As a San Diegan, Mexican food is part of my core food groups. There are supposed to be four or five food groups, depending on when you attended school over the last few decades. Well, if you lived in California, one of those groups is definitely Mexican food. Since moving to Ozark, AL, I have been trying to recreate the taste of the average San Diego taco shop at home, and this is another one of those items.
As an aside, in the pictures below, the temperature target display tends to look strange. That’s because the LED temperature display doesn’t time well with my camera’s shutter speed, so usually, one part or another on this display is blank at any given moment. Suffice it to say, it does read 350F normally.
Equipment used:
- Blackstone e-series griddle to cook
- Meat monsoon machine (see Pre-prepped meat for details)
- Measuring bowl/scale to determine quantities
Each quesadilla you choose to make will take:
- 4oz of pre-prepped meat (I used 2oz chicken and 2oz steak, but 4oz of any protein should do here; try to ensure it’s chopped up fine)
- 6oz of Mexican cheese blend (any yellow/white cheese mix should do)
- Texas Roadhouse Rattlesnake Bites seasoning
- Two 10″ Great Value flour tortillas
- Enough cooking oil to grease the griddle
- Roughly 10 minutes with raw meat, or 6min with pre-cooked meat
Directions
Step 1: Preheat the griddle to 350. If you feel adventurous, you could also do this with a pair of skillets on a stove.
Step 2: Measure the meat and toss it on the griddle. Lay down a thin layer of cooking oil to heat the rest of the surface area too.
Step 3: Stir the meat around until all of it has started to brown. Note that it needs to be chopped finely; using the prep machines I do will achieve that just fine. I personally used pre-cooked chicken and thin-sliced beef. Note that I am using raw beef here, so I need to cook it thoroughly before using it. That actually took a substantial part of the cook time; if you were to fry all the meat in a skillet first, it would go faster if you’re making several of these.
Step 4: Drop the tortillas onto the griddle and spin them to ensure good coverage of the oil. You’ll flip the tortillas after two minutes; you want them a little crisped.
Step 5: Apply the cheese to both tortillas, splitting it down the middle; 3oz each. If the meat is ready, apply it to the top of the cheese at this point, half on each tortilla.
Step 6: I applied Texas Roadhouse Rattlesnake Bites seasoning. It imparts a pleasant mix of flavors, but it isn’t exactly what you’d get in San Diego. Feel free to skip this step or substitute some other seasoning of your choice here.
Step 7: Once the cheese has fully melted, you scoop up one tortilla (I use a flipper underneath it and tongs for guidance) and drop it on top of the other one to produce a single quesadilla, as below.
Step 8: Lift quesadilla off of griddle, put wherever you’re stacking the completed quesadillas, and start the next one! Going this way takes about 10 minutes per quesadilla, including the cook time on the raw beef. If your beef’s already cooked first, you could easily do a full quesadilla every 6min.
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