Day 46: Fry bread tacos

For 25 of my 32 years I spend a weekend every August at We Fest, a huge country music festival in my hometown.  It is something that we always did together as a family.  They always have those yummy treats that you get at most county fairs, and each day we would get one of those treats.  One of my personal favorites...one I HAD to have every year is something that us Northerners call an Uffta taco...also know as a fry bread taco.  To me its summer on a plate...crunchy & soft fry bread, topped with yummy taco meat, crisp lettuce, juice tomatoes, shredded cheese & cool sour cream.  Oh my I am starting to get hungry!

The original recipe can be found at whatscookingamerica.net

Ingredients:
1 c unbleached flour
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp powdered milk
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 c water
Vegetable oil for frying
Extra flower to flour your hands

Step 1:  Sift together the flour, salt, powdered milk and baking soda into a large bowl.  Pour water over the flour mixture all at once and stir the dough with until it starts to form one big clump.

Step 2:  Flour your hands well.  Using your hands, begin to mix the dough, trying to get all the flour into the mixture to form a ball.  You want to mix this well, but you do NOT want to knead it.  Kneading it will make for a heavy fry bread when cooked.  The inside of the dough ball should be sticky after it is formed, while the outside will be well floured. 

Step 3:  Cut the dough into four pieces (I cut mine into 6 so Little T could help).  Using your floured hands, shape, stretch, pat and form a disk of about 5-7 inches in diameter.

Step 4:  In a deep heavy pot, heat the vegetable oil to about 350 degrees.  You can check if your oil in hot enough by either dropping a small piece of dough in the oil and seeing if it begins to fry, or by dipping the end of a wooden spoon in and seeing if that bubbles.  Your oil should be about 1 inch deep.

Step 5:  Take the formed dough and gently place it in the oil, be careful not to splatter the hot oil.  Press down on top of the dough as it fries so the top is submersed into the hot oil.  Fry until golden brown and than flip to fry the other side.  Each side will take approximately 3-4 minutes.  Place the cooked fry bread on a paper towel to absorb oil.  (You can place the fry bread into a warm oven set to 200 degrees.  They can also be refrigerated and reheated in a 350 degree oven for 10-15 minutes before serving.

To complete my Uffta taco I browned some hamburger with a little chopped onion.  After the meat was completely browned, I added 2 Tbsp of my DYI taco seasoning with a little water, cooked for about 5 minutes.  I topped the fry bread with taco meat, lettuce, cheese and sour cream. 

I am rating this recipe a 4...it was a little more difficult that what I usually cook...but I HAD to try it.  Just like with my baking, I think as I keep "practicing" my baking style it will get better :)

On a side note the taco meat was awesome!!!  I loved the DIY mix!!  These tacos were a big hit with Little T...he really enjoyed helping stretch the dough out.  He might turn out to be a better baker than me.