Barbacoa Beef?

With all the culinary know how flying around here I thought I'd throw this question out to the group. Does anyone have a good recipe for barbacoa beef? After tamales it is probaby my favorite mexican food item. I now live nowhere near any good places to get it so I'm stucking making it myself.

Any assistance is appreciated.

In south Texas barbacoa is made from the cheek meat of a cow's head. In northern Mexico they use the entire head. Also goat (cabrito) and lamb is used.

Try this recipe

Mr. Scruffy said:

In south Texas barbacoa is made from the cheek meat of a cow's head. In northern Mexico they use the entire head. Also goat (cabrito) and lamb is used.

Try this recipe

Click to expand...

Use the whole head. It's completely worth it and you can probably get a cow head for virtually nothing.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VMERELibOH8[/youtube]

Im a Taqueria freak and eat Barbacoa every weekend.
Its traditionally a Saturday and Sunday morning dish along with Menudo in South Texas.
All the Mom and Pop joints use Beef Cheek Meat. In fact the Sams wholesale clubs sell it in bulk around here for that reason.
It can no longer be cooked in the ground and sold for public sale any more for obvious health dept regulations.
That said there are a couple of places in the valley that were "grandfathered" in and still sell it the old traditional way.
Getting the whole head is fun but you better find a hell of a big place to cook it and enough friends that wont freak out when you unwrap a cow cranium!
That recipe of Jim Peytons is a perfectly good one and works well.Here is another link to a great recipe also.
http://www.robbwalsh.com/2009/03/serious-bbq-barbacoa-de-borrego/

tejasjeff said:

That recipe of Jim Peytons is a perfectly good one and works well.Here is another link to a great recipe also.
http://www.robbwalsh.com/2009/03/serious-bbq-barbacoa-de-borrego/

Click to expand...

It's hard not to go with Robb Walsh on this one. That mans *knows* the food down here like few others. My one complaint with his recipe is that you'll need way more cilantro to dress the tacos

I remember grandma making this dish occasionally. I can't seem to find a good barbacoa place in Austin.