Tacos alemanes / German Tacos - 100

This is the most improbable and multicultural of meals - German tacos. We learned to make these when we lived in Texas the first time (1992-1994) in San Antonio. We attended a nearby chile cook-off, but arrived late and only found a few of the competitors still serving their chile. After sampling a few of the different varieties, which were all good, we discovered that we were still hungry, and headed straight for a taco cart which was doing a brisk business near the chile stands.

The young man making the GERMAN TACOS explained to us that South Texas has a long history of German and Mexican peaceful coexistence. He had taken "the best of both worlds" and combined them into one meal: the taco alemán, or German taco.

The taco part of the meal comes from the tortilla and the hot peppers. The German part comes from the sausage, sauerkraut and mustard. (We sometimes add salsa to make it all even out in terms of the number of Mexican and German ingredients) Any good grilled sausage will do, and this time around we made it with a chicken and jalapeño sausage we'd bought at Trader Joes. We grilled them as we cooked up some canned sauerkraut indoors, and heated some whole wheat /whole grain tortillas on the comal. Once they were ready to assemble, we added some hot German mustard and canned, pickled serrano peppers. Once the picture was taken, we rolled up our tacos, as usual, and devoured them.

Unusual? Yes - but very good, and something different. They're Tex Mex and maybe not very well known outside of Texas, but definitely worth trying sometime!