Beef Barbacoa

• hidangan: 10
• masa aktif: 45 minutes
• jumlah masa: 5 hours

Bahan-bahan

Meat:

4 lbs beef (chuck roast, short ribs, or another slow cooking roast)

1 lb oxtails

Sauce:

1 quart chicken stock

1 small onion, thinly sliced

6 medium garlic cloves, smashed

¼ cup apple cider vinegar

2 tsp fish sauce

3 tbsp high heat neutral oil (avocado, canola, etc)

Spices and Seasoning:

4 chipotle chiles in adobo, roughly chopped

1 whole dried New Mexico, costeno, or choricero chile, seeds and stem removed

1 whole chile ancho or pasilla, seeds and stem removed

1 whole chile negro, seeds and stem removed

2 tbsp adobo sauce (from canned chilis)

2 tsp ground cumin

2 tsp dried oregano

½ tsp ground cloves

2 whole bay leaves

Arahan

Place the dried chilis in a medium pot over medium heat. Toast them dry in the pot, stirring frequently, until they are slightly darkened and aromatic. This should take about 2-5 minutes. Don’t let the chilis smoke or it will introduce bitter flavors.

Add 2 cups of chicken broth to the pot and bring it up to a boil. Simmer for 5 minutes on low heat, then set aside.

Season to oxtails and chuck roast with salt and pepper on all sides. Cut the chuck roast so it can fit in your dutch oven as needed.

Heat the high heat neutral oil in a dutch oven over high heat. Once it’s up to temperature, add in the oxtails and sear on all sides. Once they are well seared or the fond is about to burn, remove them from the dutch oven.

Add the onion and garlic along with a pinch of salt and reduce the heat to medium. Use the moisture they release to scrape up the fond from the bottom of the pan. Stir frequently and cook until they are starting to char.

Add the remaining 2 cups of chicken broth to deglaze and scrape up the fond. Add the chipotle chiles, adobo sauce, vinegar, and simmer until reduced by about half.

Preheat the oven to 275 F with a rack in the lower-middle position.

Add the contents of the dutch oven to a blender along with the chiles and their liquid. Add in the fish sauce and blend it all together. Start on low speed and slowly increase to high, blending until smooth and fully incorporated. This mixture will be quite hot, so blend in batches as needed to avoid anything exploding.

Place the chuck roast and oxtails into the dutch oven. Pour the sauce in and add the bay leaves. Bring the pot to a boil over high heat.

Place the lid on the pot slightly cracked and transfer the whole thing to the oven. Cook until completely tender, about 3-4 hours total. Turn the beef in the pot occasionally so it cooks evenly.

Discard the bay leaves and remove the chuck roast and oxtails. Place the dutch oven on the stovetop over medium-high heat and allow the liquid to reduce for about 5 minutes. Taste and reduce further as desired. Keep in mind you are effectively seasoning all the beef.

Slice the chuck roast against the grain into 1-2 inch slices, then shred into large chunks with forks or your fingers. Eat the meat off the oxtails, or shred it similarly with a fork. Add the shredded beef to the pot and bring it back to a simmer. Continue heating until all the beef is nicely warmed up.

Taste for seasoning and enjoy alongside whatever you’d like. It goes great on corn tortillas with onions, cilantro, and lime.

Nota

A Mexican slow cooked beef dish with a rich and flavorful chili sauce. It goes great in tacos, burritos, or whatever else you want to put it on. Barbacoa is a distinct culinary tradition in Mexico, where meat is traditionally wrapped in banana leaves and cooked in an underground pit. To mimic this in a home setting, this recipe uses a dutch oven with a lid. To increase the beefy flavor, oxtails are used but are not a requirement. Searing these allows us to get a good amount of beef flavor without compromising on the texture of the pulled beef. Don’t stress about finding the exact dried chiles listed, just use the dried ones you can find.