Celebrate Cinco de Mayo with crisp-fried shrimp tacos

Shrimp is payday food for many, but Raul Ortega figured out how to make the shrimp taco affordable by using fewer shrimp while optimizing flavor. At Mariscos Jalisco, Ortega’s food truck in the Boyle Heights area of Los Angeles, the tacos de camarón, or shrimp tacos, are the main attraction.

Ortega stuffs a perfectly seasoned shrimp filling into tortillas and fries the tacos to golden crispness before finishing them with tomato salsa and avocado. His recipe is a closely guarded secret, but for the recipe in our cookbook “ Milk Street 365: The All-Purpose Cookbook for Every Day of the Year,” we got some help replicating it from recipe developer Paola Briseño-González.

To get that same delicious melding of flavors and textures, the shrimp are chopped in a food processor, then cooked with a flour-thickened tomato-onion purée to make the filling. Though the recipe specifies shrimp of a certain size, just about any will work. It’s easy enough for a weeknight, but special enough for a Cinco de Mayo celebration.

Don’t try to bypass the step of warming the tortillas before filling them. Straight from the package, the tortillas likely will be brittle and will crack when folded. After warming the tortillas, be sure to keep them wrapped in a towel so they remain pliable until you’re ready to fill the tacos.

Fried Shrimp Tacos with Salsa Roja

Start to finish: 1¼ hours

Servings: Makes 8 tacos

Ingredients:

For the salsa roja:

1 pound ripe plum tomatoes, cored, halved and seeded

¼ large white onion, chopped (about ½ cup)

2 medium garlic cloves, smashed and peeled

1 tablespoon dried Mexican oregano

Kosher salt and ground black pepper

1 cup finely chopped green cabbage

1 cup lightly packed fresh cilantro, chopped