I call these "all-day" birria tacos for two reason: One, they take all day to make and two, because they're so good, they could be eaten "all day." I first learned about Birria tacos just a few months ago when I was watching the Netflix documentary, "The Taco Chronicles," and my mouth has been drooling for them ever since. We typically have some kind of taco at least once per week, and you boys are thrilled to have these in the rotation.
Boys, these tacos are something special. Truly. While making these, I felt like I was transporting our family to the center of Jalisco, Mexico, where the original Birria taco is said to have come from. According to gastronomic dictionaries, "Birria," means, "exquisite savory dish, full of culture and tradition," and that's how it felt while making these. It is originally made with goat meat, but as you boys know, I don't cook goat, so we went with beef.
I tried finding the most authentic recipe possible to follow, but every single one I came across was different from every single one I came across. So what did I do? I took what I felt were the most authentic pieces of 3 different recipes and created my own. Obviously I know that means they may not be completely authentic, but damn. They TASTED authentic and the amount of I love I put into them was nothing but authentic. Here is my recipe for Beef Birria Tacos.
INGREDIENTS
For the Birria
2.5 lbs chuck roast
2.5 lbs short ribs (you want these, so the bones flavor the broth)
salt and pepper
Vegetable oil
1 white onion, chopped
1 head garlic, peeled
4 roma tomatoes, deseeded and quartered
8 cups water
3 dried chile de arbol peppers destemmed and deseeded
5 dried guajillo peppers destemmed and deseeded
4 dried ancho peppers destemmed and deseeded
1 Mexican cinnamon stick
1 tsp. dried Mexican oregano
5 bay leaves
1 tsp. coriander seeds
1/2 tsp. dried marjoram
1/2 tsp. cumin
1 tsp. salt
For the Tacos
Vegetable or Canola Oil
Corn tortillas
Red onion, diced
Cilantro, chopped
Limes, segmented
Oaxaca cheese, grated
DIRECTIONS
You will want to start the cooking process at least 5 hours prior to the time you want to eat. Remove the meat from the refrigerator about an hour before cooking. Cut the chuck roast into 8 chunks and pat dry with paper towels. Pat dry the short ribs and liberally salt and pepper all sides of all of the meat.
Heat a couple of tablespoons of vegetable oil in a large dutch oven over medium high heat. Brown all sides of the meat and remove to a plate. Saute the onion, garlic, and tomatoes in the pot for one minute, just to get the flavors going. Add the remaining Birria ingredients, as well as the meat and meat drippings, to the pot. Bring to a simmer and lower heat to medium-low, so that it isn't boiling. Simmer for one hour with the lid on.
After the hour, remove the peppers from the pot and put into a food processor (you may need to remove some of the meat onto a plate in order to find them all). Add a cup of the broth to the food processor as well. It's okay if you get some onion and tomato in there as well-it all goes back to the same pot. Puree until smooth.
My food processor is heavy duty and does a REALLY good job pureeing, but just because I want my consomé (the broth) super smooth without any grittiness from chili skins, I run it through a fine mesh sieve before putting back into the dutch oven. After as much liquid flows freely through as possible, push as much through using the backside of a spoon that you can:
Once you have as much of the pureed chili through the sieve as possible, return the broth to a light boil, cover, turn the burner to low, and simmer for at least 3 hours until the meat easily breaks apart and the broth is a deep, rich, deep red color. There will be a layer of grease on the top of the broth that you'll be able to carefully spoon out. Collect as much as you can. You'll be using the grease to fry your tortillas in.
Take the meat out of the pot and place in a bowl to shred. Run the broth through a fine mesh sieve into a large bowl (don't forget the bowl, you don't want to lose this liquid gold to the sink!) Wipe the empty dutch oven with a wet paper towel just to make sure there are no unwanted things left in there. Return the pot to the stove and pour the broth which is now officially consomé, into it. Turn on the burner and return to a simmer for a few more minutes. Add salt to taste.
Now it's time to make the tacos. I used a nonstick skillet to fry the corn tortillas in after I lost a couple attempting to use stainless steel. Anyway... Heat a combo of grease and vegetable or canola oil on the nonstick pan over medium heat. I found that when I used JUST the grease, it burned and made the tortilla stick to the pan, so I use 1/2 and 1/2 now, about 1 tablespoon or 2 in total. Then you will just barely dip the tortillas in the consomé (too long and the tortilla will get soggy and rip). Place the dipped tortillas in the oil on the pan. Fry until the first side begins to brown and get crispy then flip.
After you flip the tortillas, add some cheese and shredded meat to the crispy side, and then fold in half. Once the side down crisps up, flip and crisp the other side.
Once all of your tacos are fried up, it's serving time!
Serve them up with diced onion, cilantro, a squeeze of lime, and a bowl of consomé to dunk your tacos into before devouring!
Seriously so, so, so good.
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