Mi Birria de Res y Puerco (My Mexican Pork and Beef Stew)

“Birria” is a type of Mexican red stew or soup made with pork, beef, chicken, goat, or even turkey.

    It seems everyone makes Birria different,  the versions I am familiar with do not use tomato, it is composed of dried chilies, a little bit of vinegar, &  a spice mixture which for me should always include at least cumin, oregano, bay leaves, ginger (some don’t use ginger but to me it adds a special something, it doesn’t dominate the dish but adds a hot warmth that’s subtle) and some type of  sweet spices (it can be any of the following or combination or all of cloves, allspice berries , and or cinnamon)  and is cooked on stove top.

     On my blog I have my grand aunts recipe for “Birria” this recipe I present today is how I like to make it, it’s the recipe I came up with after seeing different cooks versions of “Birria” (including my grand-aunts) and I picked the components I liked from most from them and well came up with this version, the spice combination may seem odd to certain people, but trust me, when all these spices marry, none of them are more pre-dominant that the other, they combine to form a distinct flavor that taste like well “Birria” I really suggest anyone to try it if you never have and have the ingredients available … and don’t tell my aunt but I think it’s better than hers hehe.

Birria

Ingredientes:

2 ½ kilos about 8 lbs meat (pork, beef or goat I used 5 1/2 lbs pork spareribs and 2 1/2 lbs beef neck bone)

¼ cup vinegar (to marinade meat briefly)

Other Ingredients:

-5 chiles anchos

-15 guajillos chilies (you may use “Chile California” or 10 “Chile California & 5 “Guajillos”)

-3 cascabel chilies (optional can substitute for “Chile de Arbol” or “Chile Japones”)

-8 garlic cloves

-2 inches ginger peeled and sliced

-20 allspice berries

-5 cloves

-20 black peppercors

-2 cinnamon sticks

-1 tsp. cumin

-1 tsp.  oregano

-3 bay leaves

-salt to taste

Directions:

(1) Wash the meat several times in water and drain about twice, for the third time soak in water, add a lot of salt, lime juice and swish it around then drain, and rinse once more, drain well.

(2) Get meat in a deep container or pot, add vinegar, stir well, and set aside while you prepare the rest of the stuff. (the vinegar is used to get rid of any gamey flavor specially if you use goat)

(3) Now get all the dried chilies (ancho, guajilli,  & cascabel), remove stems, seeds, and veins from all chilies, peel all the garlic cloves and lightly mash, peel and slice the ginger, and bash the cinnamon sticks and set all aside and have the rest of the spices on hand except bay leaves

(4) Now heat a pan with a generous amount of oil, fry all the chilies in batches briefly about 30- 40 seconds, set aside in a deep bowl, now fry all the spices except cumin, oregano & bay leaves.

(5) Blend everything (all the chilies and spices EXCEPT bay leaves) in batches to a smooth paste in a blender, add water as needed to get a paste consistency together with atleast 2-3 teaspoons salt. Set aside.

(6) Get your meat and drain the vinegar but do not rinse, add the blended chilies and spice mixture paste, coat well, and tuck in bay leaves in the mix. Cover and allow to marinade in the fridge over night, or atleast 2 hours

(7) Next day add enough water to barely cover about 1-2  inches deep, and bring to a boil, skim off foam, taste for salt you will probably have to add 2 more teaspoons of salt or more or less to taste and allow to simmer until meat is tender.

 About 2 hours.

  Serve with minced onion, cilantro, lime wedges, & corn tortillas

In addition I like to serve it with a spicy salsa that's made from dried chile japones or chile de arbol.


PLEASE NOTE:

(1) If you cannot stand a little bit of spicy at all,  skip the Cascabel chilies, substitute them for “Chile California” and substitute all the Guajillos for “Chile California” this way it will not really have any heat.

(2) Like I said before give this recipe a try you won’t regret it  you can use bone in skin-on chicken, beef, pork, or even a whole turkey cut into segments

(3) After cooking it, you can refridgerate over night if you'd like to remove the excess fat from the stew, but to be honest it's what makes it delicious ;) 

(4) Also if you want a less oily dish, instead of frying everything, you can lightly toast the dried chilies in a hot griddle or comal for less than a minute, and soak in warm water. You can also toast all the spices, and pan- roast the tomatoes, onion, ginger, and garlic. Puree everything in blender minus the bay leaves.

