Shredded Beef Tacos with Agave Jalapeno Slaw

This recipe was incredibly simple and you can use pork, beef brisket, chuck, whatever because the hours of braising could turn a rubber tire tender. I chose chuck and the ingredient list follows:

1 chuck roast - 31/2-4 pounds
Salt And Freshly Ground Black Pepper
Olive oil
1 can (7 Ounce) Chipotle Peppers In Adobo Sauce, just dump the whole thing in, no blending
2 cans Dr. Snap
1/4 cup Brown Sugar
1 large onion
2 cloves garlic
12 ounces beer, I used 1/2 bottle Irish Red and 1/2 bottle Belgian Dubbel because that's what I had been tasting from a recent liquor store visit and I didn't really care for either one. Any beer that isn't too hoppy will work.

Preheat oven to 250 degrees.
Peel the onion and cut it into wedges. Roughly dice two cloves of garlic.
Add some olive oil to the bottom of a dutch oven and heat on medium high
Generously salt and pepper the chuck roast, then sear it on all sides in the dutch oven-set it aside
Add the onions and garlic to the pot and stir for a few minutes
Put the roast back in the pot
Pour the can of chipotle peppers over the beef (include ALL the sauce.)
Pour in both cans of Dr Snap.
Pour in the beer
Add brown the sugar to the juice and stir in.
Top off with a little water (or beer) to bring it up near the top o the beef
Bring it to a low simmer

Place lid tightly on pot, then set pot in the oven. Cook for at least five hours, turning roast two or three times during the cooking process. Check meat after 3 hours and raise the temp to about 300; At around 5 hours, it should be absolutely falling apart (use two forks to test.) If it's not falling apart, return to the oven for another hour or so, but check more frequently.

Remove meat from pot and place on a cutting board or other work surface. Use two forks to shred meat, discarding large pieces of fat. Strain as much of the fat off the top of the cooking liquid as you can and discard it. Or, you can cook this in advance and stick both the meat and liquid in the fridge for a bit. I cooked this on Saturday night and skimmed off a huge orange layer of fat from the liquid Sunday morning.  Sorry. I then just ladled the liquid back over the meat until moist, but not sopping wet (Don;t want to overwhelm the flour tortilla, but if you were going to do sandwiches with this on say, a kaiser roll, by all means, just put all the meat right back into the liquid).

For the slaw:

1/2 head cabbage sliced thin
1/2 head purple cabbage sliced thin
1 carrot
1 Jalapeno
1/2 cup whole milk

1 cup mayonnaise
1 tablespoon white vinegar
3 tablespoons raw agave nectar
1 bunch cilantro leaves, barely chopped
1 lime (1/2 for slaw 1/2 for pico)
Shred the cabbage, shred the carrot, cut the Jalapeno in half lengthwise, remove seed, cut in 1/2 and then 1/4's flat side down, then cut into small 1/4 moons. Get that? Or just roughly chop it onto small pieces, but I find it's easier the neat way if I'm holding the Jalapeno side with a piece of paper towel. Add to a bowl, add the rest of the ingredients except for the cilantro, juice of 1/2 the lime  Place in the fridge for a few hours to marry the ingredients.
For the Pico De Salsa (I call it this because I make this in my vitamix and I can't quite keep it at Pico De Gallo stage regardless of how gentle I am), so it's a hybrid. In all honesty, you don't need this-or cheese-these tacos are that good on their own merit, and I'm a cheese guy, my job is to SELL YOU CHEESE! I'll give you the recipe anyway, and you can certainly top this off with some queso fresco or cotija for even more flavor.
Pico De Salsa:
5 whole plum (roma) tomatoes
1 small red onion
1/2 large or 1 small Jalapeno (split, seeded, charred under the broiler for a few minutes)
Cilantro (1/4 of the bunch)
1/2 of the lime-juice
Salt to taste
Throw it all in the vitamix (blender or food processor-even a bowl with a hand mixer or you can chop it all up freehand) and pulse for a few seconds.

Assembly:
Warm the meat
Warm up some flour tortillas
Put some meat in the tortilla
Add some slaw
Top with some roughly chopped cilantro, stems and all
Add some Pico (optional)
Add some cheese (optional)
Hell, add some guacamole or fresh avocado (optional)
Garnish with lime

That's a little over 3 pounds, it's hides it well....

I didn't want to bore you with step by step pictures, but the picture above is the end result. I didn't want to gross anyone out, so I won't show you what that liquid looks like after 6 hours in the fridge.