Why Carne Guisada Is the Ultimate Weeknight Braise

0:00 Hey, this dish is called carne gisada, and it's my first time ever making it.

0:05 Why exactly?

0:06 Well, in this series, I'm learning about and cooking four brazed dishes

0:10 from around the world that I've never made before.

0:13 And for episode 3, we have a Texas and Mexican classic,

0:17 slow braised beef that is commonly served with beans and Mexican rice.

0:20 But the meat can also be used in tacos, quesadillas, or tostadas.

0:25 Now, for each dish in the series, I'm keeping track of two things.

0:29 First is the brazing framework, where I'll break down the cut used,

0:33 the brazy liquid, the key aromatics, and the form factor.

0:36 And secondly, I'm going to keep track of some home

0:38 cooking metrics like the number of ingredients used, the active time,

0:42 the brazing time, and I'm giving my personal

0:44 flavor ranking in a final taste test,

0:47 so we can compare and contrast throughout the series.

0:50 So to start, let's break down the brazing framework so we

0:53 can understand the secret to making great Carnegie sada at home.

1:00 First up, we've got the cut of meat.

1:02 And Carnegie sada is traditionally made

1:03 with tough connective tissue heavy cuts of beef.

1:07 And these cuts stay juicy over long cooking.

1:09 And more importantly,

1:10 all that connective tissue slowly turns from collagen into gelatin,

1:14 which improves the texture of the sauce.

1:16 And this is one of those dishes where looking

1:18 for a cheap cut of beef isn't a compromise.

1:21 It's kind of the whole point.

1:22 If we were making something like luro fun in episode two,

1:25 I'd steer you to look for pork belly specifically if you have it available.

1:29 But with Carnegie sada, my mentality is the complete opposite.

1:33 I would walk into the grocery store, see what's on sale,

1:36 see what looks like a good deal, and then build the dish around that.

1:39 So, I found a chuck roast on sale for $4.99 per pound.

1:43 And I also decided to pick up a pack of beef cheeks

1:46 that I'll show you how to trim up later in this video.

1:49 Next up is the brazing liquid.

1:51 And traditionally, the liquid here is pretty simple.

1:54 Usually, it's some fresh or canned tomatoes of some

1:56 sort that are then topped up with water or beeftock.

1:59 And the liquid is mostly there just to carry everything through the brace,

2:02 which is very different from the other dishes in episodes 1 and two.

2:06 For example, in Carbon Flam in episode 1, the beer is a major part of the dish.

2:11 It's where you get a lot of those signature aromomas and flavors.

2:15 Then in episode 2, the luro fun brazing

2:17 liquid is driven by light and dark soy sauces,

2:19 shaing wine, and sugar, which gives you that really distinct salty,

2:23 umami, and slightly sweet profile.

2:25 Carnegie sada, though, doesn't really work like that.

2:28 The liquid is simple on purpose, which is what makes the dish so flexible.

2:32 If you have beeftock, great, use it.

2:34 If not, water is totally fine.

2:36 If you have tomato sauce, throw some in.

2:38 But chopped tomatoes, canned tomatoes, tomato paste, all of it works.

2:42 And because the brazing liquid is pretty simple,

2:44 this means the aromatics and spices are where

2:47 you really define the personality of your carneada.

2:51 Now, if you look around at recipes online,

2:53 there are so many variations when it comes to the key aromatics.

2:57 But in general, the key ingredients tend to fall into two categories:

3:01 fresh aromatics and dried spices.

3:03 Fresh aromatics are things like the onions, bell pepper, celery,

3:07 and these are going to give you sweetness,

3:08 body, and kind of that slowcooked savory backbone.

3:11 Then you've got your dried spices.

3:13 These can be cumin, chili powder, black pepper, paprika,

3:16 a whole host of different spices or chili purees are out there.

3:20 There's really no single correct mix here.

3:22 I bet every family has their own little variations.

3:25 Now, for my fresh aromatics, I'm going to be using onions and bell pepper,

3:29 which are pretty common in many recipes.

