Crispy Black Bean-Bacon Tacos with Tangy Romaine Salad / paragiraffe is a blog by maura

Shaun and I first made these crispy tacos a few months ago (May 10th, to be exact), and I’ve been asking for them ever since. On Saturday, I got my wish! This is another entry from Shaun’s well-used Rick Bayless cookbook.

In a nutshell, a filling of black beans, onions, bacon and cheese is rolled inside corn tortillas, which are quickly fried (for taquitos, or flautas, or whatever you’d like to call them). They are paired with a simple romaine salad with a tangy apple cider vinegar dressing, a good foil for the spiciness of the tacos. They make a great presentation topped with chopped tomatoes and leftover cheese and bits of bacon.

Rick Bayless recipes always seem ridiculously involved, but the second time around things seem a lot more reasonable.

Also, as the last time we had this dish, we made hibiscus margaritas, from 101 Cookbooks, although we did ours frozen. I thought I had written about this before but apparently not. Shaun got some dried hibiscus flowers for Christmas, and it is really cool to do something with them.

Jamie / 30 aug 2008 / 3:46 p.m.

Those Taquitos look so yummy. Can you substitute the black beans for another kind? Like kidney beans or something? I’m kind of iffy on the use of the black beans.

Your brother / 31 aug 2008 / 2:19 a.m.

If I understand it correctly, it’s a flauta if it’s made with a flour tortilla and a taquito if it’s a corn tortilla. Cozymel’s incorrectly identifies its taquitos as flautas. Fun fact for the day, assuming I’m correct anyway.

Sincerely,

Love,

Allen

P.S. Thanks for Kotsay

Jaemie / 31 aug 2008 / 3:17 p.m.

These look and sound delicious. I will definitely be trying these.

@Allen: I was just educated on this particular issue at a local authentic Mexican restaurant yesterday. I asked for flautas with corn tortillas because I’m allergic to wheat flour. The waitress spoke zero English aside from “Coke? Sprite? Water?”, and a kitchen worker came out to clarify that I wanted taquitos instead of flautas with corn stuffed inside. Haha. I don’t care what they are called; I’ll just call them delicious.