Quick Beef Tacos

Ingredients

• 500 g beef mince
• 8 small taco shells or tortillas
• 1 tbsp tomato purée
• 2 tomatoes, diced
• 50 g iceberg lettuce, shredded
• 1 large onion, diced
• 2 cloves garlic, crushed
• 2 tsp ground cumin
• 1 tsp smoked paprika
• 150 ml sour cream
• 100 g cheddar, grated
• Crusty sourdough bread, to serve
• Dressed green salad, to serve
• Fresh parsley, to serve

Method

1. Pat the mince dry with kitchen paper and season generously with salt and pepper — water means steam, and steam means no browning. Get a large heavy frying pan ripping hot with a slick of oil.
2. Brown the mince in two batches. All at once and the pan crowds, water comes out, and you've boiled the meat instead of seared it. Press each batch into a single layer, leave it alone for 2 minutes to build a crust, then break it up with a wooden spoon and cook for another 3 minutes until you have deeply caramelised, craggy bits. Drain off excess fat, leaving a tablespoon behind for flavour.
3. Drop the heat to medium and add the diced onion. Cook for 3 minutes until softened and glossy, scraping up any brown bits stuck to the pan — that's pure flavour.
4. Stir in the garlic and cook just until fragrant, 30 seconds, no more. Burnt garlic turns the whole filling bitter, so watch it. Add the cumin and smoked paprika and bloom them in the oil for another 30 seconds until fragrant — raw spices taste dusty, bloomed spices taste of themselves.
5. Stir in the tomato purée and a generous splash of water — the liquid carries the spice through the meat and stops the purée scorching. Simmer for 5 minutes until the mixture is rich and just-saucy, not dry, not wet. Taste, season, taste again. Adjust now — at the end, not at the table.
6. Meanwhile, warm the taco shells according to the packet — usually 2–3 minutes in a hot oven until crisp and just starting to colour at the edges.
7. Pile the hot beef into the warm shells and top immediately with grated cheddar so it melts into the filling from below.
8. Plate the tacos, spoon over the soured cream, scatter with diced tomato and shredded iceberg, squeeze a lime wedge over each, and finish with a flurry of coriander.