3:31 But I'm also going to chuck in a couple of small

3:33 whole pablanos that are somehow still groy in my garden.

3:36 And this feels like the perfect use case for that.

3:38 Now, for the spice mix, I'm going to use cumin and chili powder.

3:41 And then I'm going to also add two

3:43 less common additions from the recipes that I saw,

3:45 which are smoked paprika and a little bit of coriander.

3:48 The smoked paprika is going to do two things for me here.

3:50 First, it's going to deepen that color a bit, and secondly,

3:53 add a subtle smoky note that I think

3:55 will really work well with a slow braise beat.

3:57 Then the coriander is just going to give

3:59 that kind of a tiny bit of background floral note.

4:02 It's not traditional for everyone, but that's kind of the point.

4:05 This part of the dish is very adjustable

4:07 and you should really make it how you want.

4:09 And I would love to hear from all of you

4:11 if you or someone in your family makes this dish.

4:14 Let me know what kinds of fresh aromatics and spices you typically use.

4:19 And finally, we've got the form factor.

4:21 And this is another reason that I love the flexibility of this dish.

4:25 If you're at a TMEX spot, especially in Texas,

4:27 Carnegiada usually sews up with reffried beans and Mexican rice,

4:31 but that's just one option.

4:33 The leftovers are great for spooning into tacos,

4:35 tortas, or using in quesadillas.

4:37 And this is why I'm going to make a really big batch

4:40 of this, so I can freeze the leftovers and pull them out for quick meals.

4:44 So, now that we understand the framework components,

4:46 let's see how long it takes to make my version,

4:48 and then I'll meet you back here for the final taste test.

4:54 [music] Okay, so let's cook.

4:58 And this might be one of the simpler preps of this series.

5:02 I'm just going to start chopping up these aromatics that I have first.

5:06 Then I'll go ahead and chop up the beef.

5:07 And I'm going to show you those beef cheeks in case you guys have never cooked

5:11 with them before because I think they're a really

5:13 um underrated cut if you can find them.

5:16 For both the peppers and onions here, I'm just going for a medium dice.

5:19 Nothing too precise is needed.

5:21 So, for the pepper, I'll cut the sides into four big pieces.

5:24 Then, also make sure to save that little nub in the middle and chop it up, too.

5:27 There's no reason to waste any of it.

5:29 Then, once I've got the flat pieces, I slice them across into planks.

5:33 Then, cut across again to get that medium dice.

5:36 And it's the same general idea with the onion.

5:39 I took half the onion, cut off the root and stem, peel it,

5:41 then made a few vertical cuts,

5:43 and just cutting straight across to finish the dice.

5:46 And in total, this took a minute and 30 seconds to get into the bowl.

5:50 Now, to finish out the vegetable prep,

5:51 I realized I was missing a can of tomato sauce for the liquid.

5:54 So, instead, I'm just chopping up some fresh tomatoes that I had on hand.

5:58 And I'll show this later, but once these cook down,

6:00 they end up forming a big part

6:01 of that saucy backbone along with some tomato paste.

6:04 And then, like I mentioned in the framework section,

6:06 I've also got a few small pablano peppers

6:09 that are somehow still growing throughout the winter.

6:11 It's Texas, so it hasn't been that cold.

6:13 So, I just remove the leaves and stems

6:15 from those, and we'll toss them into our braze hole.

6:17 And after another 90 seconds,

6:19 that brings our total vegetable prep to three minutes.

6:22 And now we're ready to prep the beef.

6:24 Okay, so I have my beef choices for this.

6:26 So chuck roast.

6:27 I've used this plenty of times.

6:28 And then beef cheek is an interesting cut.

6:30 And this looks like a lot of meat, but I do need to trim off a lot of this fat.

6:35 There's a ton of extra fat on this.

6:37 Um I'll keep the fat and kind of render it down probably for some beef tallow.

6:40 But as you guys will see when I cut into this beautiful

6:44 looking um cut of meat with tons of that interuscular fat in here.

