Wendland’s one-arm loco-tacos on cheese & buttermilk waffles.
I loooooove tacos! and recently my son turned me on to a panini press that now I am in love with AND it came with waffle plates/inserts, so of course, now I am waffling the crap out of everything in sight. So yesterday I decided to combine my two loves and I came up with “Wendland’s one-arm crazy, loco tacos on cheese & buttermilk waffles”.
As a side note on the panini press… I now have a running list of what NOT to put in the panini press. So you have been warned!
From an operational perspective let me get some things out in the open, I don’t cook normally, I use “whatever is in the fridge” I love to experiment, I rarely measure anything, I like to drink and cook and so not everything comes out as planned and most often than not my best dishes are mistakes. Hopefully, from now on I can record the delicious mistakes and make them again!
So here goes - these are the steps to make this wonderful concoction - manage hotness to taste
THE TACO MEAT
Add to a hot pan on high heat:
4 tablespoons of minced garlic
Drench in olive oil
1 chopped onion
1 chopped red pepper
Stir and cook until onions have color
Salt and pepper to taste
Add 3/4 of a Modello Especial beer - drink the rest of it for medicinal purposes
Reduce until most of the beer is gone
Add 1 pound of ground buffalo or beef or turkey meat, then add:
1 box of brown chopped mushrooms
2 bunches of scallions chopped
Stir and brown the meat well
Reduce heat to medium, then add
1 can of drained black beans
1 can of drained red beans
2 handfuls of cilantro cut fine
1 jar of salsa
Salt and pepper to taste again
5 sprinkles of paprika
5 sprinkles of chili powder
In the now-empty salsa jar, mix 1 pack of taco seasoning mix (or however you do taco seasoning - make it spicy) and 1/2 Modello Especial beer - drink the rest of it for medicinal purposes. Put the top back in the jar and give it a good shake to mix. Pour magic sauce into the pot with the meat and vegetables.
Set heat to medium-high, and let the goodies cook, stirring occasionally so as not to burn the bottom and keep doing this until you reduce the liquids to taste.
Turn heat off and let rest.
THE WAFFLES
In a large bowl mix:
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 cups of buttermilk
4 teaspoons of baking powder
One 1/4 teaspoon of salt
2 eggs
1 melted stick of salted butter
4 cups of shredded Mexican cheese blend
Stir gently and fold the cheese in the batter mix, Add as much buttermilk as necessary until you get the consistency of pancake mix - this took a lot more buttermilk than I anticipated. With a scooper add the mixture to the waffle iron. I noticed that the waffles took 2-3 times longer to cook than normal, and you wanna make sure they are well done.
TO SERVE
You can pice these together as you wish, here is what I did:
Lie 2 waffles on a large plate
Add fresh sliced avocado to the top of both waffles
Stripe all with lots of Sriracha sauce
Then spread the taco meat liberally on top of that
To make the avocado sauce add to the mixer:
2 avocados
lemon juice
salt & pepper
as much buttermilk as desired for running and consistency
Add avocado sauce to the top of the taco meat. Sprinkle thinly sliced cilantro.
Serve with beer and a shot of good tequila.