Bold Barbacoa Tacos

First things first...

Growing up on a farm has its pros and cons. One thing I always get stuck on is the though shoulder meat of the cows we process. It is always more tough if the cow is older... not fun to cook or eat! Well, after taking a chefsteps.com sous-vide course, I had the knowledge to transform this tough cut.

Here is what I did to take tough shoulder

 stew meat and make it into my favorite way to eat tacos.

Ingredients:

1 lb. Shoulder Meat, trimmed
1/2 oz. Ancho Chile Powder
1.5 oz. Ancho Chiles in adobo Sauce (add more for more spice!) This stuff is amazing
Season with salt and pepper

Now what do I do?

1. Mix all the spicy ingredients together
2. Put in a vacuum sealed bag (being careful not to suck out the juices
3. Cook Sous-Vide at 179F for 6 hours
4. After your tough meat has become incredibly tender, pull it out to the bag, shred or cut into bitesized pieces
Serve simply on steamed corn tortillas with a bit of cilantro, red onion and a squeeze of lime juice. You can also add sliced avocado to your taco. The simplicity of these ingredients makes for quite a powerful punch.

Cooking this shoulder roast sous-vide transformed it into incredibly juicy, smoky hot meat perfect for these tacos. I was honestly very surprised how well the tough meat broke down throughout the cooking process  

At first, I thought the tacos might be a bit dry, not having and type of salsa on them... BUT the meat was so juicy and pull apart tender, that it did not leave my mouth dry. Only full of flavor from the lime, cilantro and robustly blood flavored meat.