Paul’s Spicy Beef Tacos | Bake Off Technical Challenge

Welcome back to Week 4 of my 2022 Bake Off Technical Challenge Bake Along! This week was more of a cooking challenge rather than a baking challenge – Spicy Beef Tacos! These were absolutely delicious! I loved having a savoury challenge for a change and these Spicy Beef Tacos were a real treat! Spicy beef, creamy avocado, pico de gallo and some refried beans!

The original recipe (see here) called for a A LOT of ingredients, some quite exotic and expensive, so I have substituted and altered things in the below recipe to make it more home baker and budget friendly. Hope you enjoy!

Check out the video here:

There are a few “issues” with Paul’s Spicy Beef Tacos recipe…

The main foundation of this recipe, and what was apparently the “baking” element of this challenge, were the tortillas. The original recipe calls for hard-to-get ingredients, such as food-safe calcium hydroxide and masa harina flour (never heard of it!). Also, he wanted you to soak yellow field corn overnight for 8 hours to make the dough. So yeah, I wasn’t going to do that. As an alternative, Paul said to use 100g of masa harina flour, so I bought some maize meal which after a quick Google search seemed close enough an equivalent and good to use.

However, when mixing it with water as Paul suggested, I ended up with a runny mess that was never going to be a tortilla dough in a million years. Looking up some maize-meal based tortilla recipes, I found that most recipes use a mix of maize meal and plain flour, so after adding some plain flour to mine, I ended up with a great dough for making tortillas. I have added flour into my version of the recipe below for you to use. I’m not sure why the original Bake Off recipe is so far off on this, maybe I used to wrong thing – but luckily I was able to save it in the end!

Guacamole, Pico de Gallo, and Refried Beans – Spicy Beef Tacos

These Spicy Beef Tacos are absolutely LOADED with different fillings – all things I love! I am crazy about refried beans, and though lots of different beans taste nice in this, black beans are definitely my favourite! The pico de gallo and guacamole were also very nice, but sometimes the original recipe called for some special chilli powders or chillis to add in, and I didn’t want to go out and buy them. So I changed the recipe slightly to accommodate what ingredients I already had at home. I quite liked Paul’s take on the Guacamole, chopping rather than mashing the avocado and adding some coriander (which I don’t normally do). As everyone thinks they have the ULTIMATE guacamole recipe, I’ll link mine below as I do think it is pretty good. I gently fry my onions first and season them with garlic and smoked paprika powder which adds a certain je-ne-sais-quoi! I also love a good salsa and have dabbled in recipes for that, too!

My Ultimate Guacamole recipe: https://theunicook.com/ultimate-guacamole-recipe/

My Tomato Salsa recipe: https://theunicook.com/tomato-and-red-onion-salsa-dips-and-salsas/

More Bake Off Technical Challenges

I have been testing Bake Off Technical Challenge recipes for years now and have accumulated quite a long list of recipe adaptions on my blog now! Have a look through some of the others and give them a go!

• Mary Berry’s Religieuses
• Mary Berry’s Fraisier Cake
• Paul Hollywood’s Hand-raised Chicken, Bacon and Apricot Pies
• Mary Berry’s Bakewell Tart with feathered Icing
• Paul’s Mini Pineapple Upside Down Cakes
• Mary Berry’s Frosted Walnut Layer Cake
• Paul Hollywood’s Cottage Loaf
• Mary Berry’s Homemade Jaffa Cakes
• Paul Hollywood’s Wagon Wheel Biscuits
• Mary Berry’s Victoria Sponge Cake
• Paul Hollywood’s Mini Pork Pies
• Mary Berry’s Viennese Whirls
• Prue’s Vegan Chocolate and Raspberry Tarts (S2UC Special)
• Pizza Star Bread (Junior Bake Off)
• Mary Berry’s Coffee and Walnut Battenberg Cake
• Paul’s Crusty White Cob
• Paul Hollywood’s Rainbow Bagels
• Prue Leith’s Malt Loaf
• Paul’s Jammy Biscuits
• Paul Hollywood’s Olive Ciabatta Bread Sticks with Homemade Tzatziki
• Prue Leith’s Sticky Toffee Puddings with Sesame Tuiles
• Prue Leith’s Prinzregententorte
• Paul Hollywood’s Baklava (22cm)
• Paul’s Caramel Biscuit Bars (Twix)
• Prue Leith’s Vegan Sausage Rolls
• Prue’s Sablé Breton Cake
• Paul Hollywood’s Sticky Belgian Buns
• Red Velvet Cake with Cream Cheese Icing
• Prue’s Garibaldi Biscuits with Feathered Chocolate Icing
• Paul Hollywood’s Pain au Raisins
• Paul’s Spicy Beef Tacos
• Paul Hollywood’s S’mores
• Prue Leith’s Pistachio Praline Ice Cream Cones
• Vegetable Spring Rolls
• Prue’s Vertical Chocolate, Hazelnut, and Raspberry Tarts
• Paul Hollywood’s Devonshire Splits

