Navajo Taco Monday
Last Monday I had a sudden, overwhelming want for a Navajo Taco. For those 
of you that haven’t lived or traveled within the Southwest, a Navajo taco is an incredible delight that starts with Indian Fry Bread and is topped with meat, beans, lettuce, cheese, etc.. The key to the full dish is that the Indian Fry Bread. i have not created them in years, thus I started with a fry bread recipe from “The Feast of Santa Fe” by Huntley Dent. In his book, Mr. Dent states that he feels Indian Fry bread is inferior to sopapillas, however I actually have to disagree. i’ll say they’re harder to form, the dough is soft and laborious to make, however within the finish, it had been totally definitely worth the effort.
Here’s how I proceeded:
Meat filling:
You can use any ground meat, beef, buffalo, turkey, etc.. All I had on hand was ground chicken and some frozen pureed red chilis made by Bueno, I figured that would work and make a nice saucy filling, but you can use your favorite taco filling recipe.
2 # ground chicken
1 onion, chopped
3-4 cloves garlic, chopped
1 container Bueno red chili (green would be good too!)
salt, oregano, cumin, black pepper to taste
Saute chicken, onions and garlic together until chicken is cooked. Dump the thawed container of red chili puree into pan. Season to taste with salt, cumin, oregano. I also added a pinch of sugar to take the edge off of the chilis. cook until reduced and saucy.
Beans:
I used Anazasi beans, cooked until tender with a little salt and cumin. Anazasi’s are my favorite bean for any mexican / southwest dish. If you haven’t tried them, they are worth searching out. They are generally available in the Southwest at any natural foods store. If you can’t find them use pinto beans or god forbid, even canned beans. You can also just leave them out.
Indian Fry Bread recipe:
2 cups unbleached flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons powdered milk
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 cup water
Vegetable oil for frying
Sift along the flour, salt, powdered milk, and baking powder into an outsized bowl. Pour the water over the flour mixture all quickly and stir the dough with a fork till it starts to make one massive clump.
Flour your hands. Using your hands, begin to combine the dough, making an attempt to induce all the flour into the mixture to make a ball. NOTE: you would like to combine this well, however you are doing NOT need to knead it. Kneading it’ll create for a significant Fry Bread when cooked. the within of the dough ball ought to still be sticky when it’s shaped, whereas the surface are well floured.
Cut the dough into eight items. Using your floured hands, shape, stretch, pat, and kind a disk of regarding five to seven inches in diameter. this is often the laborious half, the dough is fussy and that i found I required to use lots of flour on my hands. Don’t worry an excessive amount of regarding the form, simply get them vaguely spherical and they’ll style delicious.
Heat the vegetable oil to regarding 350 degrees F. NOTE: you’ll be able to check by either dropping alittle piece of dough within the hot oil and seeing if it begins to fry, or by dipping the tip of a wood spoon in and seeing if that bubbles. Your oil ought to be regarding 1-inch deep during a massive cast-iron skillet or different massive fryer.
Take the shaped dough and gently place it into the oil, being careful to not splatter the new oil. Press down on the dough because it fries that the high is submersed into the new oil. Fry till brown, and then flip to fry the opposite aspect. either side can take regarding three to four minutes.
Keep heat during a two hundred degree oven till you’re done frying the remainder of them and decision your family and guests to create their Navajo tacos immediately.
Toppings:
Grated cheese
Chopped romaine lettuce
Chopped tomatoes
Sour cream
Guacamole
Salsa
To assemble:
Place Indian Fry bread on your plate. high with meat filling, beans and toppings. Eat immediately!
Tags: Bread, fry bread recipe, hardin, Hardins Natural Foods, indian fry bread