BIRRIA TACOS 🌮

What is Birria Tacos? 🌮 Birria is a mexican meat stew that is slow cooked resulting in a very tender and melt in the mouth meat. The meat then will be shredded and used in tacos. Tacos are fried in Birria's rendered fat. Let's start by getting all the ingredients ready. Peel and cut onions, garlic and chop tomato. Gather and measure seasonings and spices. Next, start with the meat. Cut into big chunks and make sure the meat is well-pat dried. Season generously with salt and pepper. Keep aside.

Preheat your skillet. Melt 1 tbsp of butter or any kind of tallow or even oil. Some meat need little to no oil if they're naturally fatty as it releases its own fat as it cooks. This one we are using here is quite lean, so use any kind of fat is good. Place meat in the hot pan, and let it cooks undisturbed for few minutes until it's deeply browned. Turn it over and continue to cook the same way until all sides are browned. Transfer meat chunks out from the pan. Keep aside.

Add chopped onion & garlic into the same pan used to browned the meat earlier. Cook over medium heat until onion is soft. Add chopped tomato & all seasonings listed in ✅️B - garlic powder, onion powder, salt, pepper, oregano, paprika powder, cayenne powder and dried chillies. Stir to mix well for a min then add 2 generous tbsp of tomato paste. Stir to combine. Pour 1 1/2 cup to 2 cups of water. Bring to a boil then turn the heat off. Leave aside to cool completely.

Next, place browned meat in a pot. Add 1 litre of liquid. You can add in half water and the rest can be any kind of meat broth. We do not usually have broth at home, so water is the best option. Add all ingredients listed in ✅️C - rosemary, thyme, oregano, cinnamon powder, onion powder, garlic powder, pepper powder, bay leaves, chicken cubes bouillon and generous pinch of salt if needed. Or you can add more bouillon and skip the salt. Leave to cook and bring to a boil.

While the meat is cooking, now get back to the onion and spices you cooked earlier. Now that this mixture is cooled, blend it into a smooth puree. See pic below for reference.

Pour this blended spices into the meat pot. Mix well. Cover the pot and bring it to a good boil.

Once boiling, lower down the heat and continue to slow cook / simmer on low heat until the meat is very tender. This takes time and time varies depending on the type of meat cuts. Alternatively, you can also achieve this by using slow cooker and pressure cooker. Now, once the meat is fork-tender, remove the chunks from the pot and shred or chop into pieces. Tender chucks are very easy to shred.

Next, gather all ingredients for taco. Now you have a very nice reddish soupy kind of soup (CONSOMÉ liquid) in the pot. Chop onion and cilantro (or coriander). Get your shredded cheese ready. Heat your flat skillet over medium heat. NOTE: Using the rendered fat: Skim the fat from the top of the birria and use that to dip the tortillas, which will help them crisp up.

Make one piece at a time. Very QUICKLY & lightly dip a piece of tortilla into the top part of the red soup. We want the top layer of the red oily part of the soup (or consomé) to coat the tortilla. Place it on a hot skillet. If your consomé has less oily layer, you can spray a bit of oil or lightly grease your skillet with butter or anything similar (little trick & cheat).

Note : if your soup has less layer of fat, you can add 1 stick of butter into the pot and reheat it so your soup have good layer of fat that you can use to grease your tortillas. The grease will help to crisp your tortillas. Also, Make sure your griddle or pan is hot enough to cook your tortilla properly. NEXT, top your tortilla with shredded/chopped cheese, meat, red onion & cilantro. Then fold.

Serve Birria Tacos with A small CUP of consomé broth earlier. Then dip your taco into this consomé broth and savour the combination of tender meat, melty cheese & tortilla. You can also squeeze some lime on the taco before dipping it in the broth. This broth is served as dipping sauce and you can drink the consomé as soup at the end of your meal. So that is how BIRRIA TACO is served and eaten.