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Hey guys, welcome back to Basics with Babish. For this week, I've partnered with Blue Apron to help transform taco night.
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Blue Apron is a meal kit delivery service that makes it easy to cook healthy meals at home and the first
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hundred people to sign up using the link in this video's description will get $50 off their first two weeks of deliveries.
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We're going to use this kit to make some Asian-Inspired Hoisin Chicken Tacos later.
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But for now, let's get all our new toys in the fridge and get down to Basics
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{Basics with Babish Intro Music}
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Okay, so first thing's first. I'm in the mood for corn tortillas.
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If you want to make flour tortillas check out the Fish Tacos episode of Binging with Babish
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Otherwise follow along with me as we combine 2 cups of Masa Harina with one and a quarter cups water.
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Mix gently by hand and pat into a ball.
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That's it. Mic Drop
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Cover with plastic wrap and let it rest for 20 minutes before pressing into tortillas using a tortilla press,
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and a plastic food storage bag that you have cut open like a book. This prevents the tortilla dough from
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sticking to the tortilla press. So now, just roll out golf ball sized balls of dough, close the tortilla press and let it do what it does best.
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"But Babish," You might be asking, "What if I didn't spend $30 on a 10 pound cast-iron unitasker that I'll probably only use once a year?"
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Well, the answer lies in the heavy bottom of a good ol' fashioned skillet.
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Simply press down firmly on our plastic bag contraption, oop...little bit more firmly than that.
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Put you whole body into it and...Presto! You'll be greeted with the same high-quality homemade tortilla.
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Once you've got your tortillas out of whatever press you're using, you'll want to bring it over to a waiting, preheated, non-stick or cast-iron skillet.
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Make sure it's ripping hot and flip after 30 seconds to 1 minute, or until you've got a few brown spots.
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Let it go for maybe another 20 seconds on the other side before removing from the heat and keeping warm in a
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tortilla warmer or in a low oven, wrapped in foil.
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Alright, so now that we've got our tortillas finished, it's time to address the matter of what to put inside them.
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I'm gonna make 3 different kinds of tacos. I'm gonna start off by making a chimichurri for steak.
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Into a food processor, I'm placing one Fresno pepper, a few cloves of garlic, a handful of parsley (or cilantro,
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if that's your thing), a quarter cup of olive oil and a few tablespoons of red wine vinegar.
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I'm also going to lightly season it with salt and freshly ground pepper, and then it's time to take it for a spin
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until it is lightly chopped but not fully pureed. This is going to act as both the sauce and the marinade for
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our skirt steak. Oops, do not forget to fold down the top of your bag so you don't get any meat juice on the
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outside of the bag, and add about half of our chimichurri, reserving the other half for later application.
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Squeeze all the air out and give it a nice deep tissue massage, making sure the marinade is evely distributed.
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Place in a glass bowl and fridge for at least 30 minutes and up to overnight. Now, let's do some chicken.
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We didn't have much time to shoot this episode, so I'm going to make 3 different kinds of tacos, all at once. I hope you don't mind.
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We're starting by butterflying the chicken, placing it into a similarly outfitted bag, and preparing a simple marinade,
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courtesy of America's Test Kitchen. A few cloves of roughly chopped garlic, the juice of two limes,
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a good shake each of white pepper, cumin, smoked paprika, oregano, and for a little bit of heat, cayenne pepper.
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You can omit this, if you're a wuss.
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We're also gonna add a good drizzle of olive oil, a healthy sprinkling of salt, and a few twists of freshly ground black pepper.
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We're also gonna add a little bit of a sugar. This is gonna help with the browning of the chicken later on.
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Whisk together, and toss that bad boy into the marinade bag, give it a massage, put it in a bowl, and fridge it for
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1 to 4 hours. Last up, I'm going to make some tacos with chorizo and potato. For this we're gonna start by simply
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peeling and chopping our potato into nice little bite-sized cubes. And then we're going to put them into a pot and
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cover them with cold water, which we're going to slowly bring up to a boil. We're gonna salt the water a little bit
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for flavor and expedited boiling, which takes a long time when you use a blowtorch. Just kidding.
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We're also gonna add a little bit of white vinegar. This is gonna help the potatoes retain their structure.