6:48 For the beef, I start with the chuck roast.

6:50 They took it straight out of the packaging, then cut it into long strips,

6:54 then cut those in half and into smaller cubes.

6:57 And as I went, I kind of trimmed off some of the larger pieces of surface fat,

7:02 mostly because there's going to be plenty

7:03 of fat coming from the beef cheeks themselves.

7:06 And just for the chuck roast, that took about two and a half minutes

7:08 to get everything chopped and into a bowl.

7:10 And that's what I'm going to be counting as the official time.

7:13 I mean, even if you started with pre-shop stew meat, this would be even faster.

7:16 But the beef cheeks are going to take me a bit more work.

7:20 So, these beef cheeks are straight from the grocery store,

7:22 and they usually come in a vacuum

7:24 sealed pack like this because they're totally unprocessed,

7:27 which means there's a lot in here that we're going to trim away.

7:30 And I first heard about beef cheeks from Loy and Lewis,

7:32 which is a barbecue place in Austin.

7:34 and they've got this great video where they show how they trim,

7:37 season, and cook the cheeks whole before slicing them.

7:40 And ever since then, I'm always looking for a reason to use them.

7:44 So, I'm going to start by trimming them down into those bigger,

7:46 cleaner pieces like you'd see in their process.

7:49 But instead of leaving them whole,

7:50 I'm going to cut them into smaller size and shape to match the chuck roast.

7:55 And once you trim away a lot of that excess fat and connective tissue,

7:59 you really start to expose some of that good looking, wellarbled meat.

8:04 It's definitely not something you'd cook like in a steak,

8:06 but it's perfect for a long slow cooking dish

8:09 like carnegisada where all of that's going to break down.

8:12 And after transferring everything to the bowl, we are ready to cook.

8:16 Okay, so like I mentioned, the beef cheeks, there is quite a bit of just trim.

8:19 It's fat or like very cartilagy kind of connective tissue stuff that like

8:24 probably is not going to break down that well in the brace.

8:27 But I can cook this down, turn it into beef tallow,

8:29 or maybe I'll just cook it up and kind

8:31 of use it for Hopper's dog food this week.

8:33 Um, but as you can see, we got a ton of beef ready to go.

8:36 And now that we have the beef and the aromatics ready,

8:38 all we have to do is head back to the stove and start this braze.

8:43 Okay, so back at the stove, going to toss some oil down into the Dutch oven.

8:47 And then now we just have to cook everything up,

8:49 which really shouldn't take much more than maybe 10 or so minutes.

8:52 So, let's get into it.

8:54 Okay, so it doesn't really matter what order you go in.

8:56 I'm just going to toss in our onions and bell pepper

9:00 and then give these a little sweat down with some salt.

9:05 So, while the onions and peppers are sweating down,

9:08 I'm going to let them go for about 2 minutes.

9:10 I'm going to prep that spice mix we talked about.

9:12 So, I'm using one big spoonful of ground cumin seed,

9:15 a spoonful of ancho chili powder, a spoonful of smoked paprika,

9:19 which is going to give us a lot of really nice color.

9:21 Then, I'm adding just a little bit of crushed coriander.

9:24 Okay, so bell pepper and onions starting to smell great.

9:26 Now I'm going to toss in our little spice mix here.

9:30 Right into that oil to get those kind of mixture

9:33 of the fresh aromatics with the ones from the spices.

9:38 And this is really going to set kind of that aroma backbone for the carnegada.

9:44 To finish out the aromatic base,

9:46 I added the chopped tomatoes and then a big squirt of tomato paste.

9:49 Then as that cooks down and gets stirred together,

9:52 it starts forming that kind of rich saucy base.

9:54 And you can really tell how much flavor is going to be in that brace.

9:58 And I just let this mixture cook down for about 3 minutes or so.

10:01 Then once that's done, I pulled it out of the pot so we can brown the beef.

10:05 Okay, so I kind of got the aromatic mix ready.

10:07 Then I'm just going to toss in some more oil.

