Spicy fresh green chorizo tacos with guacamole & fries – plus a brief rundown of our time in Mexico City.  Jump to Recipe 

My mouth was on fire – the lip-burning, eye-watering, nose-running, hiccup-inducing kind of fire. Warm charred corn tortillas encased grilled green chorizo sausage, crisp salty fries and the hottest guacamole I’d ever experienced. We were standing on the sidewalk in Mexico City beside Ricos Tacos Toluca, a street lunch spot adorned with vivid loops of red and green chorizo, and I had foolishly assumed the innocuous looking bowl of avocado next to the (much spicier appearing) salsas would be just that – a soothing side. Wrong. It didn’t stop them from being the best tacos I ate on the trip, but I was much more wary of potential heat levels from then on.

We spent 3 days in Mexico City over New Years, and I had only two regrets – that it was only three days (I could have spent weeks) and that it was New Years, when many restaurants, cafes and street stalls shut down for the holiday break. However, it did mean the city was much quieter and easier to navigate, and I know I will be back.

There is history in abundance –  the pre-Aztec civilisation at Teotihuacan,  the Aztec ruins at Templo Mayor,  the Spanish churches and missions, Chapultepec Castle and the more recent Anthropology Museum. There’s the art and culture in Diego Riviera’s murals, Frida Kahlo’s home (and now museum), and the Palacio de Belles Artes (to name just the most well-known). There are the many green spaces of Chapultepec Park, Parque Mexico and others. The markets are some of the best in world – Mercado de San Juan, the specialty market where chefs shop, the local Roma mercade de medelin, and the kind that are so big you might need a guide, like mercado de la merced. There are the restaurants, cafes and shopping of areas like Condesa and Roma, where we drank coffee and devoured guava croissants from Rosetta Panaderia and experienced modern Mexican food at Fonda Fina. 

For my brothers, it was the al pastor tacos: rotating flaming vertical spits of marinated pork, the meat skillfully sliced with a bit of grilled pineapple onto fresh corn tacos and topped with onion and coriander (El Tizoncito in Condesa were our favourite). And that isn’t to mention the churros. Churreria el Moro has been open since  1935, and is still open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week with queues out the door. The churros are worth the wait in line – served straight from the fryer, they’re golden, crunchy and coated with cinnamon sugar, and best eaten dunked in rich chocolate sauce alongside a steaming mug of spicy Mexican hot chocolate.

After spotting Jenny’s green chorizo recipe over at Hello My Dumpling, I knew those original heat-blasting tacos deserved a recreation at home. I did have difficulty finding fresh mexican ingredients in this part of the world, particularly the fresh chiles, so adapted everything a little to what is normally available in New Zealand and Australia. If you are in the US with access to serrano and poblano chiles, go ahead and use those instead!

The green chorizo is not nearly as hard as you might imagine: ground pork is combined with coriander and parsley, toasted and ground spices, charred chiles and garlic, and fresh blanched spinach for extra green. It’s spicy and fragrant, and you could easily make more to freeze. It’s topped with a fresh, chunky guacamole, full of lime and coriander, and finished with oven-baked crispy potato chips (or fries, depending on where you are from!) and quick roasted cherry tomatoes.

Cook’s notes:

• I had difficulty finding fresh mexican ingredients in this part of the world, particularly the fresh chiles, so adapted everything a little to what is normally available in New Zealand and Australia. If you are in the US with access to serrano and poblano chiles, go ahead and use those instead! Here I used 3 green chiles (asian green cayenne, I believe) – the original recipes tended to use 2-3 serrano chiles and 1 medium poblano pepper.
• The guacamole heat is also dialed down, though you can easily adapt this to your chile preference.
• Try to find corn tortillas if you can, but flour tortillas will also work.
• The green chorizo can also be used to make meatballs  – just add an egg to the raw chorizo mixture to bind it.

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Spicy Fish Tacos with Grilled Corn Slaw & Avocado-Coriander-Lime Sauce – summery and healthy with fresh, vibrant flavours. Put together in half an hour!  Jump to Recipe 

Today was my last day of university for the semester!

I can’t decide whether that is a good or a bad thing. On the negative side, it signals that exams are just a short week of studying away, said week of studying is hardly ever a fun place to be, and I have a WHOLE lot of material to cover in that timeframe. It feels like the end of the year is rushing upon us like a tsunami that you can’t escape from – end of year functions are starting, schools and universities are winding down, and Christmas decorations are already appearing in shops (I’m sure every year they seem to arrive earlier!). It is one of the times that I would appreciate a ‘pause’ button on life. A chance to not feel like a hamster on a treadmill of increasing speed for a few days, to regather my thoughts and senses. I guess that is what our mid-semester break last month was for – but it already seems like the distant past.

But there are also a whole lot of reasons for it to be a good thing. The portend of summer is one: those long, stretched out, warm days filled with beach trips and, knowing me, being supremely busy but not actually having many responsibilities or things that have to be done (though I do need to find a job. ASAP.). Moving out of college (for the final time!) and having a kitchen again is another reason – I am already dreaming of ice cream concoctions (thoughts on vanilla bean ice cream with raspberries, passionfruit curd swirl and meringue shards?) and layer cake combinations (lemon, coconut & berries need to find themselves together somehow).

These spicy fish tacos with grilled corn slaw & avocado-coriander-lime sauce remind me of those lazy summer days, though they would be perfect for a busy weeknight too. Flaking white fish is coated in a warm spice mix, full of paprika, garlic, a hint of chili and brown sugar, and paired with a grilled corn slaw – crunchy and fresh, the slightly charred and caramelized sweetcorn kernels hold up against the sharp coriander and lime dressing. On top goes a vibrantly green avocado sauce, creamy and tangy with lime, a smidge of buttermilk (seriously, it works), coriander and garlic. The hands-on aspect of tacos is the best part – all the fillings are piled inside fresh corn or flour tortillas and everyone can get messy!

I made them for the first time on holiday, which is probably why they aren’t as complex as some recipes that appear on here. With an ingredient list that isn’t too tricky, the tacos are easy to throw together in the half hour before dinner, or double or triple for an outdoor barbecue.  I can’t imagine the fresh, zingy flavours and the crunchy slaw contrast with smooth avocado sauce without getting visuals of summer, freshly caught fish and lengthly day-light savings evenings – those warm memories that make me smile stupidly at the computer screen as I type this.

AND they are one of the rare fish recipes (the only other is these Vietnamese Cha Ca bowls) that my youngest brother will consume without a second thought – which means they must be pretty freaking good. He is not a fish person, so anything that gets it eaten is an achievement in our house. The mahi mahi was bought at the markets in Noosa, almost as fresh as it gets, but any other white fish would work well too. I couldn’t help but break out the camera to capture the colourful stalls of fresh produce, which were our source of avocados and corn for this recipe.

Whether you are in the northern hemisphere heading into winter and need a final reminder of summer, or are getting ready to welcome it with open arms and need recipe ideas, you need to give these tacos a try! PLUS they are healthy, so #noregrets when you eat them all, I swear.

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