RECIPE UPDATE:

I currently add 1/4- 1/3 cup toasted sesame seeds that I blend to the marinade and let me tell you it gives the dish a wonderful flavor, and hits spot on in the taste when it comes to tasting like it's from a Birriereria (place that specializes in Birria)

Turmeric Rice

Turmeric rice is a golden/ yellow colored rice colored with well "turmeric" For those who don't know what it is, it's a root related to ginger I think, that can color and tinge things yellow, it can be bought fresh at many Asian stores but is commonly sold dried, and ground in powdered form which is what I use and have readily on hand. It's also used in "home remedies"/ alternative medicine, I use it to cleanse my liver from drinking and any inflammation (hot water with turmeric, and black pepper which makes it more bio-available), or when I have colds or want to boost my immune system, and especially for swollen tonsils. Feel free to research it if you would like.

Anyways this rice dish I learned it from one of my little sisters friends parents (I don't know their name it was a LOOOooOOooong time ago, they were family acquaintances) they are from somewhere in India so I'm assuming the dish is Indian.

I use to prepare this pretty often when I learned it a few years ago, it goes well as a side with anything you would serve with white rice with (grilled, pan-fried, or stewed meats, vegetable sides, whatever you want or is appealing to you). It's a nice alternative to the Cuban yellow rice I make, and very simple and quick to put together, plus I always have the ingredients on hand (rice, cumin, bay leaves, turmeric, onions and garlic, things I believe most people probably have in their pantry and on hand) So here goes :)

Ingredients:
-2 cups white rice (washed/ rinsed and drained)
-1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
-1 teaspoon ground turmeric powder
-1 onion thinly sliced/ julienned
-4 cloves garlic (or less I really like garlic so I used 4 cloves)
-oil to sautee ingredients (whatever you like to use, I used canola)
-salt to taste
-water (amount depends on what type of rice you use, if using regular long-grain white rice use 3 cups water, if using basmati I like to use 4 cups water, if using a good quality new-crop Jasmine rice use equal water to rice)

Directions:
(1) Heat a large shallow pan or pot, add oil and when oil is hot sautee sliced onions along with bay leaves until caramelized over medium high to high heat.

(2) When onions get color, add garlic and stir cook until fragrant.

(3) Now add cumin, turmeric and give a quick stir, then add rice another quick stir, hot water and salt to taste (I used about 2 teaspoons salt use more or less to taste, when water begins to boil taste it, if it doesn't taste like sea water/ the ocean you probably should add more, because the rice grows and absorbs a lot of salt other wise it may be bland)

(4) When boiling give a stir, cover, and lower heat, cook for 25 minutes, then turn off and remove from heat let rest another 5 minutes. You can fluff it if you want to at this point. It's ready to serve :)

Please Note:
*** If using a rice cooker and you want to avoid the stove top, simply add your washed rice to the rice cooker, the cold water, salt to taste, and sautee the onions, garlic, spiced with oil in a small pan and dump the stuff you sauteed into the rice cooker, stir, and cook according to your rice cooker directions :)

Capirotada (Mexican Bread Pudding)

There are TONS of recipes for making Capirotada, every family, household, or individual seems to have a different style of making it, different ingredients they add, etc. BUT the element I've noticed present in ALL of them is SUGAR, CINNAMON, CLOVES, and sometype of cheese and of course hard toasted bread that sucks up the syrup and becomes tender, the rest can vary greatly. It is popular around Lent for Catholic Mexicans, and well whoever grew up with this dish.

This is my grandmother's recipe (from my mother's side her name is Leonor) her and her family are from Guadalajara (Jalisco), Mexico, and of Spanish descent. This recipe is my grandmother's grandmother's recipe so it's probably been in my family since 1800's, over time the addition of condensed milk is my mother's idea, and she uses it to replace part of the sugar in the recipe and for extra richness, my grandmother uses evaporated milk in place of the heavy cream because it is almost always stocked in our pantry, but I'm sure in the old day's it was heavy cream :)

I noticed a lot of people use a simple syrup with just piloncillo, water, cinnamon and cloves, it's a dark watery syrup, that the bread is soaked in, but my families way of making it we always add whole milk, and cream and such making it more decadent and giving it more body... we layer it with a fresh tender cows milk cheese called "Queso Fresco" the variety we use is very tender for this dish, it also includes in between the layers ripe plantains, pecans, and raisins.

For some using cheese in a dessert may sound weird, but it's really common, Cubans pair Gouda or other types of white cheeses with sweet fruit compotes, marmalade's, and fruit pastes, in Spain a fresh cheese called "mato" is paired with honey and walnuts and called "mato y mel", or I've seen french cheese platters with raisin type bread, fresh fruit, etc. so it's not really an odd concept, at least not to me and many others. HOWEVER ...

and it is a BIG HOWEVER there's one thing that even left me saying what the &*#$ when I was learning to make this... my grandmother adds a piece of onion, and fresh tomato that she later strains out pf the syrup, I mean well I know they both have some sugars/ sweet components to them, but it is odd, trust me though they don't over power the dish AT ALL, they add a very subtle flavor but it doesn't taste like tomato or onion just adds a special note, I know it sounds weird but give it a try, and if it really freaks you out, I'm sure you can leave it out and still get a delicious result. I really thought my grandma had lost her bonkers but I googled around and found some recipes include the onion and tomato in their syrup and it works.

