There is a taco gap in our lives and hence to fill that taco gap we came up with Jalfraezi tacos inspired by an Indian dish named Jalfraezi. The taco gap we are talking about is that in USA and possibly at most places outside south America tacos that can be found in eateries are most times too mediocre. Some of it could arise from them being too Americanized. Well but aren’t we indianizing our taco’s a bit to make Jalfraezi tacos? We are yes, but there are certain degrees and they are more like Jalfraezi inspired tacos. In fact all the shopping we did for our lunch came from a Mexican Grocery store except the paneer. There is nothing wrong to adapt a dish to suit local cuisine philosophy or flavors of your origin. However in USA most tacos we run across are compromised on quality and seem so different an avatar than the pictures and videos i have seen from travel shows. My complaints begin with the tacos used and end with the overload of lettuce, processed cheese and pile of beans that i have seen on tacos. The other grudge is that there is a perception that tacos need to be absolutely meat heavy and sometimes restaurants become so meat focused that a fresh bounty of beautiful vegetables is forgotten and beans and cheese on a taco become the vegetarian after thought. And also at most of these places All this when tacos can be such a beautiful thing!
It might seem a bit of a rant (which it is :)) but looking back it took me years to fall in love with tacos and this situation has been to blame. For years we were subjected to something else in the name of tacos even at Mexican restaurants who yielded to go with the crowd and maybe market pressure to churn out similar styled food. Yet there are refreshing new businesses now churning out some fantastic tacos and that is how we got to understand and taste the idea of a good taco.
So when we talk about Jalfraezi tacos, what is this Jalfraezi you might ask. It is an indian dish which can be found in various form. The breakdown of the word am told means spicy (Jhal) and diet oriented food (pharezi) in bengali. This makes sense from the use of dried chili powder and use of a variety of vegetables which are quickly stir-fried. Some make this dish a drier stir fry and some make it stir fried with a pureed sauce. The one i grew up cooking was with chunks of Onions, Peppers stir blistered in hot cumin scented oil and finished with a dash of vinegar and a lot of red chili powder and cilantro. This was often times complemented with the paneer bringing in some substance. There are many variations of this which use tomatoes or tomato paste to finish it along with ginger julienne to add more sharper flavors in the bites. You can find a good recipe here.
Having made this at home many times we decided to be inspired from it and make ourselves a Jalfraezi Taco lunch. We did not just want to cook Jalfraezi and dump it on a taco because we think they don’t pair all that well when done so and essence of essentially a taco lunch is lost a bit. We decided to use only red bell peppers variety to keep the flavors focused. These are slightly sweeter than the green ones and the flavor intensifies when subjected to quick high heat. This was the cooking style we wanted to retain from Jalfraezi where we subject the vegetables to quick high heat, charring them but leaving them crunchy and absolutely juicy. We Cut our red peppers into long strips and used a big pan on very high heat with oil that was close to smoking. We then placed these skin side down and let them cook briefly without disturbing them till we could smell the char or see some smokiness. At this point we stir cooked them shaking the pan vigorously for just a few seconds and lightly salted them and seasoned with a pinch of cumin powder (optional). We cut our paneer into about 5 cm thick rectangular strips and then cut them diagonally into triangles. If there is one thing i will tell you about cooking paneer is that most time it needs low heat and slow cooking. We set these pieces in a non stick pan to literally warm in a pan on low heat. We then diced a tomato and a red onion and seasoned them with salt and added some chopped cilantro.
We raided the pantry for this quick lunch to use a chipotle based mild red sauce and a hotter green jalapeno sauce. When time permits you can make your own sauce but since Jalfraezi also used some vinegar these vinegar based sauces we thought would work quite well and they did. We added a teaspoon each to the pico de gallo – onion tomato dice and mixed them after adding a squeeze of lemon juice. We also love the cooling contrast of chilled sour-cream and we whipped some of it with the green sauce for our creamier dressing.
We picked up some corn tortillas from our grocery store which felt the softest to the hand when we picked a packet. when we held them at the side the other side drooped. A lot of times you will find processed flour tortillas and they are chewy when you bite into them with too much gluten and lot of preservatives to increase their shelf life. These were softer and moister than those and worked great adding some more flavor from the good quality ground corn flour. We warmed ours up in the pan on high heat for only a few seconds at the hint of a air bubble in them and then proceeded to make our tacos.
