Puntas de Filete

Not grilled at all — the tips are browned hard and then stewed in a chilli broth until they go tender again.

Beef. Not vegetarian — contains beef, beef stock.

Ingredients

• 800 g beef fillet tips or skirt, in 3 cm pieces
• 2 tablespoons oil
• 1 onion, sliced in strips
• 4 cloves garlic, chopped
• 4 serrano chillies, in rings
• 600 g tomatoes, chopped
• 200 ml beef stock
• 2 bay leaves
• 1 teaspoon dried oregano
• salt and pepper
• corn tortillas, as on their own page, to serve

Method

1. IT IS NOT GRILLED AT ALL -- THE TIPS ARE BROWNED HARD AND THEN STEWED. That is worth stating plainly because the dish sits among grilled beef dishes and the name suggests another one. Puntas are the tapering off-cuts from the end of a fillet, or trimmed skirt: irregular, sinewy pieces that would cook unevenly on a grill and go tough on the thin ends. So they are seared in a pan for colour, and then forty minutes in a tomato and chilli broth, which takes them through firm and out the other side into tender. A dish built on the cheap ends of the animal, and the method exists because of what the cut is.
2. THEY GO THROUGH TOUGH BEFORE THEY COME BACK, AND THAT STAGE IS NOT A MISTAKE. At about fifteen minutes in the liquid the meat tightens and seems ruined. By thirty-five or forty it has relaxed again. Taken off at twenty, halfway through that curve, the dish is worse than at either end -- which is why it is timed rather than watched.
3. THEY ARE BROWNED IN TWO BATCHES IN A DRY-ISH HOT PAN. Eight hundred grams at once drops the temperature and the meat releases water and stews immediately, before any colour. Half at a time, patted dry, in a pan hot enough to make them hiss, and left alone two minutes before being turned.
4. THE TOMATO IS CHOPPED AND NOT BLENDED. This is a chunky dish, eaten in a tortilla, and chopped tomato collapses into a loose sauce with visible pieces in it. Blended, it becomes a smooth gravy and the dish loses the a-la-mexicana character that the chilli rings and onion strips are also there for.
5. THE CHILLIES GO IN IN RINGS, SEEDS AND ALL. Four serranos sliced across. It is meant to be hot -- that is the point of the dish -- and the rings are visible so anyone can push them aside. Deseeded and chopped, the heat is milder and uniform and there is no avoiding it.
6. The beef patted dry and seasoned with salt and pepper.
7. The oil heated in a wide heavy pan over a HIGH heat.
8. HALF the beef added and left 2 MINUTES without moving, then turned and given 1 minute more. Lifted out. The second batch browned the same way.
9. The heat lowered to medium and the onion strips, garlic and chilli RINGS cooked in the same pan 6 minutes.
10. The CHOPPED tomatoes added with the oregano and bay and cooked 8 MINUTES until collapsed.
11. The beef returned with the stock, and brought to a simmer.
12. Covered and simmered 35 to 40 MINUTES. At about 15 minutes the meat will seem to have gone TOUGH -- that is expected and it comes back.
13. TESTED at 35 minutes: a piece should be tender under a fork. If it still resists, another 10 minutes.
14. The lid off and the sauce reduced 5 minutes if it is loose -- it should coat the meat.
15. The bay removed. Tasted and salted.
16. Served with tortillas, spooned into them at the table.

Our own recipe. This one was written for this site rather than taken from anywhere, so there is no source to point you at. The quantities and the order of the steps are choices, not the only way to do it.

Filed under Mexico · All recipes