- So Birra is one thing you cannot just
make on the fly.
- Yeah, you can't half-ass birra,
basically that way.
- And, that's why once you run out,
you run out.
This has a whole process that you have to respect.
And, that is what it is.
It's like a ritual.
- There's even times where we
we put music, and we play music for the birria.
- You know, sometimes we're on that time crunch.
And we're like, "Oh, we have an hour for the event.
The birria is not ready."
(music plays)
Crank up the music.
It gets us hyped up.
We like to think that it gets the birria hyped up.
- It gets the birria hyped up too,
and we're like, usually it works.
(music playing)
- So, I met him when I was like 17 years old.
I was dating his sister.
- When I first met him.
I used to, I hated him.
And I mean, I would have hated
anybody that was dating my baby sister, you know
then, I tasted his food and I was like,
"Well maybe we can work something out with this.
You know what I mean?"
- I told him one day, like, if you want to go do it
go buy a truck, or you bring it to me.
I'll open a business with you. And this guy's crazy.
So he did it.
- This is a special cut that we get for our birria,
which is a shoulder cut that we use.
It has some nice fat layer on there, which is what we want.
And, then, we're going to cut into pretty big pieces.
Cause, we don't want it to fall apart too easily
in the pot.
We're going to get our adobo
from the fridge
Throw some bay leaves in there.
So, in this marinade, we have two different types
of chiles: California and guajillo.
The chiles are not for heat.
They're for flavor.
And, then, our secret spice is a
really fragrant, aromatic spices.
Some of them are cinnamon, ginger, and pepper.
- It's like making love to it, right?
Like, you're, you're pretty much giving it
a nice massage.
- Yeah. You want to make sure you get it really
really thorough.
So, we're going to let this marinade
for at least 24 hours, and we cook it
at a slow temp.
So, typically we'll take between five to seven hours.
We're going to repeat the process of the marination,
and then add some more garlic in there,
for extra flavor.
Salt.
Some bay leaves.
And, then, some of our secret secret spices.
Around here, we're going to carry it over
to the fire.
And, I don't want to put too much liquid,
because the fat from the meat
is going to start releasing its own juices.
And that's it.
We're going to just wait. So that three or four hours?
Now we're going to move on to our red salsa,
which is the birria salsa.
Three ingredients:
chiles de arbol.
And, then, our Roma tomatoes,
garlic, and same thing.
Just,
we're going to toast our chiles.
And, it's important that you fire them first.
So, now, the tomatoes are nice and-
- Smell.
- The smell, like, you get that charred smell.
About a cup.
And, there's the first thing that goes in the blender.
Just, now, I'm going to throw in some of our birria spice.
In the salsa as well.
I'm taking it out of the steam wrap.
Just to be a little easier blend.
So, now, I'm going to go ahead and blend this.
So, I got the garlic, the tomatoes, the onions in there.
Our spices are already in there.
I'm going to blend it up,
and, then, we're going to see
what consistency it gets, first.
(blender sound)
This is going to be the birria salsa.
This right here is onions that we just chopped up.
And started pickling.
The acid from the limes and the onion,
it breaks through the fattiness of the birria.
It's what's going to go on our tacos.
Now I'm going to show you the birria
that we started this morning.
So, it's going to be super flavorful.
So this one's not ready yet.
It's missing a couple hours still.
This one's completely done.
So, it's already sunk to the bottom of the pot.
We'll bring this out.
Test it out.
If you could just break it with your bare hands like that.
That's what we're looking for.
But, we try not to break it apart either,
because we want it to stay whole.
We don't want it to dry out.
So, we grab a little bit of consomé.
Find your part of the part of the consomé.
We'll put it on top.
- This is gold right here.
This is the pure vitamin.
La pura vitamina.
I realized that the way to go is
going back to Mexico,
and for us, we're DACA recipients.
So, we can't go back there.
We don't have the privilege like other people do.
So, this is kind of like keeping us connected
to our culture.
And, we're going to start off with La Finca tortillas.
We only use La Finca.
So, that's another thing we take pride in
using local vendors.
Dip them in our secret oil.
- It tastes like home.
They know what we're expecting.
So, right now we're getting our Birria.
It's nice and tender.
You don't need to chop it up,
but we still give it a couple
whacks
with the machetazo, we call it.
It's a big cleaver.
(banging sound)
We always layer the flavor on top of each other
like Victor said.
A little more consomé goes back in there.
You get your
(Spanish)
Start throwing the onion, cilantro in there.
And, going with that a pickled onion, cilantro.
And, then, our red salsa.
This is the birria salsa.
And that one goes inside.
They're getting crispy, but they're not burning.
And, you don't want it to be...
you want it to be in between.
Right now, you'll see that tortilla starting to lift up.
- The cheese is also melting.
The tortilla is not burning,
but it's getting that crispiness
and crunchiness around the rim of the tortilla.
- That looks good.
- So we're good.
Get to work.
So what you do,
grab this taco,
dip it in the consomé.
(music playing)
You dip it in the salsa.
Fire.
- I always dip mine in the green salsa first.
But, that's just me.
- There's no way of doing it.
No right way of doing it.
First you try it and then you taste one flavor.
Then, you taste another, then another.
And, then,
Bam!
The last one hits you.
The spiciness hits you at the end.
You're like, "whoa"!
Okay. It's good.
It's really good.
- Coming to the States
from Mexico, at age 13 and,
it was hard to assimilate.
When I first started working,
I didn't even know that I have a social security number.
I didn't even know what that was.
So, I ended up using a fake name.
Fake social.
I ended up getting fired after
a few weeks cause they found out.
And that's pretty much what I did for 15 years of my life.
- My mom worked in the fields.
Most of my family did as well.
So, it was kind of like this thing that
my parents always put it in your head.
You don't want to be like us.
You don't want to be out in the sun.
Do something better.
Go to school.
Do this.
When I started in restaurants, I was really young.
I remember the first restaurant, I lied about my age.
Ever since then then, the manager from there
saw something in me.
And, they took me under their wing.
- There's this program called DACA,
which is Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals,
which really opened up
the door for me to
be able do something with my life.
To actually get a real job
A good job, where I didn't have to show,
where I didn't have to hide behind,
in the shadows.
And, I can actually use my real name
for the first time.
I started building credit.
I started feeling like a true American.
I value this experience a lot.
It was an older gentleman, parents, set of parents.
They have, hadn't gone back to Mexico 20, 30 years.
And, they tasted our food.
He was like, "Hey dude, I was able to taste the flavors.
As if I was in Mexico."
So, it was like, you have that Ratatouille moment.
Like in the movie when you taste it.
And, you get that flashback to your childhood.
You know what I mean?
So, that right there for me, it was, we're doing it.
We're doing good.