Chef Isabel
Cachopo Asturiano
Cachopo is Asturian comfort food with no mystery: two thin veal fillets, jamon, melting cheese, a firm seal, and enough oil to fry it golden without leaking.
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Morros a la Vizcaína
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Morros a la Vizcaína belongs to Bizkaia: beef snout cooked tender, sliced thick, and settled into salsa vizcaína, the Basque sauce of choricero peppers and onion.
Main Dishes
Spanish
Comfort Food
Make Ahead
One Pot
35 min
Active Time
3 hr 20 min cook•3 hr 55 min total
Yield4 to 6 servings
Morros a la Vizcaína is Basque, from Bizkaia, and it is not just meat in a red sauce. The dish is beef snout, morro, cooked until the gelatine softens, then finished in salsa vizcaína: dried choricero peppers, onion cooked slowly until sweet, garlic, and the cooking broth. That pepper sauce is what gives the dish its surname.
The part that decides it is patience twice over. First the morro must simmer until a knife slips in without force. Not bouncy, not rubbery, not falling apart. Then the onion for the sauce must cook low and slow until it goes dark gold and jammy, because that sweetness is what carries the choricero pepper. Rush it and the sauce tastes thin, with a raw edge no blender can fix.
If you are far from a Basque butcher, ask for cleaned beef snout first, veal snout second. If you cannot get either, beef cheek gives you a good stew but not the same gelatine; pig's trotter gives the gelatine but changes the flavor. I would choose beef cheek for a family table and tell everyone honestly what changed. No hace falta haber pisado España, but you do have to respect the cut.
Serve it with bread or boiled potatoes, because the sauce is half the meal. My Margin for this one says only: "la salsa manda," the sauce rules. Siempre sale, si lo sigues.
Morros a la Vizcaína belongs to the Basque tradition of casquería, the careful home use of offal and gelatinous cuts that made a slaughtered animal feed a household properly. Salsa vizcaína takes its character from the dried choricero pepper, a red pepper kept dry in Basque kitchens and scraped for its sweet pulp after soaking. The same sauce is better known with bacalao, salt cod, but in Bizkaia it also gives depth to tripe, trotters, and morros.
The technique, the tradition, and the story behind every dish.
Discover Culinary ExplorerIngredients
cleaned beef snout
Quantity
1.2kg
cut into large pieces
coarse salt
Quantity
2 tablespoons
for rubbing
white wine vinegar
Quantity
2 tablespoons
for rinsing
onion
Quantity
1 large
halved, for simmering
carrot
Quantity
1
cut in large pieces
leek
Quantity
1
cleaned and cut in large pieces
bay leaves
Quantity
2
black peppercorns
Quantity
8
salt
Quantity
2 teaspoons, plus more to taste
cold water
Quantity
2 litres, or enough to cover
dried choricero peppers
Quantity
8
hot water
Quantity
500ml
for soaking the peppers
olive oil
Quantity
60ml
onions
Quantity
600g
thinly sliced
garlic cloves
Quantity
4
thinly sliced
day-old bread
Quantity
40g
torn into pieces
dry white wine or txakoli
Quantity
150ml
reserved morro cooking broth
Quantity
500ml
sweet pimentón (optional)
Quantity
1 teaspoon
only if the choricero peppers are pale
parsley (optional)
Quantity
1 tablespoon
chopped
| Ingredient | Quantity |
|---|---|
| cleaned beef snoutcut into large pieces | 1.2kg |
| coarse saltfor rubbing | 2 tablespoons |
| white wine vinegarfor rinsing | 2 tablespoons |
| onionhalved, for simmering | 1 large |
| carrotcut in large pieces | 1 |
| leekcleaned and cut in large pieces | 1 |
| bay leaves | 2 |
| black peppercorns | 8 |
| salt | 2 teaspoons, plus more to taste |
| cold water | 2 litres, or enough to cover |
| dried choricero peppers | 8 |
| hot waterfor soaking the peppers | 500ml |
| olive oil | 60ml |
| onionsthinly sliced | 600g |
| garlic clovesthinly sliced | 4 |
| day-old breadtorn into pieces | 40g |
| dry white wine or txakoli | 150ml |
| reserved morro cooking broth | 500ml |
| sweet pimentón (optional)only if the choricero peppers are pale | 1 teaspoon |
| parsley (optional)chopped | 1 tablespoon |
Equipment Needed
- •Large heavy pot or olla, 5 to 6 litres
- •Wide cazuela or heavy saute pan
- •Food mill or blender and fine sieve
- •Sharp knife
Instructions
- 1
Clean the morro
Rub the beef snout with the coarse salt, rinse it well, then rinse again with the vinegar and cold water. Put it in a pot, cover with fresh cold water, bring to a boil, and boil for 5 minutes. Drain and rinse the morro and the pot. This first boil is not fussiness; it gives you a cleaner broth and a sauce that tastes of pepper and onion, not of scum.
