My friends at Café de Nopal have been offering birria tacos (goat Jalisco style) with broth for some time now, so I decided to try to prepare reindeer the same way.  The result was excellent, probably one of the best attempts at Finnish-Mexican fusion I’ve gone for.

Reindeer birria, tacos & broth

Ingredients (serves 4)

• 16 tortillas
• 1 kg of reindeer meat without bone (luuton sisäpaisti)
• 2 cloves of garlic
• 6 dried Chile de árbol chillies (without seeds, sliced and diced)
• 1 dried chile ancho (without seeds, sliced and diced)
• 2 teaspoons of cumin
• 4 tomatoes (sliced and diced)
• ½ onion (sliced and diced)
• salt
• Cooking oil
• Coriander
• Mexican salsa roja or taquera
• Green lemons/limes

Warm the oil and fry the garlic, onion and chillies until they’re soft.  Add half a litre of water and the cumin.  Let boil a few minutes.  Blend this mix and then sift it.  Return the sauce to the fire and add4 litres of water.  Cut the meat in small cubes and add it together with the tomato.  Leave cooking for 3-4 hours, add more water if necessary.  Serve the broth separately from the meat.  Warm the tortillas.  Offer some sliced and diced onion with coriander and lemons on the side for people to put together their own tacos.  Serve with Mexican rice and pico de gallo on the side.

In many cultures it is common to take advantage of all parts of an animal, not only the average meat.  As I had been missing beef tongue tacos (a Mexican delicacy) for some time, I decided to try the same with reindeer when I found it sold in my local supermarket.  The taste was very good, if a little gamy.

Tacos de lengua de reno

Ingredients (serves 2)

• 500 g of reindeer tongue (2-3 tongues)
• 1 full head of garlic
• 1 white onion
• Couple of stems and leaves of hierba buena (or spearmint)
• Couple of stems of dill (or dried dill where available)

Peel the garlic. Cut the onion in 4 parts. Add the hierba buena, dill, and the tongues and boil everything in water for 1.5 hours. Peel the tongues and cut in small cubes.

Serve with warm tortillas.  Salad and rice as good optional sides.  Don’t forget a good sauce (a taco without sauce is a sad taco), we had some salsa taquera but I’m sure some pico de gallo would also work great.

What started as an emergency procedure during my student years has become a more common practice, and every once in a while I like combining Finnish ingredients with Mexican spices to produce something unique.  Two of my more celebrated recipes are below, I hope you like them.

Some of the spices needed can be bought in Meksikolainen.fi or Mexgrocer.co.uk.  I just bring them from Mexico when I’m there

Salmón Pibil

Ingredients (serves 2-3)

• 1/2 bar of achiote paste
• 250 ml orange juice (pressed or otherwise)
• 1 small (100 g) tin of chipotle chillies
• 1/2 small pineapple or 1 orange
• 1/2 red onion
• 500g of salmon fillet

Grate the achiote and dissolve in orange juice until you get a bright orange liquid.  Put salmon in a flat oven-safe recipient and add achiote marinade.  Add the chillies (be sure to rub them with the salmon).  Cut the onion in half rings and add.  Cut the pineapple/orange in slices and decorate salmon with it.Leave in oven at 170 °C for 1-1.5 hour until ready.  It should be crisp but with enough liquid.

Mole nórdico con reno / Manchamanteles negro con reno

(we’re still debating the name of this one)

Ingredients (serves 3)

• 2 morita chillies
• 2 pasilla chillies
• 2 dried chiles de árbol
• 2 guajillo chillies
• 2 ancho chillies
• 4 spoons of cranberry juice
• 125 ml cloudberry juice
• 450g of reindeer or elk meat in small pieces (if using elk, it’s not “reno” but “alce”).

Blend everything but the meat together.  Cook sauce and elk together slowly with a little of added water to give even more time for the flavours to ripen in the fire.  Should be ready in 45 minutes to an hour.