al pastor sloppy joe

I really love a regular, basic sloppy joe.  It is a comfort food for me. In college it would be a cheap and  easy go to go with anything from a hangover to the munchies.  I guess the same can be said about al pastor tacos, and this is why I combined them into a delicious, sloppy sandwich.

Chile guajillo on the left and chile ancho on the right before and after roasting in the oven.



Adding boiling water to the dried chiles and covered for 20 min to soften.

This is the guajillo/ancho paste after blending with some of the steeping liquid.

I blended this with pineapple, chipotles, cumin, oregano, bay leaves, roasted garlic, salt, and pepper.

I then heated oil and pork fat until smoking and poured in the sauce to fry it.

 I brought it to a boil to denature the enzyme in pineapple that breaks down pork to avoid mush.

I mixed some of the cooked al pastor sauce with browned ground pork and spread in a baking dish.

I topped with chopped up pineapple and roasted on the highest setting to brown and crisp.

The sloppy joe was served as a torta on a toasted bolillo with avocado, rajas, crema, manchego cheese and cilantro. 

I spread additional al pastor sauce on the bottom half of the bolillo.

There was a great amount of heat coming from the sloppy joe without being overwhelming.

The sweetness of the pineapple with spicy pork is always something I always love together.

guisado de puerco

pork belly :). 

added cubed pork shoulder after rendering the belly fat.

poblanos, jalapeños, hungarian banana peppers charring over an open flame.

more chile action.

my pretty bowl of roasted chiles, I covered with a plastic bag to let them sweat.

using a knife, I scrap off the seeds on the inside and the charred skin on the outside.

getting some color on onion, tomatillos, garlic.  after, these were put in a blender with cumin, oregano, bay leaves.

chiles going in the molcajete. 

pretty chiles after getting smashed up.

i mixed the chiles and tomatillo mixture together and fried in the pork fat. this is halfway through stewing.

guisado de puerco con frijolitos and tortillas <3

Puerco Guisado en Leche con Frijoles, Rajas y Chochoyotes

In a previous post, I made pork shoulder braised in a milk steeped with toasted ancho and pasilla chiles.  I definitely ate a lot of this as is, but I wanted to incorporate such a delicious preparation into it's own dish.  This is the result: Ancho-Pasilla Milk Braised Pork with slow cooked beans, rajas, chochoyotes, and carrot escabeche:

The idea for this dish centered originally on the pork and the desire to make chochoyotes with some sort of rich sauce or soup.  Chochoyotes are basically masa dumplings that are used in soups or for sopping up various delicious moles and braising liquids.  For mine, I combined masa harina, cotija cheese, and water.  Usually a fat like lard is used, I think I would add some, but the cheese provided some richness.  I took small balls of the masa and while holding them in one hand, I pressed them with the thumb of the other to give them the shape.  After this was done, I boiled in some water for a couple of minutes until they started floating to the surface.  To finish this component, I cooked through in a pan with homemade beans in its own broth.

The next component I prepared were the rajas. Rajas are simply poblano peppers that are roasted and cut into strips.  I like to roast them over an open flame, turning when the side touching the flame begins to blacken and blister, like below.  After achieving this on as many surfaces as possible, I placed the poblanos in a plastic bag to steam for about 15 minutes, I then peeled them, sliced into strips and sautéed with some onion and garlic.

The final component involved something acidic and crisp to balance out some of the richness in this dish.  I made carrot escabeche which is a quick pickle that involves heating vinegar and pouring over sliced vegetables.  In a jar, I combined carrots I cut into sticks, garlic, and toasted pasilla that I broke up into pieces.  I added salt, pepper and bay leaf before pouring simmering white vinegar until covered.  I sealed the jar and placed in the refrigerator to cool.  This can be eaten when cooled, it doesn't ferment like regular pickles.  This is what it looked like after a day:

Now that I had all my parts together I began to put it all together.  I put the chochoyotes with beans on the plate first, making sure to spoon some of the bean broth over top, next the layer of rajas, and finally a few pieces of the ancho-pasilla milk braised pork from the day before.  I spooned some of the gravy from the pork over top as well. The milky gravy was delicious with all the other components and it all came together very nicely.  Finally, I placed some carrot escabeche on the side to crunch on in between bites, this worked well with the richer elements in the dish.  I was very pleased with how this dish came out and made notes on the preparation of the chochoyotes and rajas which I will share in following posts.

