Beef Buritto

By T_Daniels04

Nicks Recipe

Ingredients

• 2-3 pounds of some cut of cheap beef - Example
• 1 large yellow or sweet onion
• 1 Jalapeno pepper/small amount of garlic, if you like this.
• 1 package of rice, I use Vigo's Yellow Rice, it's spanish rice, but has good flavoring.
• 1 can/package of corn
• 1 package taco seasoning
• 1 can of refried beans
• bag of shredded cheese, or buy a hunk and have a cheese grater.
• sour cream / guacamole if you like that

Preparation

Step 1

The cheap cut of beef is bound to have some gristle running through it. Cut that off.
Cut the meat in to pieces that are about 2 inches by 1.5 inches, generally pieces that are small enough so that you can lay them all in a pan, fill it with water, and cover it, without beef sticking out everywhere
Dice the onion up in tiny pieces, no more than a quarter inch in dimensions. Do the same, but finer, for the jalapeno, and smaller still with the garlic.

Put some oil in a pan, throw in the onion, garlic, and jalapeno, about medium heat.

Let it get a little golden brown, stirring very often. ABSOLUTELY DO NOT LET THE VEGETABLES BURN OR GET CRISP. If they get "crisp" and the carbon starts to appear (the black stuff), or if they get that "thin crispy onion" appearance that smooth skinned veggies get, it's bad. The reason is these will never reduce in water/heat, so you'll have a nice consistent sauce at the end with random black 'flecks' of crisped vegetables floating around - you don't want this. (If only a few get like this, you can pick them out)
When the veggies are just about done, take them out of the pan and put them to the side.

Raise the heat to high and throw in the chunks of beef, the goal here is to sear the beef. You don't want it too crispy, but you want it to change color and get that nice darker color which adds flavor.

When the beef's done cooking to that point, lower the heat to just above simmer (if its a 1-10 scale, something like 2 is fine.) Add water, and the vegetables you cooked, and taco seasoning. Stir so it's mixed a bit, then add the lid. Stir every few hours, and check it to make sure water isn't evaporating/burning (this only happens if its too hot)

Take a fork/spoon/whatever and smush the beef around as it cooks to encourage it breaking apart and getting stringy and tender. You don't need to do this for like 3-4 hours after you set it to simmer.

When it's been cooking for a good 6+ hours you can start to see it really break apart, and you can encourage it by smushing it down while it cooks.

When it's done (usually 8 hours minimum, 8-12 hours is a good time), get a big strainer and divide the beef from the sauce/gravy, squeezing it around with a spoon to make sure you get almost all of the liquid out (this will also help break up any big chunks of vegetable/beef and make it all one happy substance)

The gravy thus you are left with (hopefully in a plastic type container or something) you want to put in the freezer.

Leave it there undisturbed for over an hour, or however long it takes for all the fat to rise to the top and solidify. When that happens, take the "lid" of fat and remove it. I break off a small chunk of the fat and put it back in though, for flavor/consistency. You don't want it to freeze the actual gravy/nonfat stuff, so check it periodically, and take it out as soon as the fat solidifies.

Pour the sauce/gravy back in to the pan (beef still off to the side somewhere else) and raise the heat to like medium high. Add a few pinches of flour/corn starch and stir/whisk constantly. This will thicken the sauce so when you plop your burrito meat on to your burrito it doesn't just slip and slide everywhere - you want it thickened up. When it's the consistency you desire, re-add the meat. If the starch/flour clumps in little balls and wont break apart, just mix it as well as you can, and then strain out the big clumps so you're left with a nice, mostly fatless gravy that isn't too runny:

Mix it back in with the meat!

Heat up the rest of your food you bought, it's all very very easy and you can follow the directions on the can/packages.

When making your burrito, steam the tortilla THOROUGHLY on the front and back several times, so its a very flexible, humid consistency.

Refried beans first, spread around.
Rice next.
Beef after that.
Corn on top of the beef.
Cheese layered on top
Line/blobs of sour cream/guacamole to the side.