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After parboiling these for about 10 minutes, drain and place them on a rimmed baking sheet to cool completely.
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Next up, the accoutrements for our chicken. We're going to make Rajas Con Crema, which are poblano peppers
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that have been roasted and cooked in a zesty sort of Mexican sour cream.
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You can tell I'm excited to roast some peppers, because it means I get to burn things over an open flame,
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and that's just what we're doing. Putting these guys right on the stove grate until they turn black on the outside.
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We're then wrapping them in foil to soften them up, letting them rest for 10 minutes, unwrapping them,
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and peeling off all the black stuff. I often like to leave this stuff on, but apparently it's bad for you,
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so I can't really recommend it. Anyway, now that we've got them nice and peeled and safe for consumption,
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we're gonna slice them into strips. And these ones look a little bit too long so I'm also going to cut them
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crosswise so that they're nice and bite-sized. Now, also for the chicken tacos, we're gonna make some
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quick-pickled radishes aka one of the few beautiful comforts in an otherwise cold, indifferent universe.
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Simply scrub, wash and thinly slice your radishes, put them in a heatproof bowl, and pour some boiling
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apple cider vinegar over top. If you're just making these for snacking, like I do, you can also add things like
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mustard seeds, and whole peppercorns, and fresh dill, but these will do nicely for our purposes. We're gonna let
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these quick-pickle for about an hour, or until they've cooled off. Last piece of accoutrements, some simply
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diced onions, combined with a little bit of chopped, fresh parsley (or cilantro), and the juice of one lime.
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Mix it up and let it sit for 15 minutes. Now, at long last, it's time to head over to the stove.
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This is kind of an interesting episode of Basics, because it's the workload that you'd have if you were making
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all 3 of these tacos for like a dinner party or something. Anyway, we're starting by browning some chorizo that
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we've squeezed out of its skin, and in another nonstick pan we're getting some onion started with a little bit of
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olive oil. These will be for the Rajas Con Crema. Once they've softened up a little bit, it's time to add the Rajas,
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otherwise known as the roast poblano peppers from earlier. We're gonna season those will a little bit of dried
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oregano, and let them get to know each other just a little bit. During which time, we can throw our steak on a
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preheated cast-iron skillet. This is skirt steak, so you'll remember that we want this ripping hot, so we can cook
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it as fast as possible. Same goes for our nice, thin butterflied chicken. Next up, we're adding about a
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quarter cup of heavy cream and the juice of half a lime to our poblano-pepper-onion mixture and simmering that
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for about 5 minutes or until thickened. We're also gonna season it with a little bit of salt and pepper.
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The lime helps emulate the sort of "zing" that we would've gotten from real Mexican Crema.
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Now that the chorizo is nice and brown, we're gonna put it on a plate, set it aside.
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Reserve a little bit of that sausage fat, adding to it a little bit of vegetable oil. While that's heating up, check the
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browning on our steaks, give them a flip if they're ready to go, and once the fat in the chorizo pan is nice and
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sizzling hot, we're gonna add our parboiled potatoes, leaving them untouched over high heat for about
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2 minutes, so we get some nice, crispy brown spots. Achieve some steak flame, that it totally going on
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Instagram, and remove once the interior of our steak reaches 130 degrees Fahrenheit. Cover with foil and set
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aside to rest. Give the potatoes a flip now that they've browned and crisped up a little bit.
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Give the chicken a flip, make sure it's not overcooking. We don't want those going over 165(F). Try to keep
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sampling and tasting as you go, so you know how you want adjust the seasoning of each element of a dish.
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I'm gonna add some salt, and a little splash of olive oil to help these guys finish up. Once the potatoes have some
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nice brown stuff on them, add back the sausage, and boom, those are done. Just heat the mixture the whole
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way through while chicken stubbornly comes up to temperature. The steak and the chicken have rested so
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it's time to carve. We're cutting across the grain, on the steak and then cutting it into bite-sized pieces.
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The chicken, cut it up however you like, just make sure it'll fit in a taco.
