Goat Birria Tacos
I searched the internet highs and lows for the best recipe. I even made a tally.
I can’t think of a witty intro. But hopefully I’ve broken down the steps to make a goat birria that makes it seem so easy, you’ll make it next weekend and then tell all your friends to make it. Goat is good.
Here is that tally I was talking about. I went through each recipe and example I could find and I recorded how often they used common ingredients. They didn’t all use the same ingredients, so it was hard to determine just by reading. I am methodical!
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You will need: A big oven safe pot or roasting dish with a lid, a decent knife, a chopping board, a fry pan, spoon measurements, cup measurements, and a food processor and/or spice grinder (you can also use a mortar and pestle if you have the arm strength), a fry pan, and a small pot
Ingredients
1.5kg goat*
400g tin tomatoes
1/2 cup vinegar
8 cloves garlic
3cm piece ginger
2 dried guajillo chillies
1 dried mulato chilli
1 cinnamon stick
2 tbs Mexican oregano
4 cloves
1 star anise
1 tbs ground cumin
1 tbs flaked salt (or 1 tsp table salt)
1 tbs cracked black pepper
Olive oil
Warmed tortillas, chopped coriander and diced white onion, plus your favourite salsa or hot sauce, to serve
*I used diced goat, but you can use leg or shoulder, as long as it fits in your pot or baking dish
Method
Preheat your oven to 150C
Dry fry your chillies, cloves, and star anise in the fry pan on medium heat. They are ready when the chillies get a bit soft and all the spices smell good.
Once dry fried, put the chillies in a bowl and cover with boiling water. Let them steep and become rehydrated.
Blitz your other dry fried spices in a food processor or spice grinder.
You want your dry fried spices to be a powder, or close enough to. Only because chunks of cinnamon stick can end up tasting like bits of bark in your lunch.
You can also dry fry your whole garlic and ginger as well, which gives it a slightly richer flavour, but it takes a bit more fussing about and, to be honest, I couldn’t be arsed. Instead, peel both the ginger and the garlic, chop them up roughly, and pop it in the food processor.
Add the oregano and cumin to the food processor, along with the chillies (once they have soaked and become soft and pliable) and other spices. Add the vinegar and blitz into a paste.
Place your goat in a bowl and tip in your spice paste. If you’re familiar with adobo, you’ll recognise what your paste smells like. If you’re not familiar with adobo, you are now.
Cover the goat thoroughly with the paste, then place in the fridge to marinate for 30 minutes. If we were BBQing the goat, we’d probably need a longer marinading time, but we are cooking it in the marinade, so we’re all good.
Put your pot on a medium-high heat and add some olive oil - enough to coat the base.
Add your marinated goat (isn’t that the name of a band?) to the hot pan to get some brown colour on the meat.
Now is a good time to season really well before it goes in the oven for three hours - add a teaspoon of salt if you are using table salt, or a tablespoon of flaked salt.
After about 10 minutes and a stir or two, add just enough water to cover the goat. I use the bowl that held the marinade to add the water, just to make sure every last bit of flavour is in the pot.
Add the tinned tomatoes and stir through.
Put the lid on the pot and put the pot into the oven. Say farewell for at least an hour.
Keep the chilli soaking water, because you might want it later to amp up the heat.
After an hour, taste the broth. Add chilli water or more seasoning to your tastes. Put it back in the oven for at least another two hours, or until the meat is falling off the bone.
After about a total of 3 hours cooking time, your goat meat should look like this (falling apart when lightly pressed with a fork).
Carefully shred the meat, making sure to go through it thoroughly to catch any little bones.
Strain the broth through a fine mesh strainer to catch any bone fragments. Put it in a smaller pot for reheating.
Reheat the shredded goat meat in a fry pan with a little bit of the broth. If it gets some caramelisation on it, that’s flavour, baby. Reheat the strained broth in a small pot.
Pour your broth into bowls to serve alongside your tacos
Serve with chopped coriander and diced white onion.
Dip your tacos in the broth and enjoy!
