Carne en Salsa Roja
Five chiles, toasted and steeped, blended into a braise for cubed chuck. Eat it as a soup on the day and shred what's left for tacos.
- Serves
- 10
- Total
- about 4 hours, most of it braising
Five chiles, each doing a different job. Ancho for sweetness and body, guajillo for brightness, pasilla for depth, cascabel for a nutty edge, árbol for the only real heat in the pot. Toast them, steep them in hot broth, blend them with aromatics, and braise cubed chuck in the result.
Buy a whole chuck roast and cut it yourself. Pre-cut stew meat is trim from wherever, cut to whatever size, and half of it will be dry before the rest is tender.
It's two dinners. On the day it's a soup, brothy and loose. What's left, shredded with a little of its liquid, is taco filling that's better than anything you'd make on purpose.
Serving it two ways
As a soup, on the day. Loose and brothy, in bowls, with rice or tortillas and lime.
As tacos, after. Shred the beef with a little of its liquid and let it sit in that. It's better the next day, and better again the day after.
On the Better Than Bouillon
This is the ingredient in my kitchen I'd defend hardest, so it's worth saying why rather than leaving it in the list.
What makes restaurant food taste like restaurant food is stock. A real stock, or a demi, simmered for hours and reduced down until it's thick with gelatin. It's the difference you can taste and usually can't name, and almost nobody makes it at home on a Tuesday, including me.
Better Than Bouillon gets you a long way toward that for a spoonful out of a jar. It's a paste rather than a cube, so it dissolves properly and tastes of beef rather than of salt. It keeps in the fridge for months. And in a braise like this, where the liquid is going to reduce and concentrate anyway, it adds the depth that boxed stock simply doesn't have.
It isn't a real stock and I'm not pretending otherwise. It's the ninety percent that takes two minutes, and the last ten percent takes six hours.
If it's not right
- Bitter: the chiles went too far when toasting, or the seeds went in.
- Thin: not reduced enough, or too much stock at the start. Simmer with the lid off.
- Beef dry and stringy: cooked past tender. Tender but still cubed is the target for the soup; it'll shred fine later anyway.
- Flat: salt first, then more bouillon, then a squeeze of lime at the bowl.
- Too hot: fewer árbol next time. They're the only chile here bringing real heat.
Ingredients
Make these first
Method
-
**The chiles.** Stem and seed all of them. Toast briefly in a dry pan, 30 seconds a side, until they smell toasty and go pliable. They burn fast and burnt chile is bitter through the whole pot.
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Put them in a pot with the beef broth, bring to a simmer, and hold it 5 minutes. Cover, off the heat, 15 minutes more. They'll be soft and the broth will be dark.
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**The meat.** Season the cubes with salt and pepper. Sear them hard, either in batches in the dutch oven or spread on a sheet pan under the broiler for about 15 minutes for a deep, fast sear across the whole lot.
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Chuck into a large dutch oven with every bit of fond and drippings from the pan. Cover with stock and bring it up to a simmer.
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**The blend.** While that comes up, put the chiles, onion, garlic, chipotles, oregano, cumin if using, salt and pepper in a blender with about a cup of the steeping liquid. Blend until smooth.
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Pour it into the pot and stir. Add the Better Than Bouillon.
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Simmer, lid off or barely on, until the beef is tender but still in pieces. Not falling apart: you want cubes you can pick up.
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Taste for salt at the end, and again after it's rested.
Goes with
- Also good with
- Buy real chiles, Where less is more, and what to skip entirely
- A cousin of
- Order is the technique
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