Our Ingredients

At Taco Trio, we prepare family recipes from our manager and staff that have been handed down from generation to generation. Our menu consists of traditional recipes from various regions of Mexico.

  • nopalesAll our food is made fresh every day, from fresh ingredients. We use almost no prepared foods. We don’t freeze and we don’t microwave.
  • We use traditional ingredients as much as possible, for example tomatillos, many different kinds of peppers, nopales (cactus leaves), epazote, goat meat, cilantro, and masa.
  • Many traditional ingredients are difficult and expensive to obtain this far North, and some simply aren’t available.

Salsa

  • mango salsaSalsa means ‘sauce’ in Mexico. What Americans refer to as ‘salsa’ is what Mexicans would refer to as a ’table salsa’.
  • Salsas are a hallmark of Mexican food.
  • There are hundreds of salsas in Mexican cooking: some cooked (boiled or roasted), some raw; some chunky some smooth, some thick, some thin. Salsas are made from a great variety of vegetables, fruit and herbs. They range from very mild but flavorful, through moderately spicy to fiery hot.
  • Red salsas typically have a tomato base while green salsas typically have a tomatillo base. Most include some onion or pepper, and herbs such as cilantro, oregano or epazote (a traditional Mexican herb with a flavor that’s hard to describe).

Mole

  • mole ingredientsMole (“moh-lay”) is a complex blended sauce, usually dark in color. Like salsas, there are many different moles used in Mexican cuisine.
  • Americans typically think of mole as containing, chocolate, but many moles do not. Most moles have at least a dozen ingredients and some may have 30 or more.
  • Due to the number of ingredients, moles typically have complex flavors with multiple subtle overtones, rather than one dominant element. They are challenging to make, because of the need to balance many flavors.
  • At Taco Trio, our most commonly used mole is a traditional sauce from the Puebla region of Mexico. It contains plantains, nuts, raisins, peppers, tomato, cookies, crackers, herbs and other ingredients.

Desserts

tres-lechesMexicans have a variety of common popular desserts enjoyed nationwide, as well as regional specialties. There are also desserts and treats that are seasonal or associated with certain holidays.

At Taco Trio we serve three common Mexican desserts:

  • the very simple Mango-on-a-stick (with lime and red pepper)
  • traditional flan (similar to custard)— usually coconut
  • pastel de tres leches (cake with three milks)

We also offer other desserts periodically.

Peppers

dried chile peppersPeppers feature prominently in Mexican cooking. Contrary to popular belief, they are not all hot.

The Scoville Scale was developed by chemist Wilbur Scoville in 1912 to rate and standardize the “hotness” of peppers. The scale is based on the amount of sugar needed to make the hotness of the pepper undetectable.