There are a few things I like as much as barbecue,
and Carne Guisada is one of them.
In this video we're gonna demonstrate
how to make a delicious and traditional Carne Guisada
all the way down to the live fire
and fresh spices ground in the molcajete.
Delicious Carne Guisada starts with a good piece
of beef cubed up into bite size pieces,
then seared for added flavor,
and simmered for two to three hours till it becomes tender,
and realizes all of the good internal flavor.
And once you learn how to master and cook it right
you might wind up repeating it once a week like I do.
Now, traditional might be different for you
than it is for me in South Texas,
but this is how my mom and my grandma used to make it
and it's damn delicious.
I do consider myself a Carne Guisada connoisseur
because I love this dish so much.
And I guarantee that if you follow the steps in this video,
you'll be able to cook up a delicious pot of goodness.
Let's fire it up and start cooking.
Now I've made Carne Guisada from a lot of different meats.
One of my favorites is brisket trimmings,
but I've made it from sirloin, from rib eyes,
even from fajitas.
My mama has always made it out of chuck,
and I'ma tell you if you use chuck,
it's one of the best meats you can use for Carne Guisada.
It has a lot of marbling.
It has a lot of connective tissue.
It has a lot of collagen.
Those are all the things that make Carne Guisada
super delicious.
All right.
There's different ways like I said...
I like my cubed up meat to be, you know,
about an inch or so, kinda like burnt ends.
It's gonna shrink a little bit
once it gets cooked for a while.
So you wanna leave it a little bit bigger
than what you actually wanna eat.
Now, I'm just gonna say it's about an inch
is about what I like to use.
Now, as I always say, a sharp knife really helps
get the job done a little bit quicker,
as well as having the meat pretty cold
when you start cutting on it.
This knife is made by Dexter.
It's one of my favorite brands.
It's a great all-around knife,
and it is a eight-inch butcher knife.
All right, now our Dutch oven's getting nice and warm.
Most people like to use vegetable oil.
You can use any kinda oil you want.
I'm gonna use a little bit of
(spoon clanking) beef tallow today.
This is my own homemade beef tallow that I make,
you know, just from brisket trimming.
We like to use it on a lot of different things
here at the house.
Make sure you have enough oil just to kinda
barely cover the bottom.
All right. Our pan is smoking hot.
So we're gonna go ahead and add some of this meat in here.
(meat sizzling) Ooh, listen to that sizzle.
It's hot, all right.
(meat sizzling)
It will cool off a little bit with this meat.
And one of the things you have to do is keep stirring.
Ideally, I say, ideally, you'd have a little bit less meat,
so that all the meat is touching the pan on the bottom.
(meat sizzling)
But if you keep stirring it like this
(meat sizzling)
you'll be able to brown it all.
It just takes a little bit longer to do it this way.
You just gotta kinda keep the pan hot.
Let that oil get hot. Let the meat release moisture.
The meat's gonna release a lotta moisture.
You'll see it get a little bit of water in a little while.
(meat sizzling) There we go.
We almost have all the meat touching the bottom here,
so the pan can get hot again.
The cold meat cooled the bottom of the pan,
but we do wanna sear that meat,
so we wanna let it get hot again
before we keep moving it around.
While the meat is releasing moisture,
I'm gonna add 2 teaspoons of my OG Rub,
salt, pepper, and garlic.
We're also gonna add some fresh garlic,
a little bit of celery,
little bit of comino, and a little bit of black pepper,
and just a hint of oregano there towards the end.
All right, let's get that OG stirred up in there.
(spoon clacking)
I want that salt, pepper, and garlic
to dissolve a little bit with the water,
so that the meat as it starts to warm up
will absorb some of those flavors.
(meat sizzling) All right,
we got rid of all that moisture.
All you see down here now is oil. That good, delicious oil.
You can see down here it's starting to brown on the bottom.
All right, now that we're completely out of moisture,
you wanna keep stirring.
(meat sizzling)
And it's not a constant stir.
You wanna let them sit a little bit
so they can get that brown color.
You see there's one that's browned up really nice there.
All right, now we have here some little bit of celery,
little bit of onion, and a little bit of bell pepper.
We're gonna throw that onion in the there first.
I wanna get that caramelized as the meat's starting to brown
almost completely now.
(spoon scraping)
I'm not gonna add any more fire for a little while,
'cause I want that meat to simmer nice and slow
once we get all the ingredients put in here.
Whoo, that meat's really nicely browned.
That's looking really good.
That liquid down here in the bottom,
that's just straight up oil.
Nothing wrong with that.
Got some really good flavor going on.
All right. Our onions are getting nice and caramelized.
It's time to add the other two veggies.
We're gonna throw our celery in here.
Now, celery's not a real common thing
with the carne guisada,
but that's the way my mom's always made it.
