Beef Birria-inspired Tacos

Beef Birria-inspired Tacos

Beef Birria changed my experience when it comes down to eating tacos. Right before Christmas, a couple of years ago, I was checking out some recipes online that would warm my stomach during the winter. I came across a pretty good recipe online and did some minor changes according to the ingredients we have here in the Netherlands. Beef Birria is a Mexican dish, and it is for sure my favorite Mexican dish. After a long time, I felt like making it again to make life taste a bit better.

Here's the whole guide/recipe, accompanied with some photographs I took during the whole process.
Making this dish takes about 2 days from start to finish.

Enjoy,
Ruben

---

Whole list of Ingredients

In case you are allergic to some of the ingredients, or just want to see what ingredients go into making a Beef-Birria-inspired delicious dish that's just simply amazing (and will change the way you make tacos in the future, at least it did for me). Here is the whole list of ingredients.

• Salt
• Black pepper
• Dried oregano
• Ground cumin
• Ground cinnamon
• Ground ginger
• Fresh ginger
• Cloves
• Olive oil
• Beef stock
• Onions
• Tomatoes
• Water
• Bay leaves
• White vinegar
• Honey
• Grated Cheese
• Lime
• Rice
• Fresh Cilantro

---

Step 1: preparing the meat

1.5kg beef (officially, its goat)

Cut in large chunks, and put everything together in a soup pan.

1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. black pepper
1 tsp. ground cumin
1 tsp. oregano
1/4 tsp. cinnamon
1/4 tsp. ground ginger
3 cloves

Mix and put together with the meat. Wash your hands and massage them for 2-3 minutes with the meat.
Cover it up, and put it in the refrigerator overnight.

---

Hot Sauce

If you like spicy food, you are going to love Beef Birria.





What ya need:

• 11 grams of chili pepper (officially, its with ancho and guajillo chilies)
• 2 tbsp of olive oil
• 3 onions
• 6 tomatoes
• a small piece of fresh ginger
• 3 cups of water

To start making the hot sauce, I used some dried chili peppers bought from a nearby Asian market. The last time I made Beef Birria, they had larger chilies, so for the sake of this guide, if you can find bigger dried chilies: do yourself a favor and get those. The reason why you want those is to have less work when removing the seeds.

I was at a pickle... should I first remove the seeds, or first soak the dried chilies in water? The dilemma? Dried chilies break, but wet chilies make seeds get stuck. I figured I could first soak them, then cut them in half, and give them a good massage in a mesh strainer.

If you follow these steps, you should be good to go.

1. Soak the chilies in water for 10 minutes, remove water afterward
2. Cut 3 onions into large chunks (yellow/white)
3. Cut 6 tomatoes in large chunks, remove the core
4. Gently crush, and peel 5 garlic cloves (in that order it makes peeling them easy)
5. Slice the fresh ginger

The soaking is mostly done to prevent them from burning in the pan.
Chopping done? Let's fire up a saucepan on low/medium heat with some olive oil.

1. Put in the chilies for 30-45 seconds, stir them around, don't let them burn(!)
2. Add in the cut onions, tomatoes, garlic, and fresh ginger.
3. Add some water, and bring to high heat.
4. Wait till it starts to simmer, bring down to medium heat.

After 30-45 minutes, you should have everything infused and mixed. Try it out, trust me, you'll be getting a sample of how Hell is supposed to taste like. Don't worry though, I first thought I messed it all up, but I realized I made some ultra super hot sauce. And a big bonus and secret surprise: after straining the bunch, I made something quite similar to the base for Indonesian "Sambal". Which is just awesome. Nothing goes to waste ladies and gentlemen. Not in my kitchen!

Alright, get your immersion blender/stick blender (had to Google the word Staafmixer), to make it all nice and smooth on the surface.

• Blend and mix
• Mix more!
• More smooth! Sir!
• Remember the meat? Get that pot ready!
• Strain the sauce in a mesh strainer above the pan with the meat
• Don't throw away the pasty stuff that gets left behind in the strainer

I accidentally mixed things up, I ended up using the saucepan for the sauce, and the meat pan for the soup. Sounds logical, right? But I needed to pour in the sauce in the pan where the meat is in. So, reverse that logic, and for maximum efficiency and fewer dishes: put the meat in the end-goal pan (a soup pan), and make the base of the sauce in a temporary pan.

I ended up straining the good stuff twice. Making sure no golden liquid is left behind.

---

Continuing the hot sauce to make it... bearable and tasty to eat

At this point the sauce is pretty damn spicy, so we gonna add some magic to make it tasty AF. After drowning the meat in it, there are a few more steps we need to take.





What ya need:

• 500 ml of beef stock
• Generous splash of white vinegar
• 3 bay leaves
• Add honey to your tasting
• 2 cups of water

After following these steps you're past all of the hard work.

1. pour in the hot sauce over the meat
2. add 500ml of beef stock
3. add a generous splash of white vinegar
4. accompany that with 3 bay leaves
5. add honey to your tasting
6. add 2 cups of water
7. stir the pot

At this point, you want to stir the pot every 30 minutes for about 6-8 hours. If you want to get an idea of what's going on. Taste it every 30 minutes so you see how all the flavors develop over time. Tasting is not crucial, but I highly recommend it. Be warned though, in the beginning, you might think it is way too spicy, but after 1 hour you should be welcomed with a completely different taste.

---

Bonus 1: do not throw away the paste

The paste you should be left over with is an amazing spicy sauce you can add to any meal you want to add some spiciness. I would highly recommend it used for when you marinate meat or scoop some, add some sweet thick soy sauce to it, lime juice, and you'll have an incredible sweet/spicy/sour sauce for -anything-. I'd use it to spice up my rice.

Bonus 2: scoop and save the oil

If you want to make your tacos taste amazing, scoop off and save the oil that is emerging to the surface. The fat that rises to the top during the cooking process is an amazing way to enhance the flavor of your taco. Set aside and do not throw away! It will intensify the whole eating experience.

---

Garnish, and servings

The first time I tested my recipe and ate Beef Birria tacos, I was quite hungry afterward. I made it to eat during Christmas. I was quite happy to test a meal of it before the actual holiday, as I would have thought the beef itself wasn't enough to feed everyone. I made some ordinary white rice and used the stew to add flavor to the rice. On top of it, I placed a chunk of Beef Birria. I love the combination of rice and stuffed tacos. At least, my stomach does.

Pulled Beef (birria)

• Beef Birria Stew
• Beef Birria-infused beef (for obvious reasons)
  Set aside some beef birria chunks, and pull them until you have quite a bit of pulled beef.

Taco

• Chopped Onion
• Chopped Fresh Cilantro
• Grated Cheese

Bake the taco in the oil (bonus 2) we saved up earlier. use a portion of the pulled beef

Rice & Cilantro

• Rice
• Chopped Fresh Cilantro
• Beef Birria (chunk of meat)

Cook some white rice, make a small bulb, and add some freshly chopped cilantro on top, together with a chunk of beef birria.

Enjoy the food! IT'S AMAZING
Cheers,
Ruben