My son came back from a meal with friends at a taco restaurant, raving about the Birria Tacos he had. So I had to try to re-create it at home. I based my recipe on BBC Good Food's
Birria Tacos, without the range of chillies in their ingredients list, added pinto beans to stretch the meat a little further, and cooked in a slow cooker rather than the oven.
Serves 4
2 tbsp olive oil
1 kg braising steak cut into large bite sized pieces
400g tin chopped tomatoes
1 medium onion, peeled and roughly chopped
2 garlic cloves
½ tsp dried oregano
½ tsp ground cumin
½ tsp ground cinnamon
½ tsp ground ginger
1 tbsp chipotle hot sauce
1 tsp white wine vinegar
2 cloves
3 black peppercorns
A large pinch of salt
2 bay leaves
16 soft mini tortilla wraps
Topping ideas
Lettuce
Chopped coriander
Finely sliced onion
Grated mozzarella
Guacamole or avocado
Jalapeños
Refried beans or drained pinto beans, warmed
Fresh lime to squeeze over
Soured cream, useful to cool the chilli if you find it too much
Heat 1 tablespoon of oil in a large frying pan over a medium high heat. If cooking in the oven, heat the oil in a lidded ovenproof casserole dish.
Dot the beef pieces around the pan, without overcrowding it, and brown on all sides. You may have to brown the beef in several batches. Once browned place in the warming slow cooker, or set aside if cooking in the oven.
If cooking in the oven turn it on to heat to 140C/120C fan/gas 1.
Heat another tablespoon of oil in the pan and brown the onion. Add the chopped tomatoes and garlic. Heat to boiling, then turn off the heat and leave to cool enough to liquidise.
Liquidise the tomato mixture together with all the remaining ingredients apart from the bay leaves
If cooking in a slow cooker, pour the liquidised tomato sauce, add the bay leaves, and add recently boiled water to just cover the meat if required. Cook on High for 6-8 hours until the meat is tender and falling apart.
If cooking in the oven, return the beef to the casserole dish, add the bay leaves, and add 400ml recently boiled water to just cover the meat if required. Cover and cook in the oven for 3 hrs until the meat is tender and falling apart. Check the beef every hour to ensure it is not drying out, and add recently boiled water to just cover the meat if required.
When cooked, remove the meat with a slotted spoon and shred using two forks.
To serve, put some shredded beef onto a mini wrap together with the toppings of your choice, and dip into a small cup of the sauce. Do not build tacos in advance, as they will go soggy and fall apart. For the same reason don't use larger tortilla wraps as I did - they fall apart before you get to the end of them! But even with small wraps this is messy, but delicious.
