Local Mexican Supermarket and Birria

In my journey of learning Spanish, I made friend with a Mexican guy who was super enthusiastic and passionate about helping me learn about Mexican culture. Last week, he introduced me to a dish named Birria, which is a Mexican beef stew with lots of ingredients. As a food gourmet and a cuisine enthusiast, I decided to make my move by making the dish on Saturday.

Making The Broth Base

Here in Lafayette, Indiana, there are a decent number of Supermarket or supermercado made by the Mexican immigrants. La Tapatia is one of them and it seems to be the most popular supermarket to shop around. Before shopping, I planned my cooking and shopping trip in the most efficient way possible. I watched a video that my friend recommended from a channel named La Capital. In the channel the creator showed a step-by-step instruction on how to make beef birria and most of the ingredients are foreign and exotic. This excited me because I got to try some spices and ingredients I have never used before. It was surprising for me to know more about the different types of chiles secos, or dried chili: chile pasilla, chile ancho, chile guajillo, so on and so forth. What surprised me more was that they are not spicy at all. They gave a slight taste of spicy, but not that burning hot sensation at all. I also bought some allspices, cumin, and black pepper for the cooking. While shopping, I noticed that this supermarket also sell menudo on saturday and sunday! Sabado y Domingo. I'm curious about the taste and the flavor of the soup. I know that menudo is rich in protein, which is what I really need, and they are often cheap because not many people dare to try the dish here. It cost me around $17 in total for the ingredients, not bad! After this, I went straight to Pay less supermarket to get the beef chuck roast which was on sale that day, and got myself some beef marrow bones to make proper broth. Oh, by the way, when I went to the cashier, I straight up spoke Spanish to them, though it's only "Hola" and "Gracias", I feel more confident now.

Making Salsa Rojo

It took me around 3 to 4 hours in total to make the soup and to make the beef more tender and juicy. I guess cooking is a test of patience where you have to wait to get the best of the flavor. It definitely paid off after 4 hours of patiently waiting. I had a great soup bowl and the beef was definitely juicy and at the point where it's not too dry. I kept worrying about the meat because if you cook it for too long, beef chuck, which contains mostly lean meat, will dry up and it's not happy to eat them. So I will call it a success. ¡Tuve éxito! I sent the photos of what I did to the friends and posted on my Instagram stories for some validation of myself (duh). It was a tranquill and calm day even though it stormed violently outside. The silver lining was that I didn't have to water all my plants, so that's one less thing to do.

Speaking of my Spanish skill, I think I have improved a lot. I also discovered a new Spanish anime that is actually based in Spain, and is originally created by Spanish animators in the anime style. Se llama "The Idhun Chronicles". I actually enjoyed it because it has friendship elements, urban fantasy, and not too cliché, I think. Ultimately, I want to improve my listening comprehension over time, so I was debating myself whether I should make use of the subtitle to help me understand it better, or watch the series without the subtitle and let the context and animations provide the clue and I can actually immerse and comprehend further. I think I will just make use of the subtitle but try not to look at it often and guess the actions and the dialogues based on the storyline. I think that would work.

Final product!

That's all for the update for my blog! Until next time, see you.