10:09 And it would be best to do this in batches

10:12 and kind of get a ton of browning on there.

10:14 I'm feeling lazy today.

10:15 I'm just going to throw everything in all at once and we'll get at least

10:18 the bottom brown and then just kind of mix it up and get it in the oven.

10:22 So, I just added all that beef to the pot on high heat.

10:25 And this is probably going to take a good 6 to 8 minutes to really brown up.

10:29 But this is a great window to clean as you go.

10:32 So, while the beef is cooking, I'm going to do the dishes,

10:35 put away the ingredients, and just kind of wipe things down.

10:38 I washed the wooden cutting board with some soap and water, set that out to dry.

10:41 Then I put away my spices, cleaned up the bowl that the beef was

10:44 in, and anything else that I was done using.

10:48 Okay.

10:48 So then to finish this out,

10:49 I'm just going to toss our kind of aromatic tomato saucy mix back in.

10:56 That's going to really bring all those beautiful aromomas to pair with the beef.

11:02 Then I'm going to also toss in just one bay leaf.

11:07 And then the last thing we got to do

11:08 is just top this up with beefto or some water.

11:19 Okay, then my last little addition.

11:20 These are just some they're pablanos actually um from my garden.

11:25 Figured why not chuck them in here.

11:27 Um I'll just chuck them in whole.

11:29 I think it'll be a nice little snack to kind of have once everything cooks down.

11:32 But now we're ready to let this sit low and slow.

11:36 So once everything else is added,

11:38 it only needs another 2 minutes or so in the pot.

11:41 And as you can see, this is a pretty quick braze to get set up,

11:44 even with all the chopping.

11:45 So from here, it goes into the oven to cook low and slow.

11:48 And I like using the oven for braces.

11:50 It's just easy, hands off.

11:51 You don't need to babysit the stove.

11:53 So I let it go with the lid

11:54 on for the first hour to bring everything up to temp.

11:58 But as you can see, it's still pretty pale at this stage.

12:01 So I like taking off the lid for the next 2 to 3 hours.

12:04 And this is key because the uncovered

12:06 time lets some of that excess moisture evaporate

12:09 and it's going to give us some deeper color on theos and the rest of the braise.

12:14 And after another 2 hours, you can really start to see that fat

12:17 separating on top and everything bubbling up.

12:19 It looks incredible.

12:21 Now, to finish this off,

12:22 the sauce is usually thickened with some flour that maybe you added to the beef.

12:26 But instead, I bring it back to the stove.

12:28 And first, I'm going to skim off the excess fat using

12:30 a paper towel since there's quite a bit sitting on top.

12:34 And to thicken this, I made a slurry with some cornstarch

12:36 and water and then just poured that directly into the bowl.

12:40 And bring this up to kind of a simmer until the sauce

12:42 starts to coat the meat the way I want it to.

12:45 And at this point, the carneisada is done.

12:47 You can see that sauce really clinging to the beef now.

12:50 But I actually waited until the next day to finish so we can eat this.

12:57 Okay, so it is the next day now.

12:59 But that is another great thing about braces.

13:01 You can really just leave it off and then just pop

13:03 it on the stove the next day and we're ready to go.

13:06 Now, there are plenty of ways you could serve

13:07 this, but I'm going to go kind of the classic

13:09 Texmex kind of uh restaurant style and we're

13:12 going to make some Mexican rice and reffried beans.

13:15 For the Mexican rice,

13:16 I'm following a technique I learned from one of Diana Kennedy's books.

13:19 So, I start by pouring some rice into a container.

13:21 Then, I prep a quick vegetable mixture.

13:24 Tomatoes, onion, and then a clove or two of garlic

13:26 are all going to go into a blender and get pureeed.

13:28 And this is what we'll add to the rice later on.

13:31 Now, what's interesting about this method is that you start by kind

13:33 of shallow frying the rice in a decent amount of oil.

13:36 You want to see it bubbling in the oil and even develop a little bit of color.

13:40 So, you should see some light browning on the grains.

