Paleo Venison-Braised Burritos

Last year my friend Conrad made me a fajita dinner where he used Cabbage leaves as the taco shell. Up until that time, I had tried to use lettuce leaves as the "tortilla" - or I just made a big taco salad of sorts. Cabbage leaf as tortilla = Fantastic.

I also wanted to try a recipe from Nom Nom Palo for Oven-Braised Mexican Beef - which is a slow-cooked (3 hours) recipe that includes some salsa, chicken broth, chili powder, onions, etc. The meat turned out very tasty, though I wanted even more spice. I'll make this again, but will really amp up the spices - I found that I wanted more of a mole sauce with chocolate and chipotle. (I ended up sprinkling unsweetened chocolate powder on there, which added a nice touch.) I wondered if people make beef mole sauce, and it turns out they do, though of course chicken is most common. Until I get to my own beef mole, here is her recipe that I used (which is very easy) with slight modifications:

Oven-Braised Mexican Beef (or Venison):

Nom Nom Paleo's lovely photo

2½ pounds boneless beef short ribs, brisket, or stew meat cut into 1½-inch cubes
1 tablespoon chili powder
1 teaspoon chipotle
1½ teaspoons kosher salt
1 tablespoon coconut oil or fat of choice
1 medium onion, thinly sliced
1 tablespoon tomato paste
6 garlic cloves, peeled and smashed (optional)
2 T unsweetened chocolate powder, or 2 oz. 80% chocolate
½ cup roasted salsa (I used my homemade salsa and then added some liquid smoke)
½ cup chicken stock
½ teaspoon gf fish sauce (I used some anchovy paste)

1. Preheat oven to 300 degrees; position oven rack in bottom 1/3 of oven.
2. In a large bowl blend beef, spices, and salt. Stir to cover meat evenly.
3. In a large casserole dish, melt fat and add onions. When translucent, add tomato paste, garlic, and chocolate. Stir and cook for 30 seconds to coat onions. Add beef, salsa, stock and fish sauce/anchovy paste. Bring to a boil.
4. Cover and place in oven for 3 hours or until beef is tender. Taste for seasoning and adjust in needed.

I served mine with some sauteed peppers, more salsa, and lettuce, all wrapped in steamed red cabbage leaves. To steam the cabbage leaves, it works best to put the whole cabbage head in a large steamer pot. Cut out the core first, and then set the cabbage core side down in the steamer. After 15 minutes, the outer layers should easily peel off. Continue steaming to get more layers, and stop whenever you have enough. You can lay the fixings inside and wrap it up, or you can do a tight roll. Photo here is the looser variety (with a different filling, but you get the idea!) *You can do this with raw cabbage too, it just tears as it comes off of the cabbage.