Interesting story with Glen Bell. He had a small-time hotdog stand but wanted to sell tacos. There was a nearby Mexican restaurant that sold hard-shell tacos that people were lining around the corner for. Bell couldn’t figure out how to make hard taco shells himself, so similar to Ray Kroc with the McDonald brothers, he hung out at the restaurant and had lunch there every day until he befriended the people at the family-run place, learned their innovative techniques, stole the idea, and turned it into a huge franchise.
Unlike with the McDonald brothers, who Ray Kroc eventually drove out of the restaurant business, the original hard shell taco restaurant, the Mitla Cafe, still stands and is still family-owned. If I ever find myself in San Bernadino, I’m definitely having lunch there.
In the era when I first encountered the enchirito, an order of beans on the side consisted of an order for “a Frijole”. Yeah, as if you were placing an order for a single bean. It was refried beans, in a round cardboard container with melty cheddar cheese on top, and you could get it with broken taco shells in lieu of them having tortilla chips.
No, but making them on a scale practical for fast food was. Bell (and others) worked long and hard to perfect the framework to hold raw tortillas in the right shape while they fried.
I won’t argue that. What I was pushing back on was soloist’s apparent contention that Bell “stole” someone’s hard earned knowledge of how to make hard taco shells, and my point is that dropping tortillas in oil is not exactly a trade secret.
Well, the story I heard was that Bell tried and utterly failed several times to emulate making a fried taco shell like the Mitla Cafe’s, until he gave up trying and just started hanging out there, and befriended the staff, who freely showed him their taco shell frying process. Once he learned their secret he figured out how to mass-produce it.
It may not be as egregious an intellectual property theft as Ray Kroc stealing the McDonald brothers’ innovations and driving them out of business, but he never compensated the family that owned the original cafe (as far as I know), and he never acknowledged their contribution to coming up with the crispy taco shell.
I made what I call “white guy enchiladas” last night myself. The filling is ground beef, onion, cheddar cheese, sour cream, and sliced jalapenos, rolled up in corn tortillas, laid out in a baking pan, coated with chili gravy (beef gravy with a bunch of chili spices mixed in) and more cheese, baked, then served topped with more gravy, sour cream, and cheese.
Those look good, but they aren’t enchiritos. They are closer to enchiladas. A real enchirito consists of seasoned taco meat and refried beans inside an already-heated flour tortilla, along with a sprinking of raw onions. This is then covered with red sauce hot enough to slightly melt the sprinkling of cheddar cheese on top. A few sliced black olives complete it. Taco Bell does not cook an enchirito after it is assembled, they simply assemble it from their other ingredients and serve it. Enchiritos did not come with sour cream.
May I offer one small tip? I see from the photos that you made a common rookie mistake here, in that you put the filling right in the center of the tortilla. When making something like a burrito or enchilada or… encharito, you want to mentally divide the tortilla into thirds. Place the filling on the third closest to you, then fold in the sides and roll the tortilla away from you such that you fold the tortilla over the filling, then fold the whole thing over the remaining bit of tortilla.
Just a quick bump to say we made these last night and they were a hit. I adulterated them only to add some chopped jalapeño to the hash. Thanks for the idea, and thanks for posting it!
I recently came to the realization that you don’t actually have to use enchilada sauce for enchiladas! Just regular jarred salsa works, opening up a new array of flavor and heat level possibilities!
At the risk of further enraging purists, I’ve also found that it doesn’t really matter if you fry the tortillas or not, and it saves a lot of calories and mess if you don’t.
Really, if you read the ingredient labels, the only difference is that enchilada sauce contains flour. I guess that makes it stick to the tortillas better?
Traditional enchilada sauce gets its flavor from dried red chiles like ancho or guajillo. Salsa does not. Would it be safe to say that you don’t live somewhere where authentic Mexican food is in abundance?
