Writer's Grove

A Spiffy Taco Recipe

Delicious, Thy Name is Moo Shu Pork Tacos

If your tongue is longing for something you can make at home that feels fancy but isn’t that tough to make—I got you covered. These goodies are good.

Deity of Choice, Take the Wheel

Shortly after I tried moo shu pork tacos for the first time, my facehole periodically sang a song of yearning, urging me to make them again. I was introduced to them through Hello Fresh, a meal delivery service where they give you the stuff and you cook it up. They let you buy it again every few months but that is not enough, because of the aforementioned song of yearning. So I needed to learn how to make them on my own. This recipe will easily feed 3-4, and if you have just two peeps you’re definitely gonna have leftovers. Let’s do this.

PREP THESE THINGS

• Shred half (or maybe just a quarter?) of a smol red cabbage
• Slice some fresh mushrooms, white or cremini, you pick. OR CHEAT and buy a package of washed and sliced mushrooms. I won’t tell.
• Chop up some green onions, like two or three of ’em
• Thinly slice a few radishes
• Mix 1 tablespoon ground ginger and garlic powder in a wee bowl, like a ramekin or something. You’re gonna deploy that soon, but set aside for the moment. Feel free, however, to pay your spice mix tiny compliments while you work on the rest of this. Just lavish it with affirmations. “Aww, yeahhh, you’re so damn tasty,” is really fun to say out loud without warning, because if anyone else is in the house, they’re gonna ask you about it. “You’re finger-lickin’ good, I can tell. You complete me.”
• Mix 1/3 cup of hoisin sauce, 1 tablespoon white vinegar, and 1 tablespoon of soy sauce in another wee bowl, but maybe bigger than a ramekin

HAVE THESE THINGS HANDY

• a pound of ground pork, or else some pork tenderloin cut into strips
• a tablespoon of sesame oil
• flour tortillas you like—white or whole wheat, you do you. Taco size rather than burrito size, unless you want to make a burrito out of this, and then a taco-sized tortilla would be inadequate
• Sriracha!
• Mayonnaise—whatever kind you like. Vegan. Organic. Half fat. Decaf.

GIT COOKIN’, HOSS

So grab a bigass skillet and do the “medium heat” thing on your stove, which is, I don’t know, 4-6 on the dial? (I think it’s weird how no one really knows what medium heat is.) As it’s warming up, drop a tablespoon of sesame oil in there, then your mushrooms and HALF of the chopped green onions. It’s gonna look massive but don’t worry, it’ll cook down nicely. Roll that all around, get it coated in the sesame oil, let it cook a bit.

Now get a smallish bowl and dollop four spoonfuls of mayo in there. Then squirt some sriracha on it. This is a taste thing. You like it hot? Squirt more. Squirt squirt squirt. Stir!

The redder it is, the spicier it is. We go for a salmon color, I guess, because it’s flavorful without being too spicy. Let that rest.

Check on your shrooms, stir and nudge and coo softly to them. They should have cooked down and look a bit like this before you do the next thing.

The next thing is you add the ground pork or pork strips. I shove the shrooms to one side to start with. Then I sprinkle that moo shu spice mixture (ginger and garlic powder) over the whole shebang. Get that pork cooked so there’s no pink, break it up, mix with the mushrooms, let those spices mingle.

Once that pork is all cooked through, you’re going to add the hoisin/soy/vinegar mixture to the skillet. What shall we call that mixture—Steve? Add Steve to the skillet. Steve is delicious.

Add the red cabbage in there too (and stir it all around to get Steve coating all the goodies. (I didn’t use all the cabbage—I just kinda eyeballed it.) The cabbage will reduce a wee bit and congratulations, folks, you have a skillet full of moo shu taco filling.

Now the fun bit: Nuke a tortilla for 30-35 seconds to get it warm. Slap some moo shu pork on there. Sprinkle green onions (because you saved some!) and deploy radish slices for some cronchy cronch. Dollop with the sriracha mayo, and wow. Enjoy. Shove it in your facehole and then you, too, will be singing songs of yearning later.