Tag: Latin American
Chiapas Roast Pork
Chiapas Roast Pork
Cochito al horno is the Mexican state of Chiapas most popular recipe. This pork adobo is traditionally roasted in a clay pot, but a Dutch oven or baking dish will get the job done. Serve the pork with tortillas, beans, rice, and all of the fixings. If there are any leftovers, the pork is great on sandwiches.
Equipment
- Food processor or blender
Ingredients
- 3 lbs pork shoulder cut into 2”-3” pieces
- 6 dried ancho peppers
- 2 medium tomatoes diced
- 1/2 medium white onion
- 5 garlic cloves
- 12 allspice berries ground in a spice grinder
- 3 whole cloves ground in a spice grinder
- 6 bay leaves ground in a spice grinder
- 1 cinnamon stick ground in a spice grinder
- 1 tbsp dried thyme
- 1/2 cup vinegar
- salt to taste
Instructions
- Soak the ancho chilies in hot water for 20 minutes.
- Add the soaked chilies and 1 1/2 cups of the soaking liquid along with the tomatoes, onions, garlic, dried spices, and vinegar to a food processor.
- Purée until smooth.
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Pour the sauce over the pork shoulder in a Dutch oven. Roast covered for 90 minutes.
- Take the cover off the pot and roast for 20 more minutes.
Beef Short Rib Fried Flour Tacos
Beef Short Rib Fried Flour Tacos
The purpose of this recipe is to show how to give a leftover a second life. The previous night I made the Argentinian beef short ribs. I had a pound leftover. So my high ass thought, let’s turn these into tacos and eat them with the potato tacos and have a meat and potato taco night. Oh yesss…it happened. So I deboned the leftover short ribs, fried it up, and made fried flour tacos. You can really do this with any leftover beef, pork, or chicken; as long as it is somewhat neutral in flavor. The ribs were just seasoned with sea salt and lime juice.Warning! Especially if you are a high ass and impatient: make sure to take the toothpicks out of the tacos. Say I “sleepwalk” to the refrigerator at 3 in the morning and go “Ooooo, tacos!” and don’t want to heat them up and assemble. I’m just going to eat them as is. Take out the toothpicks. Do it before yo go to bed, for your safety. Now I’m going to do that this moment before I pass out and have a 3AM sleepy time snack.
Equipment
- toothpicks
Ingredients
- 1 lb leftover beef short ribs deboned and diced
- 1 tbsp vegetable oil
- 6 flour tortillas
- vegetable oil for frying
Toppings
- queso fresco crumbled
- cabbage shredded
- Mexican sour cream
- your favorite hot sauce
Instructions
- Heat up cooking oil in a sauté pan over medium heat. Fry the beef for 10 minutes. Drain any excess grease. Let cool.
- Place 2 heaping tbsp of the beef on the top half of the flour tortilla.
- Fold up and hold close with 3 toothpicks.
- You should yield 6 tacos.
- Heat up cooking oil in a sauté pan over medium high heat. Place 3-4 tacos in the pan, making sure to not overcrowd.
- Fry for 2 minutes a side until crispy.
- Drain on paper towel.
Taqueria Style Salsa
Taqueria Style Salsa
This salsa is a basic tomato based recipe that you can find at any taqueria in Mexico. The arbol chilies are fairly hot, so adjust the heat accordingly to your taste buds. This is also a good base for any red salsa if you are looking for a specific flavor of pepper. Some other dried peppers you should check out include piquin chilies, pasilla, morita, ancho, puya, just to name a few.
Equipment
- Food processor or blender
Ingredients
- 1 large tomato
- 5 small tomatillos
- 6 garlic cloves
- 1/2 mecium onion
- 15 dried arbol chilies
- 3 tbsp vegetable oil
- salt to taste
Instructions
- Dry roast the vegetables in a sauté pan over medium high heat for 8 minutes. Remove from pan.
- Dry roast the arbol chilies for 2 minutes. Remove from pan.
- Add the vegetables and dried peppers to a blender or food processor. Purée until smooth.
- Heat up cooking oil in the same sauté pan over medium heat. Fry the red sauce for 5 minutes, scraping the bottom of the pan. Season with salt to taste. Let cool before and refrigerate before serving.
