Tacos served with stew on the side
Serve: 25 tacos
Ingredients:
Stew:
900g beef chuck
450g bone-in short rib
5 dried guajillo chillis
100g chipotles in adobo sauce
1 white onion
2 carrots
3 fresh red tomatoes
5 garlic cloves
1l beef stock
130g passata
30g white wine vinegar
15g caster sugar
250g water
30 turns of a black pepper mill
sea salt
vegetable oil
Tacos:
1 white onion
a bunch of fresh coriander
120g pickled jalapeño
2 limes
300g mozzarella
25 fresh corn tortillas
vegetable oil
Method:
Chuck and bone-in short rib are my favourite cuts of beef for stewing (there’s also ox tail, but it’s quite expensive). These are tough cuts of meat hence they need to be cooked for a long time in a moist environment but it’s worth the wait! Why tough? The muscles used by an animal more frequently get naturally tougher and contain more collagen. Collagen makes the meat gelatinous, soft and tender through the process of cooking. In addition, the consistency of the liquid in which the meat is cooked becomes viscous and full.
Cut the beef chuck and short rib into big chunks and one onion in half. Season the meat with salt and ground black pepper all over. Add a splash of oil in a Dutch oven or any other heavy bottom pan and set it to high heat. Once the oil gets hot, the process of browning begins. To achieve a satisfying browning there are a couple of things to remember:
the pan needs to be well-heated
the vessel can’t get overcrowded
if the meat still sticks to the bottom of the pan, it means it’s not ready to be moved, so leave it be until it comes off easily
Add your meat in batches and brown its tops and bottoms. At the same time add two onion halves and sear them. Don’t worry if the colour of the meat changes into dark brown (but not burnt), that’s what we want to achieve (check the photo below). The process should take around 7 minutes or so. Browning the meat gives an extra layer of flavour and intensifies the taste of the finished dish.
Cut carrots and tomatoes in half and mince garlic.
Prepare guajillo chillis - using kitchen shears cut away the top edge and scoop out the seeds using a teaspoon. The seeds are removed because they tend to be bitter.
In the pan where you seared your meat and onion, add cut vegetables and the guajillo chillis. Throw chipotles in adobo sauce to add some smokiness. These are dried and smoked jalapeno chilli pepper in tomatoes, vinegar, garlic, onion and spices.
Add tomato passata, and beef stock to the pot. Set your heat to medium and simmer with a lid on until the guajillo chillies and tomatoes soften. That should take around 10 minutes.
Once the guajillo chillis and tomatoes soften - scoop them out, as well as chipotles and onion halves with a slotted spoon and place the ingredients into a blender. Add white wine vinegar and sugar and blend until the consistency becomes smooth.
Transfer the paste back into the pot, season with salt and black pepper and mix in the paste with the stock and the meat. Bring it to a boil and then set the heat to medium-low and simmer for around 2,5 hours with a lid on. Make sure not to boil the stew aggressively as it needs slow long cooking. Otherwise, the texture of the meat changes to grainy and dry (even though it’s cooked in liquid). Keep in mind that the cooking time depends on how big and thick your chunks of meat are! After 2,5 hours, check the tenderness of the meat, if it’s still not soft, give it another half an hour or so. Remember not to overcook the meat, so keep an eye on it. Add 250g of water to make the stew slightly thinner.
Once the meat is tender, carefully remove it from the pot, place it on a chopping board or in a big bowl, and let it cool down slightly. Shred the meat into bite-size pieces (the easiest way to pull it is with your hands) and add around 2 ladles of the stew, mix and set aside.
Assembling tacos:
Brunoise onion, roughly cut coriander. Drain and cut mozzarella. It might not be the most conventional ingredient for this dish, but it’s quite widely available and conveniently stringy!
Heat a non-stick pan with a splash of oil. Dip a corn tortilla into the stew, and fry over medium heat. Cook the first side for a minute, then carefully flip it over, add mozzarella and pulled meat, close the tortilla, press with a spatula, and cook until crispy for another minute or two.
Serve with a stew on the side topped with white onion, coriander, pickled jalapeño, lime and tangy green salsa to cut through the fatiness. The recipe for green salsa is down below.
Green salsa
Serve: around 10 portions
Ingredients:
1 ripe avocado
1 bunch of fresh coriander
1 green chilli
half white onion
1 lime
1 garlic clove
80g water
5g agave syrup
sea salt
Method:
Mince garlic, halve avocado, roughly chop half of an onion and green chilli. Stick everything into a blender, add coriander (use the roots too, they have more flavour than the leaves!), juice a whole lime, add water (to create a smoother salsa) and blend. Season with salt, and add agave syrup for some sweetness.
If you feel like you had enough tacos and still have the stew left or you just don’t feel like eating so many tacos - it might be the time for a different treat:
go buy some eggs and noodles and build your own birria ramen
Birria ramen
The ingredients for birria ramen stay the same as for the tacos. The only two things you won’t need are corn tortillas and mozzarella.
The only extra components that you need to purchase are egg noodles and eggs:
tonnarelli or any other noodles you fancy (100g per person)
I used fresh tonnarelli, a pasta shape from Lazio as it reminds me of some of the springy ramen noodles and it has a bold texture!
an egg
Add the egg to boiling water making sure not to break a shell (use a slotted spoon to lower it to the bottom). Cook for exactly 6 minutes to achieve a jammy yolk and set white. Once that is done, refresh in icy cold water to make it easier to peel and to prevent the yolk from setting too much.
Place the stew in a bowl (if you find it too thick, add a bit of water to dilute it). Serve with noodles and top the bowl with pulled beef, egg, a wedge of lime, coriander, white onion, and pickled jalapeño.