Mexican lamb birria stew (+ tacos)
Inspired by Chef John's youtube channel, with a few adjustments.
I began the night before, coating around 600g of on-the-bone lamb chunks in salt, pepper, oregano, cumin, cinnamon and cloves, and rubbing them in until evenly spread. I ground the spices myself but pre-ground should be fine too. Then left it in the fridge overnight.
The next day, I started off on the Adobo sauce by lightly frying 3-4 dried red chilies in a pot with a little olive oil (which I had also snipped open and emptied of its seeds). Once I got some colour on those, I chucked in a diced whole white onion, three whole cloves of garlic and a piece of peeled ginger.
After those had become fragrant, I added a carton of pre-diced tomatoes and a cup of water before allowing to simmer for 30 minutes or so. Fresh tomatoes would work just as well.
Afterwards, I blended it until smooth. I first tried doing so with an immersion blender but gave up after it got messy, opting for my regular blender.
I put the marinated meat at the bottom of my instant pot, and strained the freshly blended adobo sauce over it (though you can add it unstrained if you don’t mind bits of chili skin and tomato seed). After that, I added two cups of hot water with a chicken stock cube dissolved, a splash of white vinegar, a drop of honey and two bay leaves.
I used the “slow cook” function on my instant pot but if you’re doing it over direct heat then get it to boil on high heat before lowering to medium-low and then allowing to simmer for 3-4 hours as desired, until the meat is tender and falling off the bone.
As a stew, this is very nice on its own, but my favourite way of having it is as a taco - and birria tacos are all the rage in parts of the US right now. What I did afterwards was:
Skimmed the fat off the top of the stew, and use it to glaze some mini tortillas that I laid down on a pan, filled with bits of the lamb that I had taken out and shredded, and grated cheese (ideally Monterey or Oaxaca but I just used Mexican pepper cheddar) and then folded over. once the tortilla is crispy on both sides after flipping and the cheese is melted, they’re good to serve. The best way to enjoy them is dunked in birria broth!