Paul’s Spicy Beef Tacos | Bake Off Technical Challenge

Recipe

Ingredients

FOR THE STEAK

• 1 sirloin steak
• 1 tsp chilli powder
• ½ tsp ground cumin
• ½ tsp smoked paprika powder
• 1 tsp garlic powder
• ½ tsp cayenne pepper
• ½ tsp dried oregano
• 1 tsp soft light brown sugar
• ½ tsp salt

FOR THE TORTILLAS

• 100g plain flour
• 100g maize meal
• 2 tsp corn oil (substitute with sunflower or vegetable oil if you like)
• 1 tsp salt
• 100ml water

FOR THE PICO DE GALLO

• 2 large tomatoes, deseeded and finely diced
• ½ small white onion, finely diced
• pinch of chilli powder (optional)
• juice of ½ lime
• salt and pepper, to taste
• small handful of finely chopped coriander leaves

FOR THE REFRIED BEANS

• 2 tsp corn oil
• ½ small white onion, plus the remainder of the red from the guacamole, finely chopped
• 1 garlic clove, crushed
• ¼ tsp chilli powder
• ¼ tsp ground cumin
• Pinch of salt
• 400g can of black beans, drained
• juice of ½ lime

FOR THE GUACAMOLE

• 2 large ripe avocados, cut into small cubes
• 1 tomato, deseeded and chopped
• ¼ red onion, finely diced
• Juice of 1 lime
• Small handful of finely chopped coriander leaves
• Salt and pepper to taste
• Pinch of smoked paprika powder or chilli powder (optional)

TO FINISH

• 2 tbsp corn oil (for frying the steak)
• 25g feta cheese, crumbled into small pieces

Method:

1. First start by marinating the steak. Mix all the dried spices together in a glass bowl, before adding the steak and making sure it is completely covered in the spice mix. Set aside and leave to marinate at room temperature for around an hour (while you are preparing everything else).
2. Next, make the dough for the tortillas. In a bowl, mix together the flour, maize meal, salt and corn oil until combined. Then gradually add in the water, mixing well until everything comes together in a smooth ball of dough. Cover with a clean tea towel and leave to stand for about 20-30 minutes.
3. To make the pico de gallo, put the deseeded and diced tomato, onion, coriander into a bowl, mix, squeeze in the lime juice and then season to taste with salt and pepper.
4. Next, heat 2 tsp of corn oil in a small frying pan to make the refried beans. Once hot, add the onion to the frying pan and cook over a low heat for around 5 minutes until the onions have softened. Then add in the crushed garlic and spices and cook for around 1 minute until fragrant. Finally, add in the black beans alongside 4 tbsp of water and simmer for around 5 minutes until the mixture becomes slightly dry.
5. Use a potato masher to mash around half of the beans to create some different textures, then stir in the lime juice and set aside until needed (if you like, briefly reheat the beans in the pan before serving).
6. To make the guacamole, mix together the chopped avocado, tomato, onion, and coriander in a small bowl. Add a generous amount of lime juice, and season with salt, pepper, and a little bit of chilli powder/smoked paprika powder (optional).
7. Now that you have all the components together, you are ready to shape and cook the tortillas. Roughly divide the dough into 8 portions (around 40g each) and roll each one into a neat ball. Place one of the dough balls in between two pieces of clingfilm and use a casserole dish (or something similar with a large, flat base) to push down onto the dough ball to create a disk. Try to get the taco as thin as possible, around 1-2mm thick.
8. Heat a dry frying pan over a medium-high heat. Carefully peal the tortilla off the clingfilm and place it onto the hot pan. Cook for around 1-2 minutes on each side until puffed up and cooked through, then wrap in a clean tea towel to keep it warm. Repeat this process with the remaining balls of dough until you have 8 tortillas.
9. Once you have cooked the last tortilla, put 2 tbsp of corn oil into the hot frying pan and wait for around a minute until hot. Cook the sirloin steak for around 2 minutes on each side for medium rare (rough guidance: cook the steak depending on how thick it is. If it is around 2cm thick, cook for 2 mins on either side, if 3cm thick, 3 mins on either side, etc.). Remove the steak from the frying pan and leave to rest for 5 minutes before cutting into thin slices.
10. To assemble the tortillas, top each tortilla with the (reheated) refried beans, guacamole, steak and pico de gallo. Finally, crumble small pieces of feta cheese and some more chopped coriander on top and enjoy!