in here instead?) Ms. Clark suggests serving it with a sliced tomato and rice but cellophane noodles wouldn't go amiss with it nor would vermicelli if you have it.

November is a month of just quiet and simplicity. Make these simple  - yet complex with flavor dishes. They're perfect for the long nights ahead.