Mexican Shredded Beef

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♼ Recipe origin is unknown. Mexican shredded beef recipe, recipe Rating: 4.6
Number of votes:96

My grandmother uses this to fill tamales. I like it straight with warm tortillas and guacamole. It’s spicy and delicious! And don’t discard the water from the roast! It is excellent beef broth. Keep it in the freezer for soup.
Ready in: 4 hours

Ingredients

Serves: 12

• 1/2 cup olive oil
• salt
• ground black pepper
• 1 (2 1/2 pound) boneless beef shoulder roast
• 2 onions, peeled and quartered, divided
• 1 head of garlic, divided
• 4 ounces dried New Mexico chiles
• 2 ounces dried pasilla chiles
• 2 ounces dried ancho chiles
• 1 tablespoon dried roasted cumin seeds

Preparation method

Prep: 1 hour | Cook: 3 hours

1. Heat the olive oil in a large pot until it is very hot. Rub the roast with salt and pepper, coat well (really try to pack it on). Brown the roast on all sides in the hot pot, and then leave in pot and cover with water. Add one onion and about half of the cloves from the head of garlic. Bring to boil, reduce heat a little, and simmer until roast falls apart when touched with fork, about 3 hours.
2. Place all the chiles in a separate pot, heat on high, shaking them around so they don’t singe but they roast and crisp a little. Take them out, use tongs and scissors to destem and deseed them. Put them back in the second pot along with the other onion, the rest of the cloves of garlic, and the cumin seeds. Cover everything with water and boil 30 minutes. Remove from heat and let cool 1 hour.
3. Use a slotted spoon to transfer contents of chile pot to a blender (this will take several batches). Add some of the chile water to each batch to allow the blender to mix well, but not too much. Blend each batch thoroughly, and then pour through a sieve into a bowl (this can be messy, but it removes the excess seeds and skins). Throw away the seeds and skins between each blender batch. Add 1 tablespoon of salt to the chile sauce.
4. Remove the roast from the pot. It should shred easily with a fork. Mix the shredded beef into the chile sauce.