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the video description. Now let's get down to the
basics of Birria tacos. (upbeat music) All right, So the first thing we got
to do is make a spice paste. So to do that, here I have eight
guajillo chiles for flavor and four chiles de
arbol to bring some heat from which I'm both going to
remove the stems and seeds. Before I bring them on over to the stove top to give him a toast in a dry pan, over medium heat, I'm going to tear up the chiles and toast them for about five minutes until they're nice and
fragrant, but not smoking. I'm also gonna add about two
teaspoons of whole cumin seeds. And once everybody smells nice and good I'm going to add about two cups of water. Crank that mixture up to medium high bring everybody up to a simmer, kill the heat and cover which not only looks cool, but steeping the chilies for
10 minutes also softens them up which is going to allow us to puree them in a high powered blender. So into our very favorite
blender goes all the chiles and the steeping liquid one entire head of garlic cloves separated and peeled one teaspoon of Mexican oregano and a quarter teaspoon of ground clove. I'm also going to add half a small onion and make a weird face for some reason, we shot this a while ago. I can't remember why I did that. Then depending on how spicy
and smokey you like things I'm going to add two
canned chipotle chiles in some of their accompanying adobo sauce. Then I want to add enough
water to generously cover everything and blitz. We want to blend this
guy on high-speed for at least a full minute, cause
we want a nice smooth sauce. Then you can give it an optional taste but it is unseasoned pretty
raw and pretty spicy. Go ahead and set that aside because now we must
contend with our meats. I have here a whole three and
a half pound beef chuck roast which I'm going to divide into nice stew appropriate chunks. First, we're going to separate the two sort of lobes of meat
that are in a chuck roast. This is going to make cleaning excess fat and connective tissue easier. And you might notice that my cutting board is
sliding around a little bit. So don't forget to reinforce your board with a moistened towel, which will lock everything in place. So we don't lose any fingers. Like I said, we're going to start by removing any excess
fat, connective tissue, sinews, silver skin, all that gross stuff. And then we're cutting this
guy up into two inch chunks which is just going to help
keep them in whole pieces and make retrieving them from
the stew that much easier. I'm plopping these on a sheet pan sprinkling them with two
teaspoons of kosher salt giving them a toss and letting
them sit at room temperature for at least 40 minutes. It's going to help them stay
juicy during their long braise. Next step and this is optional. I've got two pounds of oxtails. What little meat these
guys have gets tender and delicious when braised and all the bone marrow and cartilage is going to deeply flavor our sauce. I'm plopping these into a wide
stainless steel roasting pan drizzling them with a
little bit of vegetable oil tossing them around to
coat, spreading them out and then roasting them in a
475 degree Fahrenheit oven for 15 to 20 minutes. Or until deeply brown. All this maillard on
the surface of our meat is going to bring a lot
of flavor to the sauce. Next I'm adding a 14 ounce
can of whole plum tomatoes all of our beautiful,
oniony, garlicy spice paste and just enough water to bring the liquid about halfway up the sides of the oxtails. Then we're going to start nestling our chunks o'chuck in the liquid. We want most of the meat to be submerged but just one facet of the
meat to be sticking out. And I'm topping with one
tablespoon of coriander seeds and one tablespoon of black peppercorns and then nestling two
Mexican cinnamon sticks or just regular cinnamon sticks if you can't find those, five Bay leaves and three
sprigs of fresh margarine around the meats in the braising liquid. I'm also going to tuck
one whole onion quartered into each corner of the pan. It doesn't matter where
you put it, really, I just think that looks nice. Then this guy's headed into
a 350 degree Fahrenheit oven for three hours. Halfway through, we're going
to take it out of the oven and give everybody a flip. As you can see the meat
that has not been submerged has formed a beautiful crust
and we want that all over. So we're going to flip everybody over exposing their previously
submerged underbellies and pop this guy back in the oven for the remaining hour and a half. After which time everybody should emerge with a beautiful deep brown crust and a paring knife should
pass through the meat like it's not even there. Next step, we need to separate
our meat and our sauce. So I'm going to tong out
our chuck and oxtails onto a large rimmed baking sheet, and using two forks
commenced to shredding. Nothing too crazy here. You just want small bite sized pieces for your eventual tacos. And don't forget the meat on the oxtails. That's good stuff. And then we're going to strain
the solids out of liquid leaving us with a hyper
flavorful consomme. Make sure you get every
last little itty-bitty drop, ladle a couple ladle fulls over your meat, to keep it moist. And then everything needs to be covered in plastic wrap and fridged
for one very important reason. We want to separate the
fat and the consomme. Once the liquid is refrigerated, the fat will solidify
in a scoopable layer, which we're going to scoop off and plop into an awaiting fry pan, dump the consomme and to a large saucepan. And then we're headed
over to the stove top where we have our taco assembling station which should look something like this. First the tortillas will
be dipped in the melted fat then transferred over to a
ripping hot cast iron skillet filled with the bubbling braised beef and some torn Oaxaca cheese folded over and fried on both sides. Now this would normally be the time that I would tell you to
make your own corn tortillas but it's very difficult
to get them thin enough so that they can stay flexible and survive the dipping
and folding process. So this is one of the few
times that you'll hear me say the store corn tortillas
are probably your best bet. First we're gonna toast them
a little bit on both sides on the cast iron skillet, and then dip them generously in the fat harvested from the consomme. Once it's thoroughly coated on both sides it's headed back over to the skillet where it's going to receive its filling. Some of our delicious braised beef and a healthy helping of Oaxaca cheese. If you can't find Oaxaca cheese, you can just use string cheese torn into beautiful long shreds like this. Then we're folding the taco over, sort of like a quesadilla, frying on one side for about a minute or until golden brown, flipping, frying for about another minute and then getting ready to plate up. Stack up at least three of these bad boys. Trust me, that is the bare minimum that you're going to want to consume. Serve it with a steaming cup of consomme and some chopped white onion, a few lime wedges, and more chopped onions, some sliced jalapenos, and torn cilantro over top of the tacos. And there you have it, the tacos you've been craving from seeing them on Instagram
for the longest time. And finally get to
messily try for yourself Birria tacos and san cilantro, of course. I think we might've stumbled upon one of my new favorite foods. It is beefy saucy, cheesy,
crispy, spicy, and tangy, you know, all of the most
important food groups. And while generally speaking it pairs best with a frosty Mexican beer at the end of the day, beer doesn't keep me alive, coffee does. So thank you to Trade Coffee
for sponsoring this episode. Trade has a massive amount of high quality coffees from
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bag by using code Babish50 with the link in the video description. (upbeat music)
Babish has come so far, he now has a designated oven door assistant. So proud of our boy!
Ever since I watched Joshua Weissman’s version of this recipe I’ve been waiting for Babish to make a version too. Now I just have to figure out where to get those peppers from the beginning of the video...
MAN, I love the new intro.
Man, I tried making these like a month or so ago and they didn't turn out as well as I had hoped. I'll try again with Babish!
If nothing else, I totally am gonna try this new version of the chile paste.
The stuff from the Chili basics episode has been an absolute favorite of mine for like a year now, and I'm excited to see how it works with the addition of garlic cloves, onion, and cumin.
You should do a crossover episode with ethan chlebowski he is always making Mexican dishes
Tried a couple other recipes of this one. Might give this one a shot too.
Oh god yes
Not a fan of the new intro. Awkwardly too long.