It does add another little flavor.
So I like that flavor in there. I'm gonna throw it in there.
Bell peppers are another thing that not everybody uses.
It's very common in the South Texas carne guisada cuisine.
It's really up to you, and what flavor profile
you're trying to accomplish at the end.
And those don't take but about 30 seconds in that oil,
and you can use whatever you want.
Most people just use water from the faucet.
You can use beef broth.
My mom likes to use a little bit of chicken stock.
And many times I'll use beef broth when I feel like
I'm wanting a little beefier flavor.
Today, we're just gonna add some water.
(water sizzles)
You're gonna hear it sizzle.
It's gonna slow down a little bit.
I'm gonna wait a couple of seconds
so that that water gets hot,
and then I'll add a little bit more
so it doesn't cool down too much.
There's no measurement on the water either, folks.
I mean, it just really depends on how big your pot is,
how much meat you have in there.
The hotter it cooks, the more water you're gonna need,
'cause some of it's gonna steam out.
If you're cooking nice and slow,
you're gonna use a little bit less water.
So just kinda eyeball it and use your judgment.
Basically, you're gonna want to cover the meat
maybe about another half-inch or so.
You want the meat to simmer under the water a little bit
for that first half hour. (water sloshing)
So we're gonna cover it right about there.
And at this point, I'm gonna add a little bit more.
I wanna make sure (water sloshing)
it's nicely covered up.
Now, we're gonna go ahead and cover it up.
And let that start to simmer.
And what I'm gonna do with my fire now,
I'm gonna move my coals to the side
(tongs clanking) so I don't get too hot,
simmer just right for about 45 minutes to an hour.
Right around there.
All right, now you see we got
a nice little simmer going there.
It's simmering, just, it's not a rolling, fast boil.
It's just a nice little simmer.
We're gonna cover it back up.
We'll be back in about 45 minutes.
Check it out.
All right, my friends.
Now, one of the things that my mom always does,
and I totally agree, using the molcajete,
and grinding the garlic and the comino
always seems to make a lot better.
We're gonna use three garlic cloves here.
And a little bit of cumin, (glass clanks)
I'm gonna say that's about a half a teaspoon, approximately.
(grinder clattering)
There's just something special about
grinding up that garlic in here,
and then throwing in a little bit of cumin.
This, if you could smell this, (chuckles)
that cumin and garlic together smells amazing.
Now, another thing we're gonna add is
a little bit of black pepper,
and we're also using OG in our,
as our seasoning for the meat.
So we're not gonna go too much pepper or too much cumin,
just enough to add that fresh cracked pepper,
You wanna make it into somewhat of a little paste.
And here, when we're just about done,
we're gonna add a little bit of water,
doesn't take a whole lot.
(grinder rasping)
Might need a little bit more than that.
But see how that made a real nice little paste there.
Everything's fresh ground, man, the aroma's just amazing.
All right, a little bit more water,
and we're ready to go put this into our cooking pot.
Yep. We're good to go.
All right, friends, it's probably been about 15 minutes.
We're gonna come back and pull the lid off,
and I'm using a little tool here, because now it's very hot,
and we're gonna go ahead and add our cumin,
our garlic, (glass rasping)
and our cracked black pepper.
Ooh, baby. That smells so good already.
(glass rasping)
Make sure I don't miss any of that stuff.
All right, there we go.
All right, give it a little bit of stir.
Make sure everything kinda gets incorporated
into the liquid here.
We're gonna put the lid back on,
and we'll be back in a few minutes.
In about 15, 20 more minutes, we're gonna throw the tomato.
All right, let's get our lid back on,
and let that thing do its magic.
All right, friends, it's been another 15 minutes or so.
We're gonna go ahead and take the lid off one more time.
We're gonna add a little bit of tomato,
and a little bit of tomato sauce.
Now, this is one whole Roma tomato.
We're gonna put that in there.
(knife rasping)
You can see that it's a nice, slow simmer.
That's really what you want to break down
the collagen and the connective tissue
inside that chuck meat.
You want that nice, slow, steady, consistent simmer.
All right, we're gonna take
about a half a can of tomato sauce.
Gives us a nice flavor, puts little acid in there,
and it also colors the broth a little bit as well.
Let's get our lid back on and let the magic happen.
All right, friends, it's been another 15 minutes,
that meat's been cooking for approximately 40 minutes or so.
I like to add a little bit of oregano.
It's just gonna be a little sprinkle, about like that.
We'll be back in about 10 minutes to add the flour.
We're almost done cooking here. This is awesome.
All right, friends, it's been right at one hour.
We're pretty much done with the cooking process.
I'm gonna pull the lid off, and we're gonna add this water
with a little flour in it. (water sloshing)
Get that all in there. (spoon rasping)
All right. We're gonna stir that in just a little bit.
