In a medium bowl or container or sipper top bag, combine the soy sauce, lime juice, vegetable oil, orange juice, garlic, chili powder, and cumin. Stir or mash it around to blend well. Add the steak cubes and toss to coat them thoroughly with the marinade. Seal or cover, and marinate in the fridge for 2 to 6 hours.
Heat a large pan, preferably cast iron, over high heat. When the pan is hot, heat the tortillas — one or two at a time, as many as will fit in a single layer, for about 30 to 45 seconds per side, until brown spots appear. Remove the tortillas as they are cooked to a stack on the side.
When the tortillas are cooked, return the pan to high heat. Remove the steak from the marinade and add the steak in a single layer into the pan. Use tongs or a spatula to turn the cubes of meat as they get color on the bottom; you are looking for light caramelization, so don’t keep moving the meat around too frequently, or it will cook but not sear. There will be some marinade released from the steak in the pan, which will evaporate as the meat cooks, allowing it to brown. Cook for a total of about 6 minutes, until the steak is nicely browned on at least a couple of sides of the pieces and the center of the cubes reaches 135-145 F. Remove the steak from the pan to a plate.
Serve the meat with the cooked tortillas and the topping of your choice.
Notes
There are actually soft tacos available in many supermarkets that are labeled “street taco tortillas”, which refer to their small size, the size of the tacos sold and eaten out of hand on the street in Mexico, and other places where tacos reign king as street food. You can use other 6-inch taco tortillas if you can find the very small street taco tortillas and just make slightly larger tacos.
I used skirt steak in these tacos, which is one of my favorite cuts of steak to prepare and one of my guys’ favorite cuts to eat. You really could use any tender but firm cut of beef here; flank steak is another good and easy-to-find option.
Obviously, tacos need to contain small pieces of meat, whether it’s ground meat, shredded meat, thinly sliced meat, or, as in this case, cubed meat. In this skirt steak tacos, the small pieces of diced meat absorb the marinade really well, so there is amazing flavor all throughout.
Use tongs or a spatula to turn the cubes of meat as they get color on the bottom; you are looking for light caramelization, so don’t keep moving the meat around too frequently, or it will cook but not sear.