We took two tacos one over the other and on the top one spooned and spread some of our jalapeno sour cream. We then placed a couple of our blistered red peppers and topped them with a a generous spooning of the fresh onions and tomatos salsa. we scattered three triangles of the paneer and dusted them with hot chilli powder. We finished with a few pieces of vinegar pickled baby cucumbers to add acidity to our dish and brighten it up and when we tasted it we both agreed this was a masterstroke. Many tacos used pickled red onions and if you have time to make these they would work great as well since the tacos need this bite of acidity which brings these fresh bright flavors. Other thing that did this was the lime dipped in chilli powder which we squeezed on top. As you squeeze the drops of lime they take some chilli powder with it and bring this memory of the playful heat similar to the experience of eating a roasted corn rubbed with chilli powder dipped lime. Do not burden your Jalfraezi tacos with a lot of these ingredients, there will be spillage and they would be difficult to eat.
For some tacos we sprinkled them with a dusting of Cotija cheese which adds a bit of salty dairy flavor. With this our Jalfraezi Tacos were ready. We then conjured up the knowledge about eating taco’s provided in the words of wisdom by our friend Prajakta – “You tilt the head and not the taco to take your bite”. We did exactly that with our Jalfraezi Tacos and we had no spillage in our plates.
Jalfraezi Tacos are fairly quick and recipe to make and can use ingredients on hand from the fridge and the pantry. We hope you do give Jalfraezi Tacos a try in your Taco Tuesdays or Taco Night rotation and give it your own spin in your kitchen.
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Jalfraezi Tacos
- Total Time: 20 mins
- Yield: Serves 2
Ingredients
- 2 red bell peppers chopped into half inch thick vertical slices
- 1 tsp cumin powder (optional)
- 1 medium tomato
- 1 medium onion
- 2 tsp red taco sauce (chipotle or habanero) (use one you can find and like)
- 3 tsp green jalapeno sauce (use one you can find and like)
- 1 tbsp chopped cilantro
- 2 tbsp sour cream
- 1 inch thick piece of paneer chopped into 5 cm rectangles and then cut diagonally into triangles
- 2 tsp cotija cheese
- 1 lime cut into wedges
- 2 tsp red chili powder (preferably Indian hot chili powder – this is not smoked or mixed with other spice powders)
- 2 tsp oil
- 12 slices of vinegar pickled cucumber (we used Japanese style pickled cucumbers)
Instructions
- Set a pan on high heat with 2 tsp oil and wait till the oil is hot and gets a shine but is not smoking
- Add peppers skin down without overlapping and crowding and let them sear undisturbed till charred or smoking
- Sprinkle cumin powder and vigorously shaking the pan toss and stir fry very briefly to get the seasoning mixed and the peppers just about tossed. Remove from heat.
- Mix onions, tomatoes, 2 tsp red sauce, 2 tsp green sauce, pinch of salt, and 1 tsp of lime juice squeezed from the wedges. Also add cilantro and mix.
- whip 1 tsp green sauce with sour cream
- Warm paneer pieces in a non stick pan on very low heat till they get warm
- Warm tacos quickly on high heat till you barely see a air pocket form and they go soft
- Arrange two tacos in a plate on top of each other. Arrange multiple couples of these if serving all together.
- Add a spoon of sour cream and smear across the diameter of the taco
- Add couple of pieces of roasted charred peppers
- Add couple of spoonfuls of the tomato onion salsa
- Add 2 to 3 triangle of paneer
- Add 3-4 pieces of pickled cucmber if required cut into smaller pieces
- Dust paneer pieces with chili powder
- Sprinkle across some Cotija cheese
- Dab a lime wedge in chili powder and serve on side. This should be squeezed dabbed side down on the taco at the time of eating so some chilli powder is mixed into the squeezed lime drops.
- Prep Time: 10 mins
- Cook Time: 10 mins
- Category: Lunch
- Cuisine: Mexican Indian Progressive