Buy the morro already cleaned and singed by the butcher if you can. If it smells sour or strong after rinsing, do not cook it. Sourcing wins. - 2
Simmer until tender
Return the rinsed morro to the pot with the halved onion, carrot, leek, bay leaves, peppercorns, and 2 teaspoons salt. Add enough cold water to cover by 3cm, bring it up slowly, then lower the heat to a quiet simmer. Cook until a knife slips into the thickest piece without force, about 2 hours 15 minutes to 2 hours 45 minutes. Do not hard-boil it or the outside loosens before the middle is tender.
- 3
Soak the peppers
While the morro cooks, open the dried choricero peppers, shake out the seeds, and cover them with 500ml hot water for 30 minutes. When soft, scrape the red pulp from the skins with the back of a knife and keep the pulp. Throw away the skins. That pulp, not tomato, is the heart of salsa vizcaína.
- 4
Cook the onion
Warm the olive oil in a wide cazuela or heavy pan. Add the 600g sliced onions with a pinch of salt and cook over low heat for 35 to 45 minutes, stirring often, until they are dark gold, soft, and almost jammy. Add the garlic for the last 8 minutes so it sweetens without burning. This slow onion is the floor of the sauce; rush it and the whole dish tastes thinner.
- 5
Build the sauce
Add the torn bread to the onions and let it drink in the oil for 2 minutes. Stir in the choricero pepper pulp, and the pimentón only if your peppers were weak in color, then pour in the wine. Let it bubble down by half. Add 500ml of the strained morro cooking broth and simmer gently for 20 minutes, until the bread has softened and the sauce looks deep red-brown and glossy.
- 6
Pass it smooth
Pass the sauce through a food mill, or blend it and push it through a fine sieve if you need to. It should be smooth but not thin, coating the back of a spoon. Taste for salt. If it is too thick, loosen it with a little more cooking broth; if it is too sharp, simmer it 5 minutes longer. Pésalo, no lo adivines at the start, then taste like a cook at the end.
- 7
Slice and finish
Lift the cooked morro from the broth and let it cool just enough to handle. Slice it into thick bite-size pieces, about 2cm wide. Set the pieces into the sauce and simmer very gently for 20 minutes, shaking the pan now and then so the sauce reaches every fold. The morro should turn silky and sticky at the edges, with the sauce clinging to it.
- 8
Rest and serve
Take the pan off the heat and let it rest 10 minutes before serving. Scatter with parsley if you like, though it needs nothing. Serve with boiled potatoes or good bread for the sauce. Tal como se hace allí, plain and deep, with no decoration pretending to improve it.
Chef Tips
- •Choricero peppers are worth finding. If you cannot get them, use 35g jarred carne de pimiento choricero. If even that is missing, use dried ñora peppers, knowing the sauce will be rounder and less Basque in its flavor. Do not replace the sauce with tomato and paprika and call it the same dish.
- •Cleaned beef snout is usually sold through butchers who handle offal. Veal snout works beautifully and cooks a little faster. Beef cheek makes a respectable stew in the same sauce, but it loses the gelatinous bite that makes morros what they are.
- •The sauce should be passed smooth. A blender alone can leave pepper skin and onion fibers behind, so use a food mill or sieve if you have one. Salsa vizcaína should coat the morro like velvet, not sit in rough pieces around it.
- •This is better the next day. The gelatine sets, the sauce tightens, and the pepper flavor settles into the meat. Reheat it slowly with a splash of broth or water, shaking the pan instead of stirring hard.
- •Serve it with boiled potatoes, fried potatoes, or bread, and something sharp beside it if you want balance: guindillas in vinegar, a simple green salad, or a glass of txakoli. The dish itself is rich; let the table do the cutting.
Advance Preparation
- •The morro can be simmered one day ahead. Cool it in its strained broth, refrigerate it, then lift off any set fat before making the sauce.
- •The full dish can be made one day ahead and reheated gently. Add a splash of reserved broth or water if the sauce tightens too much in the refrigerator.
- •Choricero peppers can be soaked and scraped several hours ahead; keep the pulp covered in the refrigerator until the sauce is ready.
Frequently Asked Questions
Nutrition Information
1 serving (about 360g)
Calories
605 calories
Total Fat
38 g
Saturated Fat
11 g
Trans Fat
0 g
Unsaturated Fat
27 g
Cholesterol
180 mg
Sodium
900 mg
Total Carbohydrates
21 g
Dietary Fiber
4 g
Sugars
8 g
Protein
44 g
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