Taquitos

When I was in college and working at Barnes and Noble, I arrived home after midnight with one thing in mind - taquitos! Five nights a week for four years, I came home from work to 4 frozen taquitos (and usually a slice of buttered bread, but that's irrelevant). And nothing could have been better for dinner than those frozen taquitos from Costco (El Monterrey is the best) - the true staple of my college life. Like most American interpretations, this delicious take involves the unauthentic taquito filling of chicken and Monterrey Jack cheese.

What we see as taquitos are really a cross between Mexican taquitos and flautas, but here in Mexico there is a difference. Real taquitos, or taquitos dorados, are corn tortillas tightly wrapped around a chicharron or mashed potato filling and simply served with a salsa borracha (tomato sauce, cilantro, jalapeño, onion). Flautas, on the other hand, are fatter, have a variety of fillings and are served as an actual dish with the typical Mexican garnishes - lettuce, crema and queso fresco. But flautas will be for another day because I have tortillas and leftover mashed potatoes in the fridge.

These are delicious and easy and versatile. If I had known how cheap and easy, I would have tried making these a long time ago. So many wasted meals.

Ingredients
25 fresh corn tortillas
2 cups prepared mashed potatoes
vegetable oil, for frying

Directions

1 - Find a shallow, square dish that fits into your freezer. (Very important!)

2 - Put a small spoonful of mashed potatoes on a warm, fresh tortilla (should be flexible) near the edge. Shape it into a thick line, about 1 cm thick and 2 inches long.

3 - Roll the tortilla tightly around the line of mashed potatoes, and place it firmly seam side down in the square dish.

4 - Repeat until there are no more tortillas or mashed potatoes. Pack the taquitos tightly in the dish so that they cannot open.

5 - Put the dish of taquitos in the freezer, uncovered, for about an hour.

6 - Fill a deep pan with about 2 inches of oil. Heat over a high flame.

7 - When oil is hot, place taquitos into the oil one at a time, seam side down. Hold each one still for about 20 seconds, so that the seam sets, and your taquito does not burst open. Repeat until there are no more taquitos.

8 - Allow taquitos to drain thoroughly.

9 - Enjoy plain or dipped into some salsa borracha (to be posted in the future, or I guess you can look it up somewhere else....no, wait, do not look somewhere else).