Slow Cooked Osso Bucco Tacos: Recipe

Usually I use flank steak for my tacos but the other day I used slow cooked osso bucco meat and I really enjoyed the flavour and texture. Some people like to do a salsa and guacamole separately but I like to combine the tomatoes with the guacamole to make things easier.

This is a really flexible recipe and you can combine the ingredients as you wish to make tacos just the way you like. If you don’t add cheese (and I don’t think there’s any need to with this recipe) they are actually quite healthy too.

Preparation Time: 1 hour       /          Cooking Time: 4.5 hours          /          Serves 4

Ingredients

The Osso Bucco

• 1.4kg osso bucco meat
• 1 tbsp (15g) Mexican oregano
• ¼tsp (1.25g) sweet paprika
• 1 jalapeño chilli, halved lengthwise
•  1 small brown onion, finely sliced
• 1 garlic clove, finely sliced
• 3 cups (750ml) water
• 1 cup (250ml) orange juice
• 1 lime, juiced
• salt & pepper to taste

The Tortillas

• 2 cups (500g) maize flour
• 1 cup (250ml)hot tap water
• 5 tbsp (75ml) water

The Black Beans

• 2 bay leaves
• 400g cooked black beans
• 6 peppercorns
• 1tsp (5ml) oil

The Guacamole

• 500g avocado flesh (about 5 small avocados)
• 1 garlic clove
• 15g fresh coriander, finely chopped
• 10 cherry tomatoes, quartered
• 1 lime, juiced
• ½tsp (2.5g) rock salt

Method

The Osso Bucco

1. Place all of the ingredients into a heavy bottomed pot and bring to the boil.
2. Reduce to a simmer and leave simmering on the stove for 4.5 hours uncovered.
3. After 4.5 hours, the meat should fall off the bone and there should be very little liquid left. Discard the bones and any excess liquid.

The Tortillas

1. Combine the flour and 1 cup of water in a bowl.
2. If the dough does not form a ball, add 1 tbsp of water, and then another 1tbsp of water and so on until the flour and dough have completely combined. This is very dependent on how humid the kitchen is.
3. Cover the dough with cling film and set aside for 30 minutes.
4. Divide the dough into 20 balls.
5. Place the dough balls one by one into a floured tortilla press and flatten.
6. Cook the tortillas on a hot frying pan for 2 minutes per side, until they are ever so slightly brown.

The Black Beans

1. Heat the oil in a large frying pan. Add the peppercorns and bay leaves to the hot oil.
2. After 3 minutes, add the black beans and cook for a further 5 minutes – until the beans are heated through and mushy.

The Guacamole

1. Add the garlic, onion and rock salt to a pestle and mortar and mash into a paste.
2. Add one avocado at a time to the mortar and combine. You may need to transfer the mashed avocado to a bigger bowl as you go.
3. Transfer all of the mashed avocado to a bowl and add the coriander, tomato and lime.
4. Mix well.

To Finish

1. Put the meat, black beans, avocado and, if you like, cheese and hot sauce into separate containers and serve with the tortillas, letting those eating combine the ingredients on each tortilla as they please.

Notes

If you use already made tortillas, the preparation time will reduce to 20 minutes.

You can roll the tortillas with a rolling pin however it’s quite time consuming and it’s hard to get consistency. If you plan on making tacos a few times, it’s well worth getting a simple, inexpensive tortilla press.