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annie1992_gw

Not quite authentic barbacoa

annie1992
5 years ago

You would think that, since I raise beef, I'd have made every single beef recipe known to man, but there are still a few untried ones out there. (grin) I will admit that having freezer(s) full of beef can get kind of boring, and I look for new ways to prepare it, especially odd cuts.


Now I know that barbacoa is actually made with beef cheeks, but I had a very oddly cut rump roast with the hip joint still in it. Now you KNOW that's going to be tough, so I started looking for braised recipes to use the darned thing up. I trimmed out the bone and gave it to our rescue dog, Molly, and she was very, very happy. It left me with a lot of pieces, though, nothing that could be sliced or even cubed. I'd saved a recipe for barbacoa that sounded good, with fresh lime juice and orange juice, onions and garlic, cumin and chipotles in adobo, seared and then braised in the liquid until the beef could be pulled apart with forks. Seeing no reason why a crockpot wouldn't do the same thing, since I was going to be out of the house, I seared the beef, hauled out the Vitamix to make sauce, dumped it all in the crockpot and went to break the ice out of the doors of the barn so that animals could be cared for.


7 hours later the kitchen was smelling good and we were ready for supper. I think I'd make twice the "sauce" next time, because the picture looked very "wet" and mine was definitely not, possibly because it was lean, grassfed and trimmed, and had very little fat? Or maybe I had too large an amount of beef? I do not know, but the sauce was good enough that double would be a bonus anyway.





Served on tortillas with my homecanned peach/pineapple salsa and some guacamole, and I was happy enough that I'd make it again soon. Elery says it would make awesome nachos too. I think I might use an extra chipotle next time, and I'm a heat wuss, but it may just be that I had a lot of beef and that absorbed or diluted the heat.


I will make it again with beef, but would it still be barbacoa if it's pork, or even chicken or duck?


Annie



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