13:43 After about 4 minutes, once that rice is toasted, you then add in that tomato,

13:47 onion, and garlic puree and let that fry off a bit as well.

13:51 Then, to finish it off, all you do is add in salt and about 1.25 parts of water.

13:56 Bring it to a boil.

13:57 And then once you kind of start

13:58 seeing these little holes forming on the surface,

14:01 turn the heat all the way down to low, cover the pot with a towel,

14:04 put the lid on, and then let it steam for about 15 minutes.

14:07 And that's it.

14:08 You end up with this really beautiful, flavorful Mexican rice.

14:12 Make sure to taste it and add some salt at the end if needed.

14:15 And what's great is while that's steaming, we can actually do the beans, too.

14:18 So for the beans, this is my standard quick reffried bean method.

14:22 And since I already had the blender out,

14:23 I just threw those pinto beans in there and blended them into a puree.

14:27 Then back of the stove, I added a clove of sliced garlic,

14:29 a small sprinkle of cumin seeds, and a little bit of vegetable bullion,

14:32 which I like for that salty and kind of roasty flavor.

14:35 Then I pour in the pureed beans,

14:37 let them come up to a simmer, and finish them with salt.

14:41 That's it.

14:41 Super simple.

14:42 So at this point, we've got all the main components ready.

14:45 The carnegiada, the Mexican rice, and the reffried beans.

14:48 So let's plate it up.

14:50 I start with a good serving of that Mexican rice.

14:52 Then follow that with the reffried beans.

14:54 Then add a couple of generous ladlefuls of that carneisada.

14:58 And to finish, I added a little queso fresco

15:00 over the beans and some pickled onions on the rice.

15:03 And that's it.

15:04 We have a really beautiful looking plate here.

15:07 Okay, so before we get into the taste test,

15:09 let's take a quick look at the cooking metrics.

15:11 So prep time was about 21 minutes to get everything into the oven.

15:15 Then from there, it needed roughly 3 or so hours of brazing.

15:19 though you could go longer if you want.

15:20 And ingredient-wise, we're looking at around 12 to 13 ingredients,

15:23 but most of these are really pantry and fridge staples.

15:26 So, carnegisada is a pretty convenient dish [music] to make at home.

15:30 But with that said, let's see how it tastes.

15:33 First meal of the day, I am excited to dive in.

15:35 Looks really beautiful as well.

15:37 Just the glossy beef, the rice, the beans.

15:41 Also, I crisp up a little flour tortilla just

15:43 on the gas burner to kind of use to scoop some up.

15:47 So, let's get into this.

15:58 Make a little bite with the beans, the rice, pickled onion.

16:05 That's about to be a good bite.

16:10 Okay, so very satisfying meal.

16:12 I love like the beans, the rice, the beef,

16:14 being able to kind of make your own little bites as you go.

16:18 As far as the flavor ranking goes, I'm going to give this one an 8.1,

16:22 which is lower than the other two episodes.

16:24 But I think what's interesting is there's a much higher degree that I would make

16:29 this again before the other two just

16:31 because Carnegieada just feels very versatile to me.

16:36 Like it's not super super strong like a chili conc carne or something like that.

16:41 So, it really works across a number of applications.

16:44 So, after I finish this meal,

16:46 I'm going to, like I said, I'm going to freeze the leftovers.

16:48 I'm also just going to keep some in the fridge.

16:49 I'm excited to make some tacos, some quesadillas,

16:53 um maybe some tostadas and things like that.

16:54 And I think that's really where the secret to like carneasada is,

16:58 is its flexibility, its versatility.

17:01 But anyway, that is going to wrap it up for me in this one.

17:04 As always, if you guys want to follow this exactly,

17:06 we'll have a recipe linked down below.

17:08 But hopefully you see really this is a versatile

17:10 dish that can be made in a number

17:12 of ways and you can really control kind of what personality you want to give it.

17:16 So that's going to wrap it up for me in this one.

17:17 I will catch you all in the next one.

17:19 Peace y'all.