Jesse Valenciana finds ways to use birria at breakfast and on the grill

We often assume that for chefs, part of their repertoire is a generational legacy, that they learned these dishes and techniques at the hip of an abuela. Not Jesse Valenciana. Raised in Chicago and now living in Nashville, his obsession with birria — that spicy, smoky, stewy meat — grew slowly. He has turned that obsession into a cookbook… Birrias: 65 Recipes from Traditional to Modern.

Evan Kleiman: Tell me about your first bowl of birria.

Jesse Valenciana: Oh, man, the romantic story in my head, and this is the first memory that I really have in my head, my father used to take us to a bunch of different Mexican food places in Chicago. He played soccer in a bunch of different leagues, so he knew everybody. And a lot of the guys that played on these teams were cooks at different places, so he would always take us around town. 

The story that sticks with me is this one birria place in a neighborhood called Pilsen, which used to be a big Mexican neighborhood in Chicago. Now, it's a little bit more gentrified, and by a little bit, I mean a lot gentrified, but it still has a lot of really good Mexican restaurants. There's one place that I remember going into, and my dad knew the cook. I remember, I was like, what's birria? I don't know what this is. I wanted something else. But he was kind of the guy that was like, this is what you're going to eat because this is what I want to eat. 

So we have this birria and I remember the meat not tasting really great. There was something about it that was very off-putting. It turns out, it was goat. That's why I didn't like it. The cook saw how bothered I was by it, and he's like, here, try this. The next bowl that I got, it felt so different. It was so flavorful, and there were all these nuances to it. When you're a kid, you don't have that vocabulary but I was like, this tastes different, and it tastes really great. It turns out, all he did was switch out my bowl of goat birria to beef birria. For me, that was like night and day. That was my first bowl of birria that I really remember. 

Many years later, I'm talking decades, when COVID hit, and everybody was practicing their sourdough recipes, I was at home, kind of being nostalgic. And I was like, I remember this bowl of birria that changed me and made me really fall in love with that stew. I want to try to make that myself. I became obsessed, and just started making birria as often as I could.

During the pandemic, Jesse Valenciana became obsessed with birria and its versatility in recipes. Photo by Clayton Hauck.

There is so much variety amongst the preparations of different birrias. Are there certain cardinal spice blends or rules or techniques that allow it to be called a birria?

If you talk to 10 different people that make birria, they all make it their own way, and they all add a different spice. I grew up going to certain spots and becoming very familiar with their spices. I don't feel that there should be rules. I'm sure some people have rules. 

For me, it's getting a good spice blend, making a good base. So your adobo is your base. My spices that I swear by are ancho chili, guajillo, and I've got a couple of extra secret spices that I don't always share with people, but my favorite spice to add in there is cascabel. For me, the most important rule is low and slow. Once you've got your preferred spice blend, it's really about taking your time with it — the adobo, cooking that down, and making sure that the spices are nice and blending in with each other.

One of the really interesting essays you have in your new book is your essay about a birria starter, "a generational birria," you call it. Can you describe what it is and how that carryover liquid really ups your finished dish?

I do this method that I started calling my generational birria starter. What I was doing was saving the liquid from each batch of birria that I was making and using that in future iterations of my birria. I would compare the ones that had it and the ones that didn't. This richness, the depth of the flavor, from the ones that had the previous generation liquid, it was night and day. I swear by that. I think it really adds such a different dimension, and it really sets it apart from other birrias you might have out there.

A birria-styled poblano chile wrapped in a corn husk and thrown on the grill was inspired by a Rick Bayless recipe. Photo by Clayton Hauck.

There are always going to be people who are going to want to experiment by taking the birria spices and the whole idea of consommé but making it chicken or fish. If we want to do that, and that doesn't horrify you... 

It doesn't. 

What do you recommend in terms of what parts we should be using of the chicken, for example, and which fish you think is served? 

Honestly, for me, when it comes to chicken, I always use dark meat. I think dark meat is more flavorful, it's juicier, and it holds up well. I love using chicken thighs. When it comes to fish, I like a good hearty fish, not something too flaky. You want something that's gonna hold up. Unlike beef or goat, fish you don't want to cook it down for hours. It's really just birria in name.

