Lamb Birria Tacos
Tastiest tacos around
8 - 10
Serves
30 mins
Prep Time
7 hrs
Cook Time
Recipe author
Beef + Lamb New Zealand
These are winning tacos. Slow cooked, succulent, packed with flavour and melt-in-your-mouth tender. When the sun shines and the crowd gathers, let them eat birria tacos of the lamb kind.
There are a few specialty chilli types in this recipe, you'll find them easily at specialty stores or online, Tio Pablo is a popular one and delivers nationwide.
This recipe was written by Troy Bilbrough.
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Ingredients
Consommé
4kg Quality Mark lamb shanks
2L beef stock
2 cups olive oil
800 canned chopped tomatoes
or fresh
400g tomato puree
12 dry Guajilo chillies
12 dry Arbol chillies
6 dry Ancho chillies
6 dry Chipotle peppers
6 fresh green chillies
6 fresh red chillies
1 large onion
6 garlic cloves
1 Tbsp fresh ginger
diced and crushed
2 Tbsp tomato paste
1 Tbsp Mexican oregano
4 cinnamon stick
4 bay leaves
2 tsp cinnamon
Rub
1 packet Texanz BBQ "Lamb & Game" Rub
1 packet Texanz "SPG" Rub
Tacos
tortillas
100g fresh coriander
8 fresh limes
1 onion
chopped
buffalo cheese
birria oil
Method
For the tacos
1
Season lamb liberally with the lamb seasoning mix.
2
Set your grill or smoker to 300ºF and give the lamb 2 hours of heat until the bark has set. You can also do this in an oven or you can brown the shanks in a cast iron skillet.
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3
Remove the meat and set aside once browned.
4
Add 1 cup of olive oil to the skillet.
5
Chop up the onion and add to the oil, sauté for 5 minutes then add the tomato paste, ginger paste, Mexican oregano, ground cinnamon, and garlic. Cook for 3 minutes.
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6
De-seed the dry peppers if you would like a mild birria, keep them in for a hot birria. Add them all to the large pot over medium-high heat, add the skillet contents into the pot, add both cans of tomatoes and half the beef stock.
7
Cook until peppers have rehydrated and softened, approximately 10 minutes.
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8
Add the contents to a blender and blend well. Wait for the mix to cool, It will be hot and pop the lid off the blender.
9
Add the remaining 2 cups of oil to the pot and get it heating up. Add the blended mix to the oil and cook for 5 minutes stirring constantly.
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10
Add the meat, remaining beef stock, cinnamon sticks, and bay leaves to the pot and simmer on medium-low until meat is fork tender, approximately 5 hours.
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11
Once meat is tender enough to shred, remove from pot and shred it.
12
Discard the cinnamon sticks and bay leaves and use a strainer to double strain the consommé. This part can be tedious - but it's important! Once the consommé is strained, either use a fat separator to separate the consommé from the oil, or put in fridge and let the oil harden, then scoop off the top and add to a separate container.
13
Use the oil to dip the corn tortillas in to cook on a flat top. Each taco gets dipped in oil, then meat and cheese are added and cooked until crispy.
14
Top with cilantro, onions, and lime, buffalo mozzarella, fresh chillis. Add consommé to dish with cilantro and onions for dipping.
15
You can also served this dish with glazed lamb cutlets - we cooked the cutlets to an internal temp of 140ºF on the grill and then dunked in the consommė and drizzled with the birria oil and then back on the grill for 10 minutes until glaze had set.
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