Mexican Lamb Adobo Recipes

MEXICAN LAMB ADOBO

Steps:

• Place a medium sauce pan on medium high heat. Add garlic and toast until browned. Add remaining adobo sauce ingredients and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to simmer for about 10 minutes, when chiles are softened. Remove bay leaves and cinnamon stick and set aside. Cool slightly and puree until smooth.
• Combine all pickled onion ingredients together and set aside until lamb is ready, about 2 hours.
• Preheat oven to 325 degrees. In a large dutch oven on medium high heat, add canola oil. Add lamb shanks and brown all over, about 10 minutes. Be patient as this is the most important step. When they are well-browned, add adobo sauce and reserved bay leaves and cinnamon. Cover and bake for 2.5 to 3 hours (depending on the size of your shanks), turning the shanks after 1 hour. The shanks are done when the meat is falling off the bone and fork tender. Skim some of the excess cooking fat from the surface of the gravy with a spoon before serving. Garnish with fresh cilantro, radishes, and pickled onions and serve with rice and/or corn tortillas.

MEXICAN LAMB BIRRIA

Steps:

• You first need to rehydrate and soften all the dried chilies. So, put the chilies in a bowl and cover them completely with boiling water. Let the chilies sit in the water for 30 minutes, then tip them into a fine-meshed sieve to drain, and discard the water.
• Remove any of the chilies' stalks - the ancho chilies usually come with their stalks still attached. Now add the chilies - seeds and all - to your food processor, together with all the adobo's remaining ingredients - the garlic, cumin, cloves, cinnamon, vinegar, black pepper, and salt.
• Give the mix a good blitzing until you have a uniformly smooth paste. That took me about 2 minutes with the processor running on high. That's it. Adobo done. Time now to prep the lamb.
• Use a small, sharp, finely-pointed knife to make 4, down-to-the-bone, width-wise cuts into either side of the lamb - that's 8 cuts in total. Start and end the cuts 1 ½ inches from the sides of the leg, and take some care not to cut all the way through the meat.
• Transfer the lamb to a good size mixing bowl, and pour the adobo paste over it. Now use your fingers to work the adobo into the cuts in the lamb. Then spread the remaining paste as evenly as you can all over the outside of the lamb. Now set the bowl in your refrigerator so the lamb marinates overnight in its adobo coating.
• Set your oven to 350F / 180C.
• Place the onion domes in the Dutch oven. Arrange them so they'll act as supports for the lamb. Now set the adobo-coated lamb on top of the onions. As much as possible, you're aiming for those onion domes to hold the lamb above the bottom of the Dutch oven.
• Cover the top of the unlidded Dutch oven with heavy foil. Use enough so that it overlaps the top by two inches. Press the Dutch oven's lid down onto the foil, and then use your fingers to crimp the foil into a good, tight seal all around that big pot's top edges.
• Now set the sealed pot on a middle shelf in the heated oven, and let it cook for 4 undisturbed hours.
• Once the 4 hours is up, turn off the oven, remove your big pot, and let it sit and cool for fifteen minutes or so. While that's happening, you can start giving the cherry tomatoes a good charring (next step.)
• Set a big heavy skillet - I used a deep-sided, 12 inch one - on a high heat, and add one tablespoon olive oil. As the oil is just starting to smoke a little, add half the cherry tomatoes. Let them sit on that high heat for about 4 minutes. You'll find the tomatoes flatten slightly with all that heat on their undersides - that's grand. Now give them a stirring turn to expose their upper sides to that charring heat. Let them run for another 4 minutes, and then turn them into a bowl. Now repeat the charring process for the rest of the tomatoes.
• Once the Dutch oven has had its fifteen minutes' cooling, remove the top and the foil. Carefully lift out the lamb and set it aside on a plate. You'll probably find the lamb still has some of its adobo coating. That's fine - it'll get mixed with the lamb when you break it apart into chunks once you've finished making the sauce. Return the plated lamb to your still-warm oven - it'll keep nicely hot in there while you complete your sauce.
• Use a slotted spoon to remove the halved onions, and tip them into your food processor. Blitz them smooth, and pour them back into your Dutch oven with all its cooking juices from the lamb. Set the Dutch oven over a medium heat and stir in the water and oregano.
• As soon as the sauce starts gently bubbling, turn off the heat. Now's the time to check it for saltiness - adjust according to your taste.
• If you feel the sauce is too thick - I like mine to be the consistency of a good variety of canned tomato soup - add a little more water.
• Like it said on the pack, I heated these for about 60 seconds each side in a dry skillet set on a high heat. Stack the heated tortillas on a serving plate and cover them with a cloth to keep them softly warm.
• Set your sauce onto a medium heat to bring it almost to the boil - so it's ready for serving. While that's happening, take the lamb from the oven and place it in a good-looking serving dish. I used a warmed, 14-inch, cast-iron gratin dish.
• Now use a pair of forks to quickly pull the lamb apart into bite-size chunks - but don't shred it into long stringy pieces. Bite-size chunks - albeit a little raggedy around the edges - are what you're aiming for here. If you find any tough, sinewy bits, cut them away and discard them. I then pick out any particularly well-fatted pieces, chop them finely, and mix them back into the chunks of lamb - after all, fat is flavor.
• Pour the nicely hot sauce into an ample serving bowl, and present it on your table alongside the dish of lamb, and the plated tortillas. Offer the quartered limes and chopped cilantro in little bowls for self-service.
• Let folks ladle the sauce into their bowls - about ¾ full is grand. They can then top their birria sauce with a polite helping of lamb.
• Eat with soup spoons and meat-corralling pieces of tortillas. For me, a good squeeze of lime over the lamb, and a little garnishing cilantro is just dandy - muchas gracias!