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And at long last, it's time to plate up. One taco with a healthy helping of our chorizo-potato mixture, one with
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a few strips of our steak, and one with a few strips of chicken. You can obviously top these up however you
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like, but I like to put the Rajas Con Crema on the chicken, with a few of the pickled radishes, a little bit of the
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reserved chimichurri sauce on the steak, our onion and "fake cilantro" (parsley) mixture on the chorizo-potato,
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and all 3 with a generous helping of Cotija cheese. If you can't find Cotija, Feta is an acceptable substitute, sort of.
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And there you have it: 3 delicious, if a bit labor-intensive, tacos, sure to spice things up at your next dinner party.
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But what about something a little bit more weeknight? Little bit healthier, little bit easier, Blue Apron's got oop,
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shoot, Blue Apron's got us covered with some Asian-Inspired Hoisin Chicken Tacos.
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Start by cutting the 4 included sweet potatoes into wedges, and then we're gonna prepare a mixture in
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which to toss them. We're gonna start by placing into a large bowl a little dab of white miso paste, a tablespoon
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of water and two tablespoons of olive oil. We're also gonna season this with salt, and freshly ground pepper.
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Then we wanna whisk the whole thing together until it is a homogenous slurry, I'm sorry I didn't use tiny whisk, into
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which we are going to toss our sweet potato wedges. Give them a little toss until they are evenly coated in the mixture.
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We are then arranging these guys on a parchment or aluminum foil lined baking sheet, and placing in a 425F oven for 25-30 minutes.
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During which time we are going to get the fillings for the tacos ready. We are stemming and seeding 4oz of sweet,
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adorable little peppers that we are then halving and thinly slicing. We're gonna put those in a bowl with 2
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smashed and roughly chopped garlic cloves, then we're going to bust out our woefully inadequate backup
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vegetable peeler, and peel the skin off a little 1-inch knob of fresh ginger, that we're then going to finely mince,
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you can also run this through a microplane if you like. That's the cool thing about Blue Apron; if you follow the
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directions to a tee, you're gonna end up with a great meal, but you can also put your own spin on it,
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or employ your own techniques. Next up, I am following the directions and thinly slicing 2 small, halved
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cucumbers, along with the white parts of two scallions, I'm gonna give those a rough chop so they're a little bit
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less intrusive, and add those to the cucumbers along with the cutest little bottle of rice vinegar that you ever did see.
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We're also gonna add a little splash of olive oil and season this with salt and freshly ground pepper and let it marinate for the 20 minutes or so until the tacos are done.
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Little bit more accoutrement to take care of, we're going to thinly slice the green parts of the scallions, and season a tiny little serving of creme fraiche with a little bit of salt and freshly ground pepper.
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And now it's time move over to the stove top. We gotta start by heating up our flour tortillas in a preheated, nonstick skillet.
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You could also microwave them between two damp paper towels, but either way as soon as the skillet frees
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up, we're gonna hit it with some vegetable oil and drop in our two pounds of ground chicken, which we're gonna
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break up a little bit, season with salt and pepper and let it sit for about 3 or 4 minutes until it turns a bit brown.
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Optionally practice your tossing skills. Either way, make sure the chicken is cooked through before adding
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our sweet-pepper-garlic-ginger mixture. Toss those together, and cook for an additional 2 to 3 more minutes
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until those flavors have gotten to know each other, then add the two packets of Hoisin sauce, and the little cup of black bean sauce.
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Toss together and let simmer for an additional minute, and we got ourselves some taco filling. Turn off the heat, keep it warm, whilst we assemble our tacos.
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Oh, and by the way, our sweet potato wedges turned out pretty awesome. Now we can plate those up along with the main course,
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Now this whole thing only took about 35 minutes to make, it was the perfect little dinner for me, and me again when I have the leftovers tomorrow.
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Blue Apron is an awesome way to get cooking at home, pick up new cooking skills, and help your family eat healthy.
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They use farm-fresh ingredients, all their meals are between 500-800 calories per serving,
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they've even teamed up with Bob's Burgers and Alvin Cailan to bring some of Bob's punny burgers to life in your kitchen.
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And like I mentioned earlier, the first hundred people to sign up using the link in this video's description will get
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$50 off their first two weeks. Hope you guys give it a try yourselves, now if you'll excuse me,
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It's Taco Time.