[:D]I tried to find a website for henry’s Puffy Tacos but no luck,but you can find online reviews of the place. By the way,they came up with Henry,the Puffy taco as a mascot for the San Antonio Missions,which is in the minor leagues. It’s a guy in a taco suit with lettuce,cheese,etc.made of fabric thats ruffled and down the front of the suit like a taco.Newsweek voted our "Puffy Taco"’
the best mascot in the minor leagues.

[:D]Those sound like puffy tacos which are common around San Antonio.In fact there is a restaraunt here called Henry’s Puffy Tacos.I think they have a website,www.henryspuffytacos.com but not sure.I perfer to let others make them.There are also gorditas(little fat ones in spanish) that are also kind of puffy.I’m sure you can find a recipe for both on the web.
The ones here are mainly made with corn masa,no egg invovled,just masa(corn flour,water and salt)
then patted by hand or pressed out and fried till they puff up.
And yes,a lot of mexicans do tear the tortillas and scoop up the food and then sometimes they will
fill them so it’s more like a taco,just depends.
Here you can buy big bags of masa Harina (for flour tortillas) and Masa mix for tamales,tortillas,sopes,etc.
There are places here in town who make their own tortillas every day and I’m sure others who buy them from Tortilla factories. A big deal here in November and december is for people to go to Delicious Tamales or some of the other commerical makers and put in orders for tamales for the holidays.One of the ladies here at work ,well her mother makes and sells them during that time . She gets orders from the City of Schertz(one of her daughters works there) and other people and even sells them at the bar she owns.These are all home made.I may order some from Angie this coming holiday.
I like the home made best.

The ones I saw being made (and enjoyed eating) always seemed to puff up. To the best of my reccollection it was only masa and water, perhaps an egg but I dont think so. The tortilla "pan" was a slab of 1/4" steel about 14" wide and 24" long that covered 2 burners and no oil was used, 6 tortillas were done at a time, by the time the last was down the 1st was ready to be flipped, flip the last one and the 1st was done

They may be using baking soda or powder and putting it into the masa.
I have not seen it, but there is such a thing as self-rising corn meal. I bet it can be found at a Latino grocery and for what it is worth, maybe even in your own supermarket.

mark

Fried corn tortillas (or taco shells) that have gone stale are nice and chewey. I actually kinda like them like that. I also like stale popcorn and stale cake, so my opinion might be a little off center.

I forgot to add that the tortillas would puff up like pillows, be flipped and then poked with a fork to deflate or allowed to cool and deflate depending on who was cooking them that time and some of the guys preferred a lower heat which resulted in a thicker and chewier tortilla

I worked and bunked with a large group of mexicans, they made fresh tortilas for each meal and they where slightly crispy and chewy at the same time. One thing that surprised me was how they would often just rip off small pieces of the bread and use it to scoop up the food from the plate as opposed to filling it and making a "taco"

quote:

Originally posted by bakinglass

quote:

Originally posted by felix4067

El Camino has the best food ever. And now you’ve got me needing to drive over to Muskegon, darn you!

If you DO go over, they have moved into Tony’s, the old greek restaurant behind the gas station they used to be in. It’s been a year or so since they moved in, and it still has the greek paintings on the wall – really odd in a mexican restaurant…

Thanks for the heads up! My heart would’ve stopped had I pulled up and they were gone. [V]

Of course, then I’d have just gone to US-31 BBQ, but still… [:D]

quote:

Originally posted by Cinnabonbon

The have been times when I’ve ran out of corn tortilla and used flour tortillas. I know I broke the taco rule.

No you didn’t.

El Camino has the best food ever. And now you’ve got me needing to drive over to Muskegon, darn you!

I think they roll their own out from scratch, they don’t use store-bought tortillas at all. That would be the difference, I’m guessing. I’m pretty sure they fry in canola oil, but it’s been a while since I was there so it might be different now.

Cinnabonbon… Damn… Almost 2am in the morning here and your making me hungry…

I have fried tacos in lard, vegetable oil or shortening, canola, peanut or vegetable oil. The only oil I haven’t fried tacos in is olive oil. There have been times when I’ve run out of corn tortillas and used flour tortillas. I know I broke the taco rule.

In my tacos I’ve used shredded beef, ground beef, misc left over meat, chicken, pork, carnitas, carne asada, chicken asada, tripas, lengua, fish, shrimp, canned roast beef (drain most of the gravy) even beans. Sometimes we top them with LTC other times it’s just salsa, guacamole and onion. It just depends on what I have in the pantry.

When I was first started learning how to cook my siblings would say my tacos were chewier then our Mom’s. I was afraid to fry foods, so I would start it on a low heat and heat it slowly to a soft texture. Then let it sit a bit & add the toppings

I do like ground beef tacos but didn’t like the way the meat would pop out when I fried the tacos. (Yes I warmed the tortilla) I tried the toothpick method but found that to be too much work. When I added a little bit of creamy refried beans into the meat mixture, then filled the tortillas up and fried them, the filling would stay in place. Once it’s fried up you can hardly tell. Plus the meat stayed moist.

MY DD won’t eat fried foods so we mainly have soft tacos now.

i agree with fred.
letting tacos sit a while when filled
makes them chewy.