(slurps) It's pretty damn good.
But it does need a little more salt.
So I'm gonna add another teaspoon of OG here.
This has salt, pepper, and garlic.
Obviously, we like this stuff a lot in my house.
(spoon clangs) So we use it on everything.
That was about one and a half teaspoons, approximately.
Lemme stir it up a little bit more,
make sure that it incorporates well.
The color on this is amazing, it looks beautiful
with that little bit of tomato sauce in there.
Look at that. That looks gorgeous.
Man, oh, man. Look at that. Just beautiful.
All right, we're gonna give it another 15 minutes
with the flour in there, let it get nice and thick and rich.
And then we'll see you guys inside in just a few minutes.
(Dutch oven clattering)
All right, friends.
Inside this pretty old Dutch oven
lies some magical carne guisada.
Let's not wait any longer, man,
'cause I'm starving, (chuckling)
and I wanna eat some carne guisada right now, baby.
This is just amazing.
Look at that. (carne guisada sloshing)
The gravy is just so pretty.
It has that nice, pretty, red color to it.
You really want a nice, reddish carne guisada,
you can add paprika or chili powder.
You don't really need it. Look at that.
That looks gorgeous just the way it is. Just perfect.
There's a lot of different sides that go with carne guisada.
In a lotta restaurants,
mashed potatoes is a very common thing.
I personally love mashed potatoes.
Very, very traditional down here in South Texas
is rice and beans, sometimes the beans are refried.
Sometimes they're fresh Pinto beans.
Do it any way you like.
Anything you put in extra, carne guisada goes great.
(spoon scraping)
And serve me a little bit of this carne guisada right here.
And we're going to put a little bit of mashed potatoes
right here next to the carne guisada.
Kinda like in school, you remember they would
make a little dimple in the potatoes?
I like to do that here at home.
And add me a little bit of gravy in there.
Mm-mm! (spoon clatters)
Last thing that goes on our plate here today
is gonna be the little bit of lettuce and tomatoes.
I'm one of the luckiest men alive,
'cause I get to do what I love to do.
But today, I have a special bonus.
I'm also a very lucky man, 'cause I have a wonderful wife.
She went outta her way to make
another little part of side dish,
that is not a traditional thing with carne guisada,
but it is here in our house,
and that is called cowboy bread.
Pan de campo, baby.
Woo-woo. Man, oh, man.
Am I lucky guy or what?
Yeah. And it's cooked perfectly. It's beautiful.
So friends, now is the moment of truth.
Let's try our meat, see what it tastes like.
We know it looks gorgeous and amazing.
Look, this is how you want your meat to be.
Look at this. It's just fork tender.
Just falls apart with a fork. Look at that.
Mm.
Man, you know, it has just the perfect amount of salt,
a real slight hint of the garlic in there.
And that gravy's just really delicious.
And it's just the right thickness.
We cooked just the right amount of flour.
It's not super thick, or goop-y, but just right.
You know, just that little bit of bell pepper,
little bit of fresh garlic and cumin,
and just a hint of that oregano really makes that gravy pop,
and it just goes so well with that chuck meat.
Just fantastic.
These smooth potatoes with a little gravy on there.
Mm, mm, mm-mm-mm.
Oh, man. That's good.
I can put that on pan de campo.
(chuckles) And it's just amazing. It's so good.
Mm. Sop up a little gravy with that.
Woo-woo.
That's just fantastic.
Just fantastic.
All right, friends, once again,
if you like what you saw today in this video
please hit the like button.
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Share it with your friends and your family.
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If you're interested in the OG Rub,
or even my WOW Rub, you can find that at pitmaster.us.
Now, if you really wanna up your barbecue game,
check out my online barbecue classes at
pitmasterclass.us.
Guys and girls, it's been a really fun time
doing this video with you guys.
I hope you enjoyed it.
Y'all remember to keep the smoke light and make it work.
A pro tip is that you need to simmer it just right,
if you boil it too fast and too long,
you'll lose all the flavor,
and cause that meat to be dry, mushy, and it'll fall apart.
You also need a good recipe
with the right amount of flour,
to get the just right amount of consistency
to your carne guisda,
and not too runny, and not too thick.
If you're gonna run a cold fire like we do in this video,
you need to have enough coals on the side ready to go,
and ready to add to the fire
over the duration of the cook,
in order to maintain the heat
and keep the temperature consistent,
and the carne guisda simmering just right.
Now if you're on the stovetop,
then that's a bit easier,
since you can just sear on high heat,
than back it down to a nice simmer,
usually somewhere around low to medium heat
just pop the top off,
make sure it's a nice simmer
and not a rolling boil.
Today though, we're cooking it cowboy style.
Yeah buddy, let's go.