I feel like a majorly broken record, but I seriously cannot get enough of Mexican food. I’m not sure what else I can say about my love for it that I haven’t already covered. When I was looking for some inspiration I came across these crispy tacos and knew I wanted to recreate them, but instead of a tomato broth (which sounds absolutely delicious in its own right),  I wanted to do an avocado tomatillo salsa. One, because I just love a good salsa verde, and two, because I had a ton of avocados laying around and needed to use them stat.

These taquitos are fairly straight forward; cook some shrimp, add some garlic, tomato, and cilantro, roll and fry. Easy enough. The salsa, though, is the real star of this show. It’s pretty much a salsa verde like I used here, but with chunks of fresh avocado. You can control the heat to your preference, but I left the skins on both the tomatillos and jalapeno and also left the seeds and ribs in the jalapeno for a little bit of a kick. Think of a guacamole + salsa verde, and it’s magic. After I made it the first time I kept finding other ways to use it. This recipe makes probably a little more than you need just for the taquitos, but trust me, you’ll eat it all.

Shrimp Taquitos with Avocado Tomatillo Salsa

For the Avocado Tomatillo Salsa:

4 medium tomatillos, husks removed and halved
1 jalapeno
Vegetable oil, for sauteing
1 small white onion, chopped
4 cloves of garlic, chopped
Salt and pepper
1 tsp chile powder
1 tsp cumin
3/4 cup chopped cilantro
1 avocado
Juice of half of a lime

For the taquitos:
(Adapted from Rick Bayless and From Away)

Vegetable oil, about a tablespoon for cooking the shrimp, plus more for frying
About 1/2 pound shrimp, peeled and deveined
1 large clove of garlic, minced
1 medium roma tomato, chopped
1/2 tsp chile powder
Salt and pepper
1/4 cup chopped cilantro
Corn tortillas
1-1/2 cups of shredded colby jack cheese

Begin by making the salsa. Preheat your broiler. On a baking sheet place the tomatillos, seed side down and place the jalapeno on. Broil until tomatillos and the jalapeno is blackened, turning the jalapeno every few minutes to char on all sides. Remove from the broiler and place in a bowl covered with saran wrap and let sit for at least 10 minutes.

In the meantime, heat a medium pan with some vegetable oil over medium high heat. Place in the onion and cook for about 5 minutes or until softened. Add the garlic, salt and pepper, chile powder, and cumin and cook for another 2 minutes or until the garlic has softened slightly. Remove from heat and place the onion mixture in a food processor or blender. Take the tomatillos and quarter them and place in the food processor (I did not peel the skin off the tomatillos). If there is any liquid that came off the tomatillos from steaming them, place that in the food processor as well. For the jalapeno, cut off the top of the stem. You can choose to remove the skin (I left mine on, just like the tomatillos) and remove the seeds/ribs (again, I wanted my salsa spicy so I just roughly chopped my jalapeno seeds and all) according to your heat preference. Place in the food processor.

Add in the cilantro (again more or less to your tastes) and pulse a few times to get everything broken up, into a chunky salsa. Add the avocado and lime juice and continue to pulse until you have the consistency you like. Place in an airtight container and put in the fridge until ready to use.

For the taquitos, place about a tablespoon of oil in the bottom of a non-stick skillet. Heat over medium high heat. Place the shrimp in the pan and just cook about a minute or two on each side or until the shrimp have coiled into a ‘C’ shape and are bright pink. Remove from pan and once the shrimp have been cooled slightly, cut into small pieces – about 1/4 inch bites. Back in the pan over medium heat, add the garlic and tomato. Cook for a few minutes, until softened then add the chile powder, salt and pepper. Add the shrimp back into the pan along with the cilantro and cook for another 2-3 minutes. Remove from heat.

Warm up the corn tortillas in the microwave, wrapping a damp paper towl around them and heating them up for about 15-20 seconds. For each taquito, place one corn tortilla down and place about a tablespoon or two of the shrimp filling towards the bottom of the tortilla. Add the same amount of cheese, then tightly roll up and secure with a toothpick. Repeat with remaining tortillas and filling.

In the bottom of a heavy skillet or pot, place about an inch of oil in and heat over high until the oil is ready to fry. You can test it by flicking a piece of flour in; if it starts to sizzle, you’re ready to fry. Place the taquitos in, I worked about 2-3 at a time, frying each side until golden brown – about 1-2 minutes a side (may take longer or shorter depending upon the heat of your oil). Remove from the oil and season with salt. Repeat with the rest of the taquitos and serve immediately with the avocado tomatillo salsa.

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