Discada - How to Feed 30 People with $40

Prep Time: 30 minutes - 1 hour | Cook Time: 1 - 2 hours | Serves: 30
Dinner » Beef » Mexican

Ingredients:

In northern Mexico, specifically on Chihuahua, there are three popular ways to make tacos. Carne al Pastor, Carne Asada y Discada.

Carne Asada is basically grilled steak.

In my extended family there are three main cooks for parties, and each one specializes in one of those three dishes. My specialty, is Discada, and I am here to tell you how to make it.

The spirit of Discada is similar to that of Paella, you cook everything in one pan, in this case a disco, but instead of using rice or grains for filling, you only use meat, a lot of meat. Also, similar to paella, everybody and his mother has a different way to prepare it, my way deviates a little from the mainstream but everyone that has tasted (more than 150 different people) it had said that is the best Discada they've ever tasted.

Discada is the best dish to serve in a party, in fact I can say that 2 of every 5 parties where food is served, Discada is in the menu. Why?, simply because you can make a lot of food at a relatively low price. In Mexico the minimum wage is 4 dollars per day and when a kilogram of beef (a little more than two pounds) cost almost six dollars you can guess that not a lot of people can afford to make Carne Asada o Carne al Pastor.

To make Discada you will need:

- Beef
- Vienna sausages or any kind of hot dog you like (you can use turkey, pork, chicken or beef hot dogs)
- Ham, simple cooked ham
- Bacon
- Chorizo (if you can't get it, forget about doing this recipe)
- Onions
- Tomatoes
- Jalapenos
- Salt
- Pepper
- Paprika

The recipe that I am about to show was to feed 30 adults 5 tacos each, accompanied by Frijoles Rancheros and guacamole, Chiles toreados and roasted salsa. The quantities I used were:

- 5 pounds of lean round beef
- 7 pounds of Discada beef, which is basically round beef, but with more fat than your normal cut of round beef. This is important, because it will make a juicier Discada.
- 2.5 pounds of baked ham
- 2.5 pounds of Vienna sausages
- 1.5 pounds of smoked bacon
- 5 balls of chorizo (a little less than one pound)
- 5 medium sized tomatoes
- 1.5 medium sized onions
- 15 jalapenos

As you can see, that?s a lot of meat. You can adjust the quantities of each ingredient to your taste. For example if you want to feed more people with a lesser budget, use more deli meats than beef. If you're going to make this for your family, then go for more beef than deli, it's up to you. This batch was made for my father-in-law's baseball team, so I tried to balance it a little.

The most important thing is to cut and prepare all the ingredients first:

Tomatoes, sliced for Discada, diced for Pico de Gallo