For the past year, I have been slightly obsessed with tacos. There’s a local restaurant here in Metro Detroit called Imperial that flipped the script completely for me on what a taco could be. Every Monday, they have a seafood themed taco (that changes weekly), and their staples are modern, delicious, and filling. But most importantly, their culinary creations are unique and keep me coming back to see what else they’ve come up with each month.
I grew up with tacos being an extra thing in my Taco Bell meal bag – which was a rarity anyway, as I didn’t frequent fast food places and still don’t, especially TB. I was never fond of them, and so my idea of a taco was some lame meat and cheese slapped in a sad tortilla for many years.
Thankfully, that is not the case in my adulthood, and in my opinion, you can taco anything, and I have, thanks to the inspiration from frequenting Imperial for their gourmet tacos and glizzies.
This past weekend I went to another local spot, 168 Mart, Michigan’s largest Asian grocery store, and picked up a box of oyster mushrooms. I’ve never cooked oyster mushrooms before and typically I would’ve put them in my mushroom alfredo, but I’d already cooked that recently and was looking for something else to do with them, so I decided to taco them for a quick and easy dinner. These tacos turned out rich in flavor and color and yielded 6 medium sized tacos.
For this you will need:
Mushrooms:
2 clusters of oyster mushrooms, torn into strips
EVOO
soy sauce
minced garlic to taste
ground pepper
smoked paprika
Tacos:
flour tortillas (I use these from Trader Joe’s)
veggie oil for frying
cole slaw bag
red onion
vinegar
dijon mustard
honey or sugar
sour cream
garlic chili crisp
cilantro
lime wedges
Directions
- Pull your oyster mushrooms into thin strips and wash them. I use a salad spinner to get the water out and off of them afterwards.
- In a frying pan, heat your frying oil, then add mushrooms, soy sauce, minced garlic, ground pepper, and smoked paprika, and fry until golden brown, about 7-10mins on medium heat. Take off the heat once cooked.
- In the meantime (or beforehand) combined cole slaw mix with thinly slided red onion, and toss with vinegar, dijon mustard, and honey or sugar – the honey/sugar helps break down the slaw so it soaks up the vinegar better and cuts down on the astringency of it.
- Quickly fry your tortillas until they have a light crisp on both sides, them assemble with a light layer of sour cream (optionally, you can mix it with mayo and taco seasoning for a bigger flavor kick), slaw, mushrooms, and top with cilantro and garlic chili crisp, then serve with lime wedges.
