More Tacos—Stuffed with Chorizo, or Soyrizo

Waiting for the final touches of cilantro and avocado.

The Husband found our favorite sausage brand back at Whole Foods a few weeks ago, and there was much rejoicing. It was a brand that we found while on our wedding trip/honeymoon in Kauai called Mulay’s. They’re in Colorado. Go figure. But we did find it, cook it and discovered that it was a very, very good tasting chorizo. We’ve since tried some of their other flavors, like the breakfast sausage and hot Italian, and all have been delicious.

Then one day, in their infinite wisdom, Whole Foods stopped carrying it, both up in West Hollywood where our friends (also sausage lovers) live, and down here at our local. Now, we’re not sure exactly why—maybe Mulay’s stopped distributing, or maybe it wasn’t selling (which would be a shame!).

We were upset. It’s not like we eat sausage every day (although we’d like to, in some fantasy world where sausages were low fat and healthy), but when we do eat sausage, we want it to be quality. We considered ordering direct from the company, but there’s a minimum shipment, and we just didn’t have room for that amount of food in our freezer. Really, where would the vodka go?

So The Husband was elated when he saw the packages back in the local Whole Foods, and bought a selection, including chorizo. I responded to his excited email with “I guess it’s chorizo for dinner tonight?” The Husband replied that he always thought of chorizo as a breakfast item, not a dinner item. Seeing a challenge, I quickly found an online recipe that sounded both delicious and dinnerish. And here it is, with a few improvements.

All the filling ingredients warming up together. How nice!

++Note for vegetarians and vegans! Use Soyrizo or similar instead, and I think this will rock. Vegans, get some plain soy yogurt or silken tofu and whip yourself up some cilantro crema and you’ll be all set!

Chorizo, Pasilla and Sweet Potato Tacos

2 cups paper-thin slices red onions
2 tablespoons fresh lime juice
2 cups 1/2-inch-thick sticks peeled yam or sweet potato (the orange kind)
12 to 14 ounces fresh chorizo sausages (about 3), casings removed (OR Soyrizo!)
2 fresh pasilla chiles,* halved, seeded, cut into thin strips
1 jalapeño, chopped fine
8 7- to 8-inch-diameter flour tortillas
1 cup crumbled feta or cotija cheese
1/3 cup cilantro, chopped
1 avocado, peeled and sliced

The onions marinating away.

Then you can get started on the rest of the recipe, but don’t put the mandoline away yet. You’ll need it to slice the red onion on its thinnest setting, then put them in a non-metal bowl and add the lime juice. Stir and leave to marinate. These really make the dish, so don’t skip them! The lime juice totally mellows out the onion flavor, in case you’re worried that the onions will be sharp.

The crumpet pan is perfect for toasting the tortillas!

I use my crumpet pan (which I’ve spoken of earlier) to toast tortillas, as it works exceedingly well. I learned a trick on heating tortillas from one of our friends who doesn’t even like Mexican food—put two on top of each other, and when you flip them, flip the top tortilla. This way you get to heat two tortillas at the same time, which is great when you have at least two for dinner. By the way, I used sprouted wheat tortillas while The Husband had plain flour tortillas. They make me feel a little healthier.

Tags: breakfast sausage, Chorizo, chorizo taco, Kauai, Mulay, mulay's sausage, silken tofu, soyrizo, Sweet potato, sweet potato taco, Tortilla, vegan tacos, vegetarian tacos