Main Ingredients:
-1 1/2 lbs french bread or bolillo bread or "birote"
-about 1 cup pecans (more or less as needed you'll see later)
-2 large plantains (frying bananas)
-raisins about 1 cup (depends how much you want)
-1/2 lb. fresh cows milk cheese/ "Queso Fresco" (a type of fresh soft cows milk cheese)
-butter (to grease baking dish)
-corn tortillas (as needed to line up baking dish or vessel)

Ingredients for syrup:
-1 liter/ 4 cups whole milk
-2 14 oz. cans of evaporated milk or heavy cream (about 4 cups if using heavy cream)
-2 14 oz cans of water (use the evaporated milk to measure it out)
-1 can of sweetened condensed milk (optional replace it with 1 large cone of piloncillo or 1 cup dark brown sugar if you don't have it or want to use it)
-2 large cones of "Piloncillo" (cones of unrefined solid cane sugar, you can use dark brown sugar if you don't have it, the equivalent of 2 cups to replace it)
-3 cinnamon sticks
-4 cloves
-1/2 onion chopped into big chunks
-1 large tomato cut into chunks

Directions:
(1) Mix all syrup ingredients (milk, evaporated milk, water, 1/2 onion, tomato, cinnamon, cloves, and piloncillo along with condensed milk if using) in a large pot, stir occasionally and bring to a boil (takes awhile to get there) , lower heat to low and allow to simmer uncovered for 5- 10 minutes, turn off heat.

(2) Meanwhile, get several deep- baking dishes, we used 1 large one, one medium one, and 1 small one (we just kept layering and making until we ran out of syrup, my grandmother didn't really measure it was all approximated). Get the baking dishes you are using, and brush heavily all over with melted butter (put ALOT!) and line it with corn tortillas, including the edges (you'll have to cut some in half) that way line the sides with it.
(3) Now that you have your dishes/ mold/ vessel ready (greased and with a layer of corn tortillas) add 1 layer of the toasted hard bread, grab the syrup mixture and ladel it with a strainer over the bread slices, so you don't get any of the solids in the syrup, ladel it little by little over bread NOT all of it, just moisten the bread slightly.

(4) Springle with raisins, pecans, fresh cheese crumbled, and plantain slices. Add another layer of bread and ladel some of the syrup over it with a st, and sprinkle again with raisins, pecans, fresh cheese, plantain slices, and finally add the the other layer and sprinkle with the raisins, fresh cheese, plantain slices, etc. ladel syrup again

Basically you are making layers, the amount of layers you have depends on how deep your vessel/ dish is.
(5) When your done with all your layers, and stuff, the remaining syrup ladel it over your bread pudding dishes MAKING sure to strain it (you don't want to bite into a clove, or piece of cinnamon or worse a tomato or onion... lol.)

(6) Bake covered in an oven for 40 minutes, at 350 degrees, then uncover and allow to bake an additional 10 minutes.
Turn off heat, remove and allow to cool down.

PLEASE PLEASE NOTE:
(1) The bread we used was already hard, it was already toasted, fried, etc. during this time of the year you find it in any of the Mexican/ Latin groceries stores here in LA/ Southern California. They sell 1 lbs. bags, if you don't live in an area where it is readily available, simply buy a large loaf of good french bread, slice it into thick pieces, and let it stay out over night so it turns hard and stale, then toast in a pan by frying all sides with some oil. or rub it with butter and bake it. It makes for more work though...

(2) This can be done on stove top, use a deep thick pot, make your layers, cover over high heat, then lower heat to very low and leave it 20- 25 minutes, then remove from heat and let it rest. This is usually done in a clay pot. I used an oven. Originally my grandma said her family would make it in large clay pots over a fire outdoors, with a large heavy comal (type of griddle) over it with a wood fire happening on it it would heat the top and bottom. I have no clue how to do it like that though...

(3) This makes a pretty large amount feel free to cut the recipe in 1/2, it's not really a recipe that needs measuring to be honest, like you taste the syrup if you want it sweeter well you add more sugar, etc. the raisins, pecans, cheese, plantain you add as much or as little as you like, if you don't like some of them well omit it.