Crispy Chicken Tacos Avocado Buttermilk Ranch — The Prom Night Carne Asada That Held Everything Together

Luis Jr.'s senior prom. He went. This surprised everyone, including Luis Jr., who spent seventeen years saying he didn't care about dances and then, six weeks before graduation, asked a girl named Andrea to prom. Andrea works at the sporting goods store. She is seventeen, quiet, smart, and the first girl Luis Jr. has mentioned by name in his entire life. I didn't interrogate. I didn't pry. I said: "Do you need a suit?" He said: "Dad's lending me one." Luis's suit from our wedding — twenty-eight years old, slightly too small in the shoulders (Luis Jr. is bigger than Luis was at seventeen), but wearable. I adjusted the shoulders. Luis adjusted the pants. We turned our wedding suit into a prom suit, and the transformation felt symbolic of everything: the old becoming the new, the marriage launching the son, the same fabric holding different bodies in different decades.

He picked Andrea up in the Civic. The dented, slightly tired Civic that he bought with twelve hundred dollars of bakery and sporting goods money. He opened her door. He held her hand walking into the venue. I know this because Sofia followed them on Instagram (Andrea posted) and reported everything to me with the real-time enthusiasm of a war correspondent. I did not stalk. Sofia stalked. I merely received the intelligence and processed it with the contained emotion of a mother whose firstborn is going to prom and will be going to war in three months.

Isabella said, "It's just prom." I said, "Nothing your brother does is just anything." She considered this and then nodded and then went back to her AP Biology textbook, because Isabella recognizes a true statement when she hears one and moves on.

I made carne asada for the pre-prom dinner. Luis Jr. wanted carne asada because Luis Jr. always wants carne asada, and on prom night the boy gets what the boy wants. I grilled the skirt steak with lime and garlic and cumin, and Andrea came to our house and ate at our table and she was nervous and polite and she ate two tacos and asked for salsa and I watched her eat and thought: she is nice. She is nice and my son likes her and he is going to prom and then he is going to war and somewhere between the prom and the war there might be a love story, or there might not, and I will not interfere, because interfering with a seventeen-year-old's heart is like interfering with bread — you ruin the rise.

So yes, this is the carne asada. The exact one I made the night Luis Jr. put on his father’s wedding suit and opened a car door for a girl named Andrea. It’s not complicated — skirt steak, lime, garlic, cumin, a hot grill, and the kind of attention you give food when you’re trying not to cry into the marinade. I’ve made this a hundred times, but that night it mattered more, the way everything matters more when you realize you’re feeding someone a meal they’ll remember whether they know it yet or not.

Carne Asada Tacos

Prep Time: 20 minutes (plus 2 hours marinating) | Cook Time: 12 minutes | Total Time: 2 hours 32 minutes | Servings: 6

Ingredients

• 2 pounds skirt steak
• 1/4 cup fresh lime juice (about 3 limes)
• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 6 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 teaspoons ground cumin
• 1 teaspoon chili powder
• 1 teaspoon smoked paprika
• 1 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• 1/4 cup fresh cilantro, chopped, plus more for serving
• 12 small flour or corn tortillas, warmed
• 1 white onion, diced
• 1 avocado, sliced
• Your favorite salsa, for serving
• Lime wedges, for serving

Instructions

1. Make the marinade. In a medium bowl, whisk together the lime juice, olive oil, garlic, cumin, chili powder, smoked paprika, salt, pepper, and cilantro until combined.
2. Marinate the steak. Place the skirt steak in a large resealable bag or shallow dish. Pour the marinade over the meat, turning to coat evenly. Refrigerate for at least 2 hours or up to 8 hours. The longer it sits, the more the lime and garlic work into the grain.
3. Preheat the grill. Heat your grill to high heat, about 450–500°F. You want it hot enough that the steak sears immediately on contact. Clean and oil the grates.
4. Grill the steak. Remove the steak from the marinade and pat off any excess. Grill for 5 to 6 minutes per side for medium, or until an internal thermometer reads 130–135°F. Skirt steak is thin, so watch it closely — it moves fast.
5. Rest and slice. Transfer the steak to a cutting board and let it rest for 10 minutes. Slice against the grain into thin strips. This is the step that makes or breaks the tenderness.
6. Warm the tortillas. While the steak rests, warm the tortillas directly on the grill for about 30 seconds per side, or wrap them in a damp towel and microwave for 45 seconds.
7. Assemble and serve. Pile the sliced carne asada onto warm tortillas. Top with diced white onion, avocado slices, fresh cilantro, and salsa. Serve with lime wedges on the side.

Nutrition (per serving)

Calories: 420 | Protein: 34g | Fat: 22g | Carbs: 24g | Fiber: 3g | Sodium: 480mg