Pork Shoulder Braised in Toasted Pasilla Ancho Milk

In a previous post, I made an ice cream from a toasted ancho base. Before adding the sugar, it struck me how delicious the steeped milk was in a savory way. Since then, I have been trying to think of a way to incorporate this into some sort of meat or vegetable dish. I remember a while back I made a coconut milk braised pork dish that came out great. I took the same idea and decided to braise with ancho milk. Looking around I noticed that there were several recipes for milk braised pork, they looked delicious and I was excited to get going.

To start, I toasted ancho and pasilla chiles. While to me they both have a raisin type quality, anchos are more fruity with bittersweet notes, and pasillsas have a more earthy quality to them and seem slightly sweet. I love how the ancho gets a deeper reddish brown color when toasted.  The inside of the pasilla turned almost golden and tobacco brown the more they toasted.  Careful while toasting darker chiles, because it is hard to distinguish their normal deep colors from just burnt black.

After toasting and cooling for a couple of minutes after removing from the comal, the chiles can be broken up into pieces.  I broke them up into about 3 cups of half and half, brought up to a simmer and let them steep for 20 minutes.  The resulting color is somewhat like a very light café con leche, maybe more on the tan side. I wound up straining and pressing the chiles through a chinois to get as much of the flavor out, but for braising I think blending would work as well.

I removed the steeped chile mixture and seared my pork shoulder in the pan on both sides until browned. Once I removed the pork, I added some sliced onion and garlic before returning the milk mixture to the pan.  I placed the pork shoulder in the pan along with a few bay leaves and cooked at 325 for 4 hours, making sure to flip the pork every 30 minutes. 

pork in chile milk ready for the oven

This was absolutely delicious, the pork had a fantastic texture and reminded me of carnitas in places, the outside of the pork got this dark caramelized color.  My favorite part was the aroma and complexity of flavors the chiles provided to this, it all came together nicely.  As a result of the braising process, the milk cooks down and is just reduced to these caramelized milk solids that are infused with the flavors of pork and spices. I used an immersion circulator to blend and break these down. Once blended, delicious creamy sauce is created for spooning over to top.







chichilo negro

I have to admit, I have never made mole from scratch and I get asked about from time to time. Meaning "sauce" or "concoction", mole is a laborious dish, involving individual preparation of any combination of chiles, vegetables, spices, herbs, seeds, and nuts which are either toasted, fried, or charred.  These ingredients are then blended together and fried in lard or some other sort of fat and combined with meat broth to coomplete the final sauce.  Though they seem to involve an excessive amount of ingredients, they all meld together to create one unique sauce. I guess it is the complexity of mole that has held me back, but I want to change that.  I want to challenge myself and take the time it requires to make good food. I want to explore and keep learning new things in the kitchen, to really experience these the smells and the sounds of new procedures, and to keep honing my skills.

The recipe I chose to go with to begin my mole journey is from Diana Kennedy's The Art of Mexican Cooking. This book is more a collection of family favorite dishes from different regions of Mexico.  Many of these recipes I have never seen, and are specific to each cook. There are various mole recipes with their own variations and special touches. One of my other goals is to work through this book in it's entirety so I'm also glad to get started on that.

The dish I chose is chichilo negro or black beef stew. It is a darker sauce due to the charring of various of the components and it's traditional use of a black chile, the chilhuacle.  I was not able to find this chile, but Kennedy offers guajillos as an option of which there are plenty here. This mole was also interesting in that it uses primarily beef and some pork.

