Mexican Taquitos (Flautas)

ROBIN PENA's Note:

You'll be singing mariachi tunes after a plateful of these babies! Can you say "yummy" amigos? Keep in mind the prep time does not include cooking shredded meat as this step can be done days ahead.

• Total Time: 45 mins
• Prep Time: 20 mins
• Cook Time: 25 mins

Ingredients:

Serves: 4-5

Yield: 24.0 taquitos

FOR FILLING

• 4 cups cooked and shredded chicken or 4 cups cooked pork or 4 cups cooked beef

FOR SAUCE

• 1 (28 ounce) can whole tomatoes or 3 -4 large tomatoes, coarsely chopped
• 1 small onion, coarsely chopped
• 2 garlic cloves
• 1 chicken bouillon cube
• salt
• 2 canned chipotle chiles in adobo or 1 -2 fresh jalapeno
• 24 tortillas
• 24 toothpicks
• vegetable oil (for frying, ENOUGH TO COVER TAQUITOS AS THEY FRY)

TO SERVE

• shredded iceberg lettuce
• sour cream
• sliced raw onion
• crumbled mexican queso fresco (IF YOU CAN'T FIND IT YOU CAN SUBSTITUTE) or feta cheese, which is almost the same but saltier (IF YOU CAN'T FIND IT YOU CAN SUBSTITUTE)

Directions:

1. To make the sauce: Add tomatoes, onion, garlic, salt, bullion cube, and chiles to a blender; blend until smooth.
2. In a sauce pan heat 1-2 teaspoons of vegetable oil over medium heat.
3. Add sauce and simmer about 5-10 minutes.
4. Reserve 1/4 cup of sauce for filling.
5. To make filling: Mix shredded meat and reserved sauce together will.
6. Heat vegetable oil for frying in a deep fryer or tall saucepan to 350-375°F.
7. To make taquitos: Wrap 12 of the tortillas in a kitchen towel and put in microwave for 2 minutes. Keep tortillas wrapped in towel while making taquitos so they don't dry out.
8. Place one tortilla on the counter in front of you and add shredded meat mixture in a line across the tortilla on the side closest to you, but not all the way on the edge (about 2-3 tablespoons of mixture. Begin to roll tortilla around mixture, rolling away from you (try to roll as tightly as possible so that the filling doesn't fall out during frying). Taquito should resemble a fat cigar (the sides are not folded in--they are just left open). Pierce with a toothpick through the center of taquito to keep from unrolling.
9. Add each taquito to oil as you go or they will dry out and crack.
10. Do not crowd oil too much. I usually cook about 6-7 at a time.
11. Feel taquitos with tongs as they cook. When they are hard, remove and drain on paper towels (about 5 minutes). I usually line a large bowl with paper towels and drain all of the taquitos vertically so that all of the excess oil can drain out.
12. When those 12 tortillas are done, heat up the remaining 12 in the same towel and repeat. The reason I don't heat up all 24 at the same time is because the stack is so thick that the top and bottom few tortillas dry out and the middle ones are not cooked enough and will crack when you try to roll them.
13. When all of the taquitos are finished, put as many as you want per serving on a plate (I usually serve 5-6 per person); top with sauce.
14. Add shredded lettuce and sliced onion.
15. Top that with a few spoonfuls of sour cream (or if you are like me, more than a few).
16. Sprinkle with queso fresco.
17. Yum!

Reviews

[sheepdoc]

Must have done something wrong, but deep fat frying isn't something I do very often. I was trying to disguise leftover pork loin that was dried out and tasteless the first time around so that didn't help. I think 5 minutes was too long - they were very hard. Used diced tomatoes with chiles but wasn't hot enough - needed rooster sauce. Lots of cheese and sour cream made it all better.

[Bread 'n Butter]

Wonderful sauce! My DH and I whipped these up today and were very happy with the results. We followed the recipe exactly and used beef for the filling.

[DinnerDiva in OK]

I made these last night using half flour and half corn tortillas and they were both really tasty!!I really liked the flavor of the chipotle chiles in the sauce. Made for ZWT3.