Birria

As tradition built it

Birria

Jalisco; stovetop approximation about 3 hours

Ingredients

• 1kg goat
• 5 chiles guajillo
• 3 chiles pasilla
• 2 chiles ancho
• 1 onion
• 4 garlic cloves
• 1 cinnamon stick
• 5 cloves
• 1 tsp cumin
• 1 tsp black pepper
• 1 tsp oregano
• to taste salt
• to cover water, to cover the meat

Some households add

• 1 x 2cm piece, peeled ginger
• 1/2 tsp marjoram
• 1/4 cup vinegar

Method

1. Marinate the goat in an adobo of ancho, guajillo and pasilla chiles, cumin, cinnamon, cloves, black pepper, oregano, garlic and salt; some households add ginger, marjoram and vinegar to the marinade for their tenderising and deodorising effect.
2. Wrap in maguey leaves and cook in an horno de tierra, an underground earthen pit, the covered stone-and-earth environment doing the same steam-and-radiant job curanto does elsewhere.
3. As a stovetop approximation of the pit method's own timing, simmer for roughly 3 hours until fully tender.
4. Serve two ways: pour the consommé as a soup course, and serve the shredded meat in tacos on fresh corn tortillas, garnished only at the table with finely chopped white onion, cilantro and lime.

What a modern chef changes

Vacuum Marinade, Egg-Sealed Braise

Rung 02

Method

1. Marinate the goat under vacuum rather than in an open dish, letting the adobo's acid and enzymes work evenly through the whole cut rather than concentrating at the surface.
2. Finish the braise in a Big Green Egg run low and enclosed with a water pan, the nearest domestic equivalent to the earth pit's own sealed, moist-heat environment.
3. Reduce and clarify the braising consommé through a chinois into something closer to a proper broth than the cloudier result of an open simmer.
4. Grind the toasted whole spices, cumin, cinnamon and cloves, fresh in a dedicated spice grinder rather than using pre-ground, the single change with the most obvious effect on the finished adobo's aroma.