Carnitas de Corazon y Sopa de Tortillas

The other day I boiled one of the beef hearts (after trimming it, I cut it into sections and removed anything that looked tubular, fatty or silver) with Mexican seasonings: onion, garlic, toasted coriander seeds, toasted cumin seeds, cloves, cinammon stick, Mexican oregano, bay leaf, and fresh cilantro (OK, it might be coriander overkill, but what a flavor). When the meat was done, I removed it and strained the broth.

Today I chopped the meat into roughly quarter to half inch dice. I heated up some freshly rendered pork lard, and gently fried a diced shallot and chopped garlic with cumin seeds. I added the meat and a chipotle pepper (with a dab of its adobo) and fried it. When it was getting crisp, I drizzled it with lime juice and seasoned it with salt, cinammon and fresh cracked pepper. I used this meat on tacos (using handmade corn tortillas) with some chopped cilantro and queso enchilado. It was very tasty with a pronounced beef flavor.

I put a box of Pomi tomatoes in the blender along with a few cloves of garlic and two toasted and chopped dried cascabel chiles. I blended them until smooth. I fried the stuff briefly in lard and added the broth from the beef, a pint of pork broth (a classic brown stock made with the pork bone from the pork shoulder that went into the liverwurst), some ground coriander, salt, and a sprig of fresh mint and simmered it. When it was done I served it in bowls and topped it with tortilla chips and grated cheese (I don't know what kind of cheese it was - some Italian cheese that tasted vaguely of sheep).

I served beer, but a dry riesling would have worked as well. It was a very good Mexican meal and made me really appreciate beef heart. I would make more, but I have decided to boil the other heart in red wine and make a classic mince pie with it.

NOTE: for some reason this post keeps drawing lots of spam comments, so I have disabled comments on this entry. If you have something you would like to say or add or question, please email me at EKeilholtz [at] aol [dot] com.

Posted by erik at June 10, 2004 1:01 AM | TrackBack