Atropellado. The literal translation in English is “hit by a car”! What? Ok, let’s just get that image right out of our heads! Lol! Sometimes the translation from Spanish to English is totally lost. This recipe for atropellado was inspired by my trip to Monterrey in September of this year.
Atropellado is an easy and traditional dish popular in Monterrey, Nuevo Leon, Mexico. Just happens to be where my family is from. Plus I grew up with carne seca(dried beef) or machaca. Some of you can relate to stealing the carne seca(dried beef) out of the cupboard, right? Lol! That was the closest thing I ever had to beef jerky!
It is very popular to serve this dish as an appetizer or botana. I prepared the tacos with a smaller, taqueria-style flour tortilla. Corn tortillas can be substituted, but flour is more traditional with this recipe.
Atropellado. Carne Seca en Salsa(Dried Beef in Salsa)
Ingredients
- 4 large roma tomatoes
- 1/4 section white onion
- 2 cloves garlic
- 2-3 serranos
- 1 cup water
- salt and pepper to taste
- Oil
- 4 ounces carne seca dried beef, chopped
Instructions
- To a comal at, medium heat, add the tomatoes, onion, garlic and serrano pepper. Dry roast, turning as needed, for 25 minutes.
- Remove the garlic after 15 minutes. After 25 minutes transfer the salsa ingredients to the blender.
- Remove the skins from garlic and add to blender as well. minutes. Add 1 cup water and salt to taste. I like to pulse the blender until I reach to consistency I like for the salsa. Set aside.
- In a medium skillet, add 2 tablespoons of grapeseed oil and heat to medium. After a 2 minutes, pour in the salsa from the blender. Stir well to combine. Let the salsa cook for 5-6 minutes.
- Add the dried beef and sir well to combine. Cook for another 7-10 minutes. Serve with warm flour tortillas and fresh garnishes. Yields 4-6 servings as an appetizer.
Essential ingredients in a Mexican kitchen. Tomato, onion, green chile peppers and garlic.
This traditional method is referred to as dry roasting. Many times when I used my cast iron griddle(comal), I line it with a piece of foil paper. It makes for easy clean-up!
For this type of recipe, where I will be cooking the salsa with a protein, I don’t worry about peeling the tomatoes.
Another way to prepare the salsa is to simple lightly boil all the salsa ingredients together for about 10-13 minutes and then blend. I love the flavors of the roasted ingredients. More flavor! Bonus!
People always ask why I fry the salsa in oil. More flavor! Lol!
I like to cook the salsa for 10 minutes before adding anything else. Concentrates the flavors and it’s just delicious!
I brought the dried beef back home from Monterrey. My cousin highly recommended this brand from the meat market.
It’s not the most appealing out of the package, but it’s tasty! Mild in flavor and not strong like some other brands I have tried.
I love my blue granite ware(peltre)! I find the pieces all over and in different antique/thrift stores here in central New York. many pieces still have the stickers from Mexico!
Simple, simple ingredients, but some memorable tacos for sure!
My garnishes on this day were dried chile piquin, a simple guacamole, diced onion, chopped cilantro and lime.
Topo Chico mineral water in the back round. Also from Monterrey!
GUACAMOLE!!!!
CHILE PIQUIN!!!!!
The small flour tortillas are produced by El Comal Products out of California. They are not sold online, but hopefully they will be soon.
This version of atropellado was prepared by simply chopping all of the salsa ingredients fresh. I saute the salsa ingredients and then add the dried beef.
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where can one get carne seca in the USA?
In Texas and California they sell carne seca at any market that sells authentic Mexican ingredients. Mexican meat markets. Probably on Amazon it’s sold too.
Flour tortillas? Never saw them the whole time I lived in Monterrey. Atropellado was always served with corn. Everything was served with corn. If you drove west to Saltillo, there was one tiny restaurant that had burritos with flour tortillas. I think they got them from the US.
Hi Jim, well my family is from Monterrey and as far back as I can remember, flour tortillas were always made from scratch at least once a month. We ate mostly corn tortillas with every meal, but some meals it had to be flour tortillas from scratch. As far as the Atropellado recipe goes, that recipe was inspired by a restaurant in Monterrey that has always served that dish with flour tortillas. I don’t think my abuelita Sarita got flour tortillas from the US.