The OFFICIAL cooking thread

[AWvsCBsteeeerike3]

The only reason Mrs. AW puts up with my [expletive] is because she knows if I get all [expletive] up one night, I'll cook something pretty damn good the next day. Dunno why it is, but it always happens. Today is birria tacos again. Lots of veggies. Boiled bone broth. Mmmm. Healthy. Good. It's our new covid tradition. Anyway, here's some pics early on. I love these things.

Where’s the damn follow up pic?

Food coma

[AWvsCBsteeeerike3]

Here go. sorry no better pic.

[cardinalkarp]

Here go. sorry no better pic.

Lol….that looks like the tail end of a feeding frenzy

[AWvsCBsteeeerike3]

Dude, I ate three of them and was so full.

The broth was so damn rich. Very good, but shouldn't have eaten so much. MMMM

[AWvsCBsteeeerike3]

And here's the stew you get teh day after.



Everyone should take a stab at birria tacos, imo. Lots of different things going on. All worth it.

[cardinalkarp]

And here's the stew you get teh day after.



Everyone should take a stab at birria tacos, imo. Lots of different things going on. All worth it.

Could you post your recipe?

[AWvsCBsteeeerike3]

@cardinalkarp

I don't really have a recipe just a general grasp of what's needed and use it to clean out what's in the fridge.

These are the ingredients I use, mostly.

Starts with beef: You want a couple pounds of usable meat, which is like 5 lbs of cheaper beef, any cut will work, but roasts tend to be the cheapest. And, you want some bone. People tend to use short ribs as it has both, but that's expensive anymore. If you can get an arm roast with a bone, perfect. Costco, and I'd imagine most butchers, have rib bones (not much meat) but pretty inexpensive.

Veggies: Just kind of whatever you have. I use any combination of white onion, couple bulbs of garlic, roma tomatoes carrots, celery, poblano/jalapeno/bell/whatever. Celery and carrots certainly aren't needed, but tend to add flavor.

Spices: Couple bay leaves, tablespoon of salt, tbsp of cumin, tbsp of oregano, 10ish black pepper balls, whatever else you might want.

Peppers: This is the heart of the recipe, so do some research to find what you like. The staple, both for flavor and color, are guajillos. I use 10. There's about a million to choose from. I use 2 chipotles and 2 mulatos. This will likely take a trip to a Mexican grocery store to find these dried peppers. Though, chipotles in qdoba sauce are available at most places. If you don't know where to find them, you'd also likely be able to get them online as well. They're pretty cheap.

Tortillas: Basic uncooked corn tortillas are standard.

Get to cooking:


Not necessary, but I like to smoke the beef for an hour or so with applewood.

Or you can just sear the beef in a dutch oven/pot.

Add veggies, spices and beef to the pot. Cover with water/beef broth/chicken broth.

Should be noted, if you want to eat this as a stew, it's better to chop the veggies up. If you want to strain it to get the consome solely as a dipping sauce, no need ot chop the veggies up much.

Bring to a boil, cover the pot, reduce to a simmer.


...

Cut the seeds and stems off the peppers and put them in a blender. Cover the peppers with the boiling stock from the pot.

Let sit for 15 minutes or so to soften. Add a bulb of garlic and 3-4 roma tomatoes along with 1/4 onion or so. Season to taste with s&p.

Blend until smooth.

Dump the majority back into the pot and save about half a cup for topping the tacos.

Cook for 2-3 hours at a simmer/slow boil. This can be done in an oven at 300 degrees or so or on the stove top on medium/medium low heat.

Remove from heat, skim the fat and save it somewhere like in a bowl. Or save this process for later if you're eating right away.

Heat a skillet. Check the meat, it should be fork tender at this point, if not, cook longer.

Chop the meat to cut the 'long' muscle strands which will be more than obvious after cooking. Put in a hot skillet and top with some of the broth. Dip corn tortillas in fat (either separated or just in the pot) and add them to the same hot skillet. It'll take a ~325-350 degree skillet to crisp the tortilla. Cook until crisp about 1 minute. Flip and add some white cheese. Queso, mozzarella, etc. Add the beef in the skillet on top of the cheese. Add some of the saved blended pepper sauce. Add some raw white onion and cilantro. Close the taco. Flip until both sides are beautifully crisp and insty worthy for anyone that cares.

On a platter, put:
Tacos for everyone
Small cups of broth from the pot for dipping
Small dipping containers of the leftover red pepper/chile/tomato sauce

Top all things with white onion and cilantro.

Serve.

Did that give you a headache and stress you out reading it? Good. Because it's a nightmare to make.

Going through it all is incredibly informative. At least it was for me. If you enjoy cooking, I think you'll enjoy this.

[cardinalkarp]

Hahaha….I’m used to and enjoy cooking so while that’s a lot of steps, not completely out of the ordinary when making stuff like this from scratch.

I’ll definitely give it a go soon and let you know how it turns out. It looks fantastic though. Definitely going to go the route of having the stew for afterwards.

[AWvsCBsteeeerike3]

Hahaha….I’m used to and enjoy cooking so while that’s a lot of steps, not completely out of the ordinary when making stuff like this from scratch.

I’ll definitely give it a go soon and let you know how it turns out. It looks fantastic though. Definitely going to go the route of having the stew for afterwards.

In the past, I'd strained the leftover juices and used the strained juices solely as the consome while throwing the strained veggies away. And, not much consome is really needed as a dipping sauce. It always struck me as wasteful though so decided to keep it all, use a ladle as the only means of straining the first night to get the consome, and refrigerate the rest.

The next day I was able to skim the fat off as it solidified at the top and gave it the ole college try to get the beef out by putting on some gloves and digging through it. Got most of the beef chunks out and set that aside in a separate container.

Then just ladled everything out into a bowl and added some cheese and microwaved til sufficiently hot. Added some white onion, cilantro, and jap slices. And, that's the picture from above. While doing this, it struck me that it would have been beneficial to chop the veggies up smaller at the very begining as the large celery/onion/carrot chunks would have been much better (and I threw out the celery chunks).

Like I said, you live and you learn.

This makes enough for 10+ people easily, so keep that in mind. If you're cooking for two or so people, the 'recipe' can be halved or even quartered. I'll be eating this the rest of the week.

[cardinalkarp]

Awesome….I appreciate all of the information and direction!