Beef Shank Taquitos
I used to post this blog at myspace.com. I generally travel light, but I've decided to bring a few of the best posts of the last nine months along with me. Over the next week or so I'll be posting selections from The Best of Man of Constant Leisure.
This was just an experiment, but one that went so right that I want to share it. Also figured if I put this recipe up here, I'd know where to find it when I want to make this again. You know that poor sap who sings "MacArthur Park," the one who whines "I'll never have that recipe again"? I don't want to wind up like that guy.
The concept is pretty simple, really. I was at the local Mexican grocer the other day and noticed beef shanks at the butcher's counter. Now, I've prepared veal shanks plenty of times for osso bucco, and I make braised lamb shanks fairly regularly, but I don't recall ever having seen beef shanks before, or seeing much about them in cookbooks. Still, they looked pretty and they were cheap, so I figured 'What the hey? A shank's a shank. Slow cooking ought to do the trick.'
I seasoned the shanks with salt and pepper, browned them well on both sides in a stainless steel skillet, and removed them from the pan. Then I deglazed with a little bit of beer and tossed in one large onion, diced fine, and sauteed that until it was golden and translucent. I chonked in a palmful of chopped cilantro, a couple of minced chipotles and a teaspoon or so of adobo sauce, two cloves of garlic (crushed), the rest of the can of beer, and the shanks. I brought the liquid to a simmer, then covered and reduced the heat and let it cook for 2 hours.
The shanks were done after two hours but there was still a lot of liquid remaining, so I removed the shanks from the skillet and turned the heat up high to reduce. About 10 minutes of cooking reduced it to a good sauce consistency. I then chopped the shanks up fine and threw the meat back into the pan and tossed to coat with the sauce. I served them in corn tortillas with pico de gallo, Mexican crema, and some salsa verde that, shamefully, I did not make from scratch. It came in a can that looks like this:
By the way: the product pictured above is great, but someone ought to tell the folks at La Costena that salsa verde sounds a whole lot more appetizing than "Green Mexican Sauce." Don't even want to think about the green Mexicans that went into making this product. Blech.
Anyway, give the shanks a try and tell me what you think. I served this with some pan fried sweet plantains, which are always good.
This was just an experiment, but one that went so right that I want to share it. Also figured if I put this recipe up here, I'd know where to find it when I want to make this again. You know that poor sap who sings "MacArthur Park," the one who whines "I'll never have that recipe again"? I don't want to wind up like that guy.
The concept is pretty simple, really. I was at the local Mexican grocer the other day and noticed beef shanks at the butcher's counter. Now, I've prepared veal shanks plenty of times for osso bucco, and I make braised lamb shanks fairly regularly, but I don't recall ever having seen beef shanks before, or seeing much about them in cookbooks. Still, they looked pretty and they were cheap, so I figured 'What the hey? A shank's a shank. Slow cooking ought to do the trick.'
I seasoned the shanks with salt and pepper, browned them well on both sides in a stainless steel skillet, and removed them from the pan. Then I deglazed with a little bit of beer and tossed in one large onion, diced fine, and sauteed that until it was golden and translucent. I chonked in a palmful of chopped cilantro, a couple of minced chipotles and a teaspoon or so of adobo sauce, two cloves of garlic (crushed), the rest of the can of beer, and the shanks. I brought the liquid to a simmer, then covered and reduced the heat and let it cook for 2 hours.
The shanks were done after two hours but there was still a lot of liquid remaining, so I removed the shanks from the skillet and turned the heat up high to reduce. About 10 minutes of cooking reduced it to a good sauce consistency. I then chopped the shanks up fine and threw the meat back into the pan and tossed to coat with the sauce. I served them in corn tortillas with pico de gallo, Mexican crema, and some salsa verde that, shamefully, I did not make from scratch. It came in a can that looks like this:
By the way: the product pictured above is great, but someone ought to tell the folks at La Costena that salsa verde sounds a whole lot more appetizing than "Green Mexican Sauce." Don't even want to think about the green Mexicans that went into making this product. Blech.
Anyway, give the shanks a try and tell me what you think. I served this with some pan fried sweet plantains, which are always good.
Labels: food
posted by Tom Meltzer @ 10:00 AM
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