Christopher Hora, co-owner and executive chef of Coyote Crossing in Conshohocken, Pa., has added cricket flour tortillas to his menu, made by making a loose mix of local organic nixtamalized white masa (which he said he was somewhat surprised to find and thought he’d have to have shipped from California) and warm water. He then adds cricket flour, which is very dry and tightens up the dough, which he then cooks on a comal to make tortillas.
Hora said that, although crickets are not new at all to Mexican cuisine, using it in tortillas is a more recent development, and given Americans’ aversion to eating insects he saw this as a way to introduce the high-protein, sustainable product to Americans without the gross-out factor of seeing actual insects. The crickets also add a nutty, earthy flavor to the tortillas, he said.
He uses the tortillas to make a variety of tacos, including one with tuna that he dresses in a blend of ginger, soy sauce, jalapeño peppers, kaffir lime leaf and lime juice, which he puts in the tortilla with micro greens and a green mole made with hoja santa, cilantro, mint, onion, pumpkin seeds, lime juice and water.
He also makes a taco with oyster mushrooms that he sautés with onions and garlic and finishes with white wine that he reduces until the liquid is gone and then adds stock of guajillo chiles and tamarind and reduces it again. He puts that in the cricket flour tortilla with watermelon radish and microgreens.
Prices: Tuna taco, $14; mushroom taco, $11