Mexican Lamb Birria Recipes

AUTHENTIC MEXICAN BIRRIA RECIPE

Steps:

• Season the meat with salt, pepper, and cumin
• Cut open the dried chiles with scissors and remove the seeds
• Fry the dried chiles with a small amount of oil in a frying pan for 2-3 minutes, moving constantly so they don't burn. Set aside
• Add the chiles from the previous step to a small pot with boiling water for about 10 minutes, or until softened.
• In the same frying pan where you fried the chiles, add 1 tablespoon of oil and cook the onions and tomatoes until they are browned. Add the garlic, peppercorns, bay leaves, cinnamon stick, and all of the remaining spices except for the ground cumin and ginger. Continue cooking for about 5 minutes, moving it around often.
• Add the chiles (including the water), the ingredients from the previous step, and the ginger, cumin, apple cider vinegar and water to a blender and blend until smooth. It will still be pretty thick, but that is fine. Strain and set aside the resulting sauce for the next step.
• Pour the sauce over the meat in a large bowl and cover. If using the oven or stovetop methods, you will want to marinate for at least 2 hours or overnight. If using the electric pressure cooker option, you can marinate it, but it isn't necessary.
• Follow the cooking instructions according to your preferred method below.
• Add the meat with the marinade to a large stockpot and cook over medium heat, covered, for about three hours, or until the meat falls off the bones and is easy to shred.
• Add the meat with the marinade to a large oven-safe dish and cover with aluminum foil and cook at 350 degrees fahrenheit for 2 hours or until the meat is easy to shred.
• Add the meat with the marinade (or just the meat and the marinade separately if you chose not to marinate it) to the pot of the electric pressure cooker.
• Follow instructions for your electric pressure cooker to bring it to high pressure and cook for 45 minutes. Release pressure naturally for 5 minutes and then use the quick pressure release option to release the rest of the pressure. Remove the lid per instructions and the meat will be tender and ready to shred.
• Remove the meat and shred it. You can then serve it over the soup made from the sauce that the meat cooked in or you can serve it with tortillas as tacos with cilantro, lime, onions, and salsa.

BIRRIA DE BORREGO (MEXICAN LAMB STEW) RECIPE - (4.2/5)

Steps:

• Pre-heat the oven to 392°F. Place lamb onto a roasting tray and brown for 20 minutes. In the mean time bring the stock to the boil and peel / slice onion and garlic. When browned, add lamb to the stock pot, along with garlic and onion and bring back to the boil. Skim any scum that floats to the surface, then simmer rapidly for the next hour / hour and a half, or until the meat and marrow can easily be removed from the bone. Meanwhile, heat a skillet over a medium heat. When hot, add the ancho, chipotle and guajillo chillies whole, and toast for several minutes until they release their aroma. Next remove stalks and seeds, and submerge chillies in the boiled water to soften for 20 minutes. It is advisable to wear gloves when doing this, and to avoid touching your eyes, nose, genitals, etc. as this will burn! Next, reduce chillies & their water to a pulp in the bowl of a food processor, and then strain through a fine sieve, discarding solids. When your broth is done, strain into a clean pan. Discard onion, garlic and bones (you can use a chopstick to poke out any tasty marrow) and shred meat with your fingers before adding back into the stock. Next add your chilli paste and all remaining ingredients, before seasoning well with salt and pepper and simmering for a further hour to allow flavours to develop and meld. Skim fat from the surface. Finally, remove from heat and discard bay leaves and herb stalks. Using a slotted spoon remove and divide meat between bowls, then ladle the liquid over. Garnish with finely chopped onion and coriander, and serve with guacamole, tortillas and if you want to be a real badass - extra hot sauce. I used Mellow Habanero's Smoky Chipotle Sauce, which added great umami to the dish. Not just a rich and delicious stew, you can also fold the soft braised meats up in your tortillas for seriously sublime tacos!

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!

MEXICAN BIRRIA RECIPE (GOAT OR BEEF STEW)

Steps:

• Heat a large pan to medium heat and add the dried peppers. Dry toast them in the hot pan 1-2 minutes per side, until the skins darken.
• Remove from heat and add the toasted peppers to a large bowl. Cover with hot water and steep 20 minutes, or until softened.
• While the peppers are rehydrating, heat the olive oil in the same pan to medium heat.
• Add the onion and tomatoes and cook for 5 minutes to soften.
• Add the garlic and cook another 1 minute, stirring.
• Add the cooked onion, tomatoes and garlic to a food processor.
• Remove the softened chilies and add to the food processor, but reserve the soaking liquid.
• Add the seasonings to the food processor along with the vinegar and 1 cup beef stock. Process until smooth. It should be fairly thick. You can strain if you'd like for a smoother sauce. See the RECIPE NOTES below.
• Cut the lamb (or beef) into large chunks and add to a large bowl.
• Pour the birria sauce over them and rub it into the meat. Cover and marinate the meat in the refrigerator for 2 hours minimum. Overnight is better.
• When you're ready to cook, add the meat with all of the marinade, the chopped roasted tomatoes and remaining 3 cups beef broth to a large pot. Cover and cook at medium heat for 3 hours, or until the meat is fork tender and easy to shred. Add more beef stock or some of the reserved soaking liquid if needed for a soupier birria.
• Serve the braised birria into bowls as a soup, or shred the meat and serve it up onto tortillas as birria tacos, with the reserved liquid consome from the pot as a side soup/broth.

LAMB BIRRIA BROTH

Steps:

• Preheat a smoker for cooking at 180 degrees F.
• Sprinkle lamb shoulders all over with Argentinean salt. Place in smoker for 6 hours.
• Combine the chicken and turkey stock, sesame oil, garlic, peppercorns, chiles and cloves in a large stockpot over low heat. Let simmer for 1 hour for flavors to combine. Add smoked lamb shoulders and continue cooking until meat is tender, 4 more hours.
• Pull shoulders from broth and turn off heat. Shred meat and reserve for tacos. Strain liquid through a fine mesh strainer, reserving liquid to serve and disposing of additional ingredients.