Beef Birria Recipe: Braised Beef in Guajillo and Ancho Chili Sauce

Step-by-step recipe

1. Beef birria, a popular kind of meat braised in sauce, turns out best with shoulder or round. These cuts have a little fat and connective tissue, and you can use fairly large pieces of meat. As it turned out, buying the right chilies is no problem at all: everything is sold in online stores. Instead of árbol chili, we use fresh jalapeño, which is less hot. I bought a bag of each kind of dried chili I needed, enough for 5-10 dishes. By the way, you can use fresh chilies, but dried ones are much less fuss: they soften when cooked and blend beautifully into a purée.
   
2. Trim large pieces of fat and membranes off the meat. Then cut it into pieces the size of a hen's egg. Heat 1 tbsp of olive oil in a frying pan. Mix salt with freshly ground black pepper and rub the mixture into the meat. Fry the beef in the olive oil until browned on all sides, then transfer it to a plate or small pot.
   
3. While the beef is browning, make the sauce. Put the dried guajillo and ancho chilies in a pot, first removing the seeds and stems, which would get in the way when blending; you can soak them in warm water for an hour beforehand. Add the fresh peppers, the white onion, peeled and cut halfway through, and 2-3 canned tomatoes. Also add the spices: a whole cinnamon stick, a bay leaf and black peppercorns. Pour in 1 cup of water or beef stock and put on the heat.
   
4. Simmer the chilies covered for 10-12 mins from the moment they come to a boil. As they cook, the dried chilies absorb water and soften. When they're done, pour the liquid into a cup, discard the cinnamon stick and bay leaf, and transfer everything else from the pot to a blender. Add 1 tsp of dried oregano, the peeled garlic cloves, and 0.5 tsp each of ground cloves and cumin. Squeeze in the juice of half a lime.
   
5. Blend everything thoroughly into a smooth purée; to help it blend, you can add the reserved liquid or stock. A very important point: push the sauce through a sieve to remove any hard bits, mostly leftover spices. The sauce usually isn't salted, since the meat already has salt, but it's up to you.
   
6. You can braise the meat in the sauce in a clay pot, as they do where the dish comes from, but beef birria also turns out beautifully in an ordinary deep frying pan with a lid, which is handy at home. Put the pieces of meat in a pot, frying pan or clay pot and pour the sauce over them. Put on the heat and bring the sauce to a boil.
   
7. Then lower the heat and braise the meat for 3-3.5 hours, stirring now and then. The beef must become completely tender and pull apart easily. In a clay pot the meat usually doesn't burn, but in a metal pan you should keep an eye on it. With this set of chilies the dish comes out not so much hot as very richly spiced. You can adjust the heat to your taste as it cooks: I like spicy food, for example, so I added a little ground chili.
   
8. You can serve the beef braised in chili sauce in chunks: just put some meat in a deep bowl and pour the sauce over it. Garnish with finely chopped onion and cilantro and add a lime wedge. Or, if you like, shred the beef with two forks. Then mix the meat with the sauce and dish it out. Serve while the meat is hot; it's especially good with corn tortillas.
   
9. Birria is very often used as a taco filling; for that, shred the meat and serve the sauce on the side. There are countless ways to serve and make the dish. In Jalisco there are as many birria recipes as there are people who cook it.