WanderSups: Feeling autumn's chill? Get cosy with a plate of birria tacos

Hannah Gregory, Velvet’s resident recipe writer, staves off autumn’s chills with a plate of birria tacos. . .

What is better than a taco? A taco stuffed, fried in beef fat and then dunked in a rich, glossy broth. This my friends, is a birria taco.

Birria hails from Western Mexico and is a regional interpretation of barbacoa (a cooking method using pits or earth ovens). Typically utilising large cuts of meats or even whole animals - most often beef or goat but I have seen lamb and mutton make an appearance as well - that require low, slow cooking resulting in incredibly tender meat and buckets of flavour.

When making birria tacos, the meat is rubbed in adobo, a paste made from chillies, herbs and spices which creates the most amazing cooking liquor which is reserved, reduced and strained to create an incredible rich gravy which is served alongside the tacos for dunking.

Luckily for us, no digging of pits are required for this recipe, rather just a trusty dutch oven affair. I have come across recipes that seal the lid to the pot using a paste of flour and water for an extra authentic edge but to be perfectly honest with you, I am not about that level of faff. A snug lid works a treat.

On to the ingredients, you could of course use lamb shanks but we are so spoilt with the quality of local venison in Suffolk we should utilise it. Not to mention it is incredibly lean, sustainable and cost effective.

There are a medley of chillies in this recipe that you may not find in your store cupboard but they are available in good supermarkets and online and are well worth sourcing, they last forever due to being tinned or dried and the flavour profile they give is incomparable.

Venison Birria Tacos
Serves: 4

What you need :

● 6 dried ancho chillis

● 1 dried pasilla chilli

● 3 guajillo chilli

● 60ml cider vinegar

● 1 teaspoon dried oregano

● 1 teaspoon dried epazote

● Pinch ground cloves

● ½ teaspoon all spice

● 1 teaspoon ground cumin

● 1 onion, roughly chopped

● 4 cloves garlic, unpeeled

● 2 teaspoons fine salt

● 5 plum tomatoes

● 1 chipotle in adobo

● 5 venison shanks

● Salt and peps

● 500ml beef or lamb stock

● 2 tablespoons beef dripping

● 12 corn tortillas

● 150g cheddar grated

● Coriander, fresh lime and sour cream to garnish

How you do it :

1. First prepare your dried chillies by carefully cutting the top stem off, shaking out the seeds and removing any tough ribs.

2. Heat a frying pan then add the chillies, turning often to make sure they don’t catch – about five minutes. When they start to smell toasty, place in a non reactive bowl and cover with boiling water. Leave to soak for 15 minutes.

3. Whilst the chillies are soaking, toast the onion, garlic and tomatoes in the same pan until covered in black spots.

4. When the garlic is cool enough to handle, remove the peel.

5. Place the peeled garlic, onion, tomato, soaked chillies (reserving their water for later), vinegar, oregano, epazote, chipotle, cloves, all spice, cumin and fine salt into a blender and blitz till smooth. You are looking for a thick paste. If it needs loosening, add a splash of the chilli water.

6. Season the venison with salt and pepper, heat a spoon full of beef dripping in a large dutch oven/casserole dish with a lid and sear all over.

7. Cover the shanks in the chilli paste making sure all of them are well covered.

8. Add the stock to the pot and slowly bring to a boil over a low heat.

9. Preheat the oven to 140°C.

10. Pop a lid on the dish and place into the oven for two hours.

11. When the time is up, check the venison: it should be falling away from the bone and easy to shred. If it is not quite there yet, place it back into the oven and check every 30 minutes or so.

12. When the meat is falling apart, remove from the pot. Discard the bones and shred the meat. Keep covered and warm whilst you get on with the gravy.

13. Sieve the cooking liquid into a clean saucepan; you should have a thick, glossy sauce. Keep covered and warm over a low heat whilst you cook the tortillas.

14. Heat two frying pans, one should be dry for the tortillas, the other has the remaining beef fat in.

15. In your dry frying pan cook your tortillas for 30 seconds on one side, flip over and sprinkle on the grated cheese so it covers the cooked tortilla.

16. Place a portion of the venison on to the cheesy tortilla, fold over and press down with a spatula.

17. Carefully move the folded tortilla into the hot beef fat and fry until golden and crispy on each side.

18. Repeat until everything is used up.

19. Decant the gravy into a small bowl for dipping.

20. Garnish with coriander, a drizzle of sour cream and a squeeze of fresh lime juice.

A former BBC MasterChef quarter finalist, Hannah runs supper club, pop-up and private chef service WanderSups - “serving meals created with love, inspired by journeys around the world, dished up on home turf” - and is the brains behind TACOR, the new neighbourhood taqueria in Bury St Edmunds. To find out more follow @WanderSups and/or @tacor_taqueria or visit wandersups.com.