Let's talk about birria throughout the day. Let's start with breakfast. I understand that your mom used leftover birria in the morning. 

Growing up, there were four of us kids, and my mom had to cook for all of us. Whatever you had left over, you found a way to incorporate it into the next day's meal. Whether it was breakfast, lunch or dinner, you'd find that. So birria added to breakfast dishes was my personal and, to this day, it's still one of my favorites. 

I do these birria chilaquiles. I'm getting hungry just thinking about them. When we would visit Mexico City, there's a lot of great places for steak chilaquiles. Ever since I was a kid, I loved them. I've always been a big meat-eater. When I started cooking, that was one of the first things that my brain went to. It was like, "Oh, you know what would be really good with this? Chilaquiles with birria." And it's like mom used to make these. It was a whole big, long story, memory and nostalgia and these flavors.

"Birrias" offers traditional recipes alongside new ways to incorporate the stewy meat into various dishes. Photo courtesy of The Quarto Group.

I love that. Everyone who knows me knows that I have an unhealthy love of chile relleno. It's kind of an obsession. I understand that you have a grilled version that you've had in rotation for 15 years. I can't wait to try it. Could you describe it for us? 

I love, love, love... I can't stress enough how much I love chile poblano. I just love how much depth is in that chile. When I was a kid, there were a lot of roasted red peppers and green peppers, and I thought they were all the same. When I really got to try poblano, the softness of a roasted poblano was just something that I absolutely loved. 

Fast forward many years, and I'm learning to cook. Before my first book came out, I was really obsessed with grilling. Somebody had a recipe for roasted poblanos, and I got to thinking, "You know what'd be really cool? If we did a stuffed poblano, like a chile relleno, but over the grill." And actually, chef Rick Bayless had a really great recipe, and that's what inspired me to make mine. 

I love a traditional chile relleno because I like that fried breading on the outside. But the grilled one, there's something also about the smokiness, the cooking it over live fire, that I think makes it so good. And the chile itself is so tender, so when you bite into it, all these flavors meld together and it's a wonderful thing.

I also love how you take your chile, which you've grilled and gotten rid of the skin and the seeds, and you stuff it with the the birria, then wrap it up in a soaked corn husk, and put that on the grill to allow the the birria and the cheese that's inside there to melt. It's such a pretty presentation when you unwrap it.

By that point, all you're really doing is... Your birria has already cooked. You're just melting that cheese. And again, those flavors all come together, and it looks really nice. The presentation is great. You could top it with whatever salsa you like. For something like that, I like to add a little bit of heat to it. A habanero salsa on that is, to me, perfection.

Talking about poblanos, I understand that you have a healthy disdain for ranch so you devised rancho. Tell me about it.

My best friend, Jacob, he's from Texas. He was giving me a hard time because he asked for ranch. He's at my house, and he and I cook together a lot. In my head, I'm like here's this guy who is this very respected chef, and he's asking me for ranch, and he's giving me a hard time because I don't have ranch. I said, "I'm going to create a sauce that's going to be all-purpose, like ranch, and I'll show you. It'll be better than ranch."

I created this poblano sauce. It's kind of a joke. I was calling it rancho sauce. When he came over, I had a few people over and I was grilling for people. I had a little bowl where I filled it with my rancho sauce, which is a roasted poblano sauce. I was putting it on tacos, I was putting it on burgers. I would ask people, "Which one's your favorite sauce?" And everybody had a different reason for picking the sauce that they thought was for the tacos, not knowing that it was all the same sauce. It just took on the flavors of what they were having it with. 

I had to come up with a name, and I called it rancho because it was slightly better than ranch. It was rancho.

Well, Jesse, thank you so much. This has been such a fun conversation, and the book is really wonderful and super approachable. 

What I love about that book is that it was approachable. This was my first time where I got to tell these personal stories. I feel that food always has these personal stories, and I wanted people to not just make food but to hear my story and kind of put themselves in my shoes.

Well, you achieved that. Thank you so much.