Taco Meat

Ingredients

• 1 pound ground beef or turkey
• 1 onion, finely chopped
• 1.5 teaspoon onion powder
• 1 tomato, chopped
• 1 small can tomato sauce
• 1 teaspoon chilli powder
• 0.33 teaspoon oregano
• 0.33 teaspoon cumin
• 0.33 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1 teaspoon oregano
• 0.25 teaspoon cumin
• 0.125 teaspoon pepper

Method

Heat a heavy-bottomed pan over medium-high until the surface shimmers. Add the ground beef — don't break it up immediately. Let it sit for two minutes until the underside browns, then crumble it into walnut-sized pieces. This browning develops the meat's savoury depth through the Maillard reaction. Once the beef is mostly opaque, add the chopped onion and cook for another three minutes until it softens and turns translucent at the edges. Drain off the rendered fat through a fine sieve — you're keeping the flavour compounds, discarding the grease that will pool and make the sauce slick.

Return the meat and onion to the pan. Add the tomato sauce, chopped tomato, onion powder, chilli powder, garlic powder, oregano, and cumin. The oregano and cumin are listed twice in your ingredients list — use the larger quantities (1 teaspoon oregano, 0.25 teaspoon cumin) and discard the duplicates. Stir to combine. The spices won't bloom properly in cold liquid, so stir constantly for one minute over the heat until the powder begins to smell peppery and fragrant — this flavour-building step transforms harsh-tasting spice dust into integrated seasoning.

Reduce the heat to low and simmer uncovered for fifteen to eighteen minutes. The sauce should bubble occasionally at the edges, not violently. What you're watching for: the liquid level drops steadily, the tomato softens from discrete chunks into the sauce, and the surface begins to look slightly granular where the oil separates. Add a pinch of pepper. If the mixture looks glossy and loose after fifteen minutes, simmer for another few minutes without a lid. If it's already thick and clingy at the fifteen-minute mark, pull it off the heat — the one-pot-cooking carry-over heat will continue to reduce the sauce slightly.

The finished meat should look more paste than soup, with a thin slick of oil visible on the surface and the sauce clinging to each piece of meat. This texture holds the taco-technique together: the binding keeps everything in the shell or tortilla instead of running out.