7/9/12 Shredded beef tacos

Background - Saveur.com has a place on their website where you can save the recipes you like. I was going through the list trying to figure out what I wanted to cook for the next couple of days. I came across shredded beef with lime and avocado tacos, as well as Mexican rice. It's been a while since I cooked Mexican food, so I thought I'd give this a try. I ended up not making the Mexican rice, because Marcus sent me a text message mid-afternoon saying he ate a huge lunch and only wanted a light dinner.

http://www.saveur.com/article/Recipes/Shredded-Beef-with-Lime-and-Avocado

I made several changes to this recipe, some out of necessity, others out of preference. 
First - I did not use brisket. The recipe calls for 2 pounds of beef brisket, and Smiths only had huge honkin briskets for sale. I didn't want to buy a $20 brisket to make these tacos. The butcher recommended chuck steak, so I used that. 

Second - I used minced garlic from a jar, not smashed cloves of raw garlic. Trying to use the stuff I have...


Third - I browned the meat before adding the other ingredients and simmering. The recipe does not say to do this.


Fourth - I added a beef bouillon cube, a chopped chipotle pepper, and a couple spoonfuls of sugar to add flavor to the juices.


Fifth - I knew 3 hours wouldn't be enough to get the meat shred-ready. I ended up simmering the steak for 6 hours, and it came out perfect. 


Sixth - I added shredded lettuce to the tacos. They just seemed to need it.


Seventh - I shredded the cheese rather than cutting it in to cubes. I thought cubed cheese would be weird in a taco.


OK. That might be it. If there's anything else, I'll put it in my process notes.

Here's the steak before it was cooked:

Oh yeah, I also added olive oil to the pot and put salt and pepper on the steak. The recipe does not say to do any of that. I also used a white onion. The recipe says to use a yellow one. 


1 - Brown both sides of the meat and then set it aside on a plate before adding the water to the pot.

2 - Add the water, onion, bay leaves, garlic, bouillon cube, chipotle pepper, and sugar, and scrape up the brown bits on the bottom.

3 - Bring to a boil and add meat back to pot. Reduce heat, cover, and simmer for 6 hours. Check with a fork from time to time to see if it's starting to shred. 

4 - Sit back and relax while the smell permeates your whole house!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

5 - Prepare the cold ingredients:

6 - Chop tomatoes, green onions (aka scallions), and cilantro, and put in a bowl. Add lime juice (I used the bottled juice rather than fresh), salt and pepper to taste. Stir.

7 - Slice the avocadoes, grate the cheese, and shred the lettuce. I used romaine. Set up a taco-building station.

Here's a trick I learned from a cooking show. To remove the seed from an avocado, whack it with a knife and turn it, and it should pop right out.

I put the corn tortillas right on the burners of my gas stove to char them slightly and heat them up. Worked great. I put them on a plate inside a towel to keep warm while I finished prepping.

8 - Take the meat out of the pot and shred it with 2 forks on a cutting board.

9- Assemble your tacos. I also used sour cream in the tacos.

That's it! They came out great and Marcus really liked them. I have a ton of shredded beef and tomato-cilantro-scallion mix left over, so I'm going to make Mexican omelets tomorrow morning. I'll post that too! Gotta love leftovers!

When saving the shredded beef, I put it in a ziplock bag, added some of the juice from the pot to it to keep it from drying out, and stuck it in the fridge inside a bowl to make sure it wouldn't accidentally leak.


Thanks for checking out my latest recipe! Please leave a comment if you try this recipe yourself or if you like any of my tips and tricks! Hasta luego.