Barbacoa

Barbacoa is a Mexican, slow cooked meat dish, a recipe for high days and holidays.  Chez nous yesterday was a high day because we had some lovely friends coming over for dinner and Russell was cooking.

this how you do it

Russell studied the recipes, made lists, shopped til he dropped and made little piles of chopped things all over the  kitchen and slowly but surely dinner emerged.

starter of stuffed tortilla wraps and Bollinger

adapted from Mexican Food Made Simple by Thomasina Miers

The marinade:

5 ancho chillies

8 cloves of garlic, roughly chopped

1 cinnamon stick broken up, or teaspoon of ground cinnamon

1 teaspoon cumin seeds

1/2 teaspoon pepper corns

1 teaspoon dried oregano

40g very dark chocolate broken up

300ml olive oil

Remove seeds and stalks form the chillies and tear up. Warm a dry frying pan and gently heat the chilli pieces for a few seconds.  Then transfer them to a small saucepan and cover with boiling water and simmer for 10 – 15 minutes til soft.  using either stick blender or an upright blender puree the chillies with about 1/3 of the cooking water.  Add all the other ingredients and blend.  The heat from the water will melt the chocolate.

The Meat:

2 kg mutton (if you can get it, or lamb) shoulder, on or off bone as you prefer.  You could use beef too – any cheap cut.

1/2 bottle red wine

5 ripe tomatoes roughly chopped

2 tablespoons quince or red currant jelly

100g dark chocolate

4 large floury potatoes.

The night before put the meat in large, heavy pan with the pre-made marinade.  Make sure the meat is coated well.  The book says put it in a bag, in the fridge.  Either way is fine.  On the day add tomatoes and wine to the marinaded meat, and cover with water.  Cover the pan with a pierced cling film to help keep all the moisture in, and ut the lid on.  Bring it to a simmer then turn it right down to a very low simmer so that is “barely breaking a bubble”.

After 3 hours remove the cling film and add the jelly and chocolate and stir in.  The book doesn’t mention salt but I suggest 1 teaspoon of maldon salt at this point – taste it to be sure.  Add the potatoes, cut up into half fist size pieces. Cook gently for another hour, lid on, until the potatoes are soft.

We ate this with a cabbage, coriander and radish salad.  The whole meal was a revelation, not least because who knew Russell could cook like this?  Gorgeous, rich, deep and velvety, chocolate has whole new shelf in the kitchen.

this is the barbacoa the day after – too greedy to photograph on the night. Russell made enough to feed an army, and also we lost two guests who really need to get a new car (this pan can double s a baby’s bath tub) so we will happily be living off this all week.