Growing up in Sacramento, Jimboy's Tacos have always been a family favorite. When JJ moved here, Jimboy's changed his life. HAHA! True. Because we like that style of shells, I've always fried yellow corn tortilla shells for tacos, and sprinkle a little Parmesan cheese on top. You can make them the perfect crispiness for your own taste. Definitely a win-win.
Along came keto, and corn and flour products were not conducive to a low-carb lifestyle. But I'm not forfeiting crunch in my life. EVER. What to do? Well, I made crunchy cheese skirts as a crispy cracker/tortilla chip substitute when I made zucchini taco boats. What if I made those, cooked them for a little shorter period of time, and bent the hot cheese skirts over some spoon handles to shape into taco shells?
Heck, yes!
Let's get started by making the taco meat.
Get a non-stick skillet. Ten - 12 inches is fine. Turn your stove onto about medium-medium high. Put about 3/4 to one pound of grass-fed lean ground beef into a skillet. You can also use ground turkey, ground chicken, chicken cubes, seasoned extra-firm tofu - you get it. Choose your protein. Heck - refried beans would be delicious, as well! To the ground beef, I added 3 T chili powder, 3 T ground cumin, a little garlic salt, one medium onion, diced, and 4 - 6 cloves of fresh minced garlic. Please don't use garlic from a jar. Just don't.
Once the meat was cooking in the skillet, I shredded the cheddar cheese, because
friends don't let friends use pre-shredded cheese.
It has a coating that keeps it from clumping in the bag. That coating also prevents it from melting nicely in the oven. I find that using a larger cut on the cheese produces a nicer end product. The finely grated cheese melts faster, but for this application, the standard grate is preferred. I pre-heated the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. In hindsight, I would have gone up to 400 degrees and cooked it for a shorter amount of time. I also would have removed it when it was about halfway dark orange around the edges, because you need to form the skirts by hanging them on spoon handles to cool and crisp up. It's a delicate balance. OH! The spoon handles need to be suspended. Use the same size jar, cup, mug (at least 6" tall) on either end of the handles to form the shells. You'll need one pair of cups and one spoon handle per taco shell. The handles should be at least 1/2" wide, so you have a base for the fillings. These are crispy shells, so they won't "give" the way flour or corn tortillas do. The spoons need to be ready when you remove the shells from the oven, too, because the cheese sets up and cools very quickly. You can't wait and re-use a handle after forming the shell, or you'll have chips on the baking sheet. Also, you need to work quickly with the hot cheese. I recommend making no more than three shells at once.
I lined a baking sheet with a silicone baking mat and put three 1/4 to 1/3 cup mounds of cheese on it. Don't get them too close together, because they need room to melt. You can tighten the mounds when placing on the mat for a more "solid" shell.
Thoroughly clean and dry three leaves of pliable lettuce. I used red-leaf, and it was perfecto. Dice some tomatoes, and maybe some fresh onion or jalapeno peppers, if you'd like. Cilantro, avocado, and other toppings that you like would be yummy. I did lettuce, meat, diced tomato, and hot sauce. It was really good.
When the cheese skirts are melted, remove them from the oven. They are hot. If your hands are sensitive to heat, use some gloves for this step. Remove each cheese ckirt form the pan and drape it over the spoon handles to form half-moons. One person who watched the video said that she used paint-stirring sticks - BRILLIANT!
Once the shells are done cooling (maybe 30 seconds or so), line the inside with the clean, dry lettuce. Then, add your meat, tomato, hot sauce and other toppings.
These tacos are incredibly satisfying.
Watch this video to see how we made the tacos: https://youtu.be/E42zyxAdACI
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