LAMB ADOBADO TACOS

Steps:

• Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Season the lamb all over with salt and pepper and place in a single layer in a roasting pan. Pour on the adobo sauce and toss to coat. Bake, uncovered, 45 minutes, then cover and bake 45 to 60 minutes longer, until the meat is soft and flaky.
• Transfer the meat to a cutting board. Pour the pan juices into a bowl or measuring cup and skim and discard the fat. Shred the meat. The lamb and pan juices may be kept together in the refrigerator up to 5 days. Warm over moderate heat 5 to 7 minutes before assembling the tacos. When ready to make the tacos, preheat the oven to 350/.
• Roast, peel, seed and slice the poblano chiles (see Note). Mix together the grated cheeses. Dip a corn tortilla in some water and shake off the excess. Toast one tortilla at a time in a nonstick pan over medium heat for about 1 minute on each side. Wrap in a towel to keep warm while you dip and heat the remaining tortillas.
• Make 12 stacks of 2 tortillas each on a baking sheet. Divide the lamb evenly among the tortillas. Top with poblano strips, sprinkle evenly with the cheeses and bake 3 to 4 minutes, to melt the cheese and heat through. Serve immediately.
• Note: Fresh chiles and bell peppers can be roasted over a gas flame or on a tray under the broiler. Keep turning so the skin is evenly charred, without burning and drying out the flesh. Transfer the charred peppers to a plastic bag, tie the top closed and let steam until cool to the touch, about 15 minutes. (If you are rushed, you can place the bag in a bowl of iced water to speed things up.) The best way to peel is just to pull off the charred skin by hand and then dip the peppers briefly in water to remove any blackened bits. Do not peel the pepper under running water since that will wash away flavorful juices. Once peeled, cut away stems, seeds and veins.

LAMB SHANKS ADOBO

Steps:

• Preheat the oven to 300 degrees Fahrenheit.
• Mix together the lamb shanks and other ingredients in a Dutch oven or other heavy pan. Bake uncovered for about 3 hours. Stir up from the bottom after about 2 hours, then continue baking until the meat is tender and pulls easily away from the bones. If the sauce remains very thin, remove the lamb with a slotted spoon, place the pan on a stove burner, and reduce the sauce until it is thick enough to heavily coat a spoon, then pour the sauce over the lamb.
• Serve hot, garnished if you wish with onion and cilantro.

RACK OF LAMB WITH PECAN-CHIPOTLE SAUCE

Steps:

• Heat oil in medium saucepan over medium-high heat. Add onion and sauté until translucent, about 2 minutes. Add garlic and sauté 1 minute. Add pecans, 4 cups water, and cilantro. Boil 10 minutes. Mix in chipotle chiles and adobo sauce. Remove cilantro. Puree mixture in blender. Return to saucepan and boil until reduced to 1 1/2 cups, about 20 minutes. Season sauce with salt. (Can be made 1 day ahead. Cover and chill. Reheat before using.)
• Preheat oven to 350°F. Toast chile seeds in large skillet over medium-high heat, shaking pan constantly, until aromatic, about 3 minutes. Transfer seeds to spice grinder. Add spices; grind very finely. Sprinkle lamb with salt and coat with spice mixture. Place lamb, bone side down, on heavy rimmed baking sheet. Roast lamb until thermometer inserted into thickest part of meat registers 125°F for medium-rare, about 25 minutes. Let lamb stand 5 minutes. Cut into chops; top with sauce and serve.
• *Mexican cinnamon sticks with a delicate, floral flavor.

BASIC ADOBO RECIPE

Steps:

• Toast the chiles in the oven for 2 minutes or until fragrant being careful not to burn.
• Place the toasted chiles in a sauce pan, cover with water and bring to a boil. Boil on medium heat covered for 15 minutes.
• Place the chiles (stems removed) in the blender reserving the water they were inches Add in all the other ingredients and blend on high to make a fairly thick paste. Add some of the reserved water if needed to thin the sauce out.
• Marinate your choice of meat in this paste for 6-8 hours and then grill the meat or you can pour the paste and reserved water in a large stock pot with the meat. Add additional water to cover the meat and slow cook it for 3-4 hours in the pot.