How Traditional Hidalgo-Style Barbacoa Is Made in an Underground Pit in Los Angeles

Gonzalo Ramirez’s raises and butchers his own goats in a 24 hour process.

Gonzalo Ramirez is one of the only barbacoyeros in the U.S. who raises and butchers his own lambs, using the meat to create traditional Hidalgo-style barbacoa that he sells street-side in Los Angeles. Ramirez and his family are fourth-generation masters of the Hidalguenese barbacoa tradition, originating from the Hidalgo state of Mexico.

After butchering, the lamb’s shoulders, tailbone, spine, and other meaty parts are used for the barbacoa and consomé, and nothing goes to waste: the intestines and stomach are used to make pancita (offal-stuffed stomach) and moronga (blood sausage).

To make barbacoa, Ramirez uses a pit in the ground, which is cleaned before every cook. Once the fire is set in the pit, Ramirez places in the consomé and set a grill over the pit so the meat has something to rest on. The grill is covered in maguey leaves “to enhance the flavors,” says Ramirez. “And it’s going to help prevent the meat from burning.”

The meat then gets laid over the top of the leaves and is arranged in a specific way, every time they do it. “If we don’t arrange it properly, the meat might still get cooked, but not the way we want it,” says Ramirez. “I can’t change the layout.”

The pit heats up the consomé at the bottom, creating steam that rises to the top of the pit and circles back down. “The pit is actually hotter at the top,” says Ramirez. It’s this steam that cooks the meat.

Twelve hours later, Ramirez extracts the meat from the pit. The cooked pieces of meat get separated per cut and put into boxes to be sold.

Watch the full video to see how Ramirez and his family make consomé, pancita, and moronga.



from Eater - All https://ift.tt/3u5tSyp

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Comforting Braised Pig Feet Recipe Perfect for Your Pressure Cooker

Image
Louiie Victa Chef Jenny Dorsey’s recipe is a testament to the trotter’s versatility When I go grocery shopping, I always look for pig feet. In the sea of unrecognizably standard-looking cuts of animal muscles at grocery stores — disk-shaped loins, round humps of pork butt — trotters are always the anomaly. They look most precisely as they were: feet, hooves, the tired bones and tissue that kept an animal upright its whole life. Unfortunately for pig feet, their look hasn’t exactly made them a popular part of the mainstream American diet. As Cecil Adams wrote back in 2016, one of the challenges in encouraging more Americans to consume offal and organ meat is that “organs resemble, well, body parts: any steak slapped on a plate looks like dinner, while a lovingly presented calf heart may suggest an autopsy.” And, Adams added, there’s the “socioeconomic stigma…that had a racial component too,” which is only exacerbated by “travelogue shows [like] Bizarre Foods .” Despite being mali...
Read more

Beyond Impossible: The Sanitarium and World War II Past of Meat Substitutes

Image
Photo by Tom Kelley/Getty Images We’ve come a long way from John Harvey Kellogg’s “protose cutlets” It’s no stretch to say that fake meat is having a moment . With the popularity of brands such as Impossible Foods and Beyond Meat joining fast-food menus and grocery store aisles alike, plant-based meats are no longer seen as a sad option for vegetarians long denied flavor with meat substitutes (though, as we know, plenty of vegetarian food is packed with flavor), but for anyone who enjoys a good burger, fried chicken, or nuggets. But are meat substitutes really the future of eating? Maybe by necessity as food resources run out, but not likely by choice. In fact, despite the big money raked in by Impossible and Beyond over the past few years, industrial meat consumption in America is actually on the rise. This week on Gastropod , Cynthia Graber and Nicola Twilley see how the not-sausage gets made, with visits to the Impossible Meat lab and Meati , a Colorado-based start-up that’...
Read more

Without Government Aid, Americans in Need Are Shoplifting Food Essentials

Image
Photo: Niloo /Shutterstock Plus, Colin Kaepernick gets his own Ben & Jerry’s ice cream flavor, and more news to start your day More people admit to shoplifting what they need to survive Since the pandemic began, Americans have called for relief for individuals and small businesses. Stimulus checks, rent and mortgage cancelation, and universal health care have all been on the table. But aside from $1,200 months ago, we’ve gotten none of that, and the latest stimulus package is woefully inadequate. So, as the Washington Post reports , more people than ever have resorted to stealing essentials like bread, baby formula, and diapers to survive. Honestly, what did the government expect? WaPo says there’s been a 45 percent increase in the number of Americans facing hunger this year, up to 54 million people. Lines at food banks have been miles long for months, with many saying that mutual aid groups and donations can’t keep up with demand . And with SNAP and WIC programs cut back,...
Read more