The cut of beef I used was beef short ribs.  The recipe called for either ribs or brisket.  I definitely want to give brisket a shot for the next time I make this. I also used about a pound of cubed pork shoulder meat.  I placed the beef and pork into a large pot with one chopped onion and 1 crushed clove of garlic.  I added just enough water to cover the meat and let it simmer for about 1 hour.  The resulting liquid will be used as the final component in the mole.

My first group of ingredients to prepare were the chile pasilla, chile guajillo, onion, tomatillos, and garlic.  I prepared the chiles by slicing lengthwise and removing all the seeds.  I saved the seeds as these become a component of the sauce itself.  19 dried chiles can be somewhat tedious but I found with each chile, the process became more familiar and seemed to go a bit more quickly. I heated up a wide skillet over high heat to begin toasting the chiles.

The smell of the chiles as they cooked on the skillet was amazing.  It is a smoky fruity aroma that is just every comforting and welcoming.  I tried to get a decent char on each side.  Actually, Kennedy suggests toasting each side of the guajillo until completely blackened.  I didn't take them this far unfortunately and will probably try getting them darker next time.  I would imagine this adds a bit more of a bitter and smoky flavor of the sauce. The chile in the back is the lone pasilla, the flesh got a bit more tobacco brown as it heated up in the skillet.

After removing from the chiles from the skillet, I rinsed them in cold water, then covered them in hot water for 15 min.  They'll soften during this time, so that they can be blended into the mole.

After I was done with the chiles, I added the onion, unpeeled garlic, and tomatillos to the dry skillet. As with the chiles, the goal was to get somewhat of a char on each side. I got a bit impatient during this step but eventually the vegetables got cooked through after several minutes of turning on the skillet.

I first removed the garlic, notice how the skins get black in certain parts.  The clove just slips right out at this point. The garlic was sweet and sticky but still pungent, I kind of wanted to just eat one at that point.  The tomatillos onions softed and got blackened in places.  I wanted to let these go further but was getting some seriously smoke coming from the skillet.  Next time, I'm going to try a combination of cooking in the skillet on the stove top as well as in the broiler to get more of a consistent roast all around.

I saved the seeds from 1 pasilla and 18 guajillos.  It ultimately didn't seem like a lot considering how much seemed come out of each individual chile.  The recipe called for toasting these until black.  New smells came from the seeds as they cooked, nutty and sweet, it almost smelled like bread was baking. On the other burner, I began toasting a tortilla over an open flame.  As the recipe suggested, I let the tortilla burn until flaming and then tossed on top of the seeds in the pot.

I did this with one more tortilla before dousing in cold water. I let this combination sit for about 5 minutes before draining. Considering that this particular mole doesn't have any other nuts, it seems that the chile seeds would serve this purpose.  I was curious to see how this flavor plays out in the final dish. This along with the other previously roasted ingredients are used to start the base for the mole.

It was interesting to find out that there is a specific type of oregano used for this dish that is Oaxacan oregano.  Apparently this is different from Mexican oregano.  Thankfully, the recipe showed an alternate measurement for the latter.  The other spices and herbs I used were cumin seeds, cloves, allspice, and thyme. The recipe also called for marjoram, which I unfortunately didn't have at the time.

I added all the ingredients except for the chiles in a large pitcher and combined using a stick blender. It was interesting to see the sauce at this point.  It was gray, the color of the seeds and tortillas at the time really showed through.

I added the chiles a few at a time and blending in between additions.  I think this is because makes it easier to really grind down the chiles and properly combine them into the rest of the mole.  To loosen the sauce as I blended it, I added a bit of broth from boiled chayote and green beans that are later added to the dish.  Once, all the ingredients were combined, I added a couple of tablespoons of lard to a large pot and fried the mole on high.  I scraped the bottom of the pan to make sure it wasn't sticking. After about 25 min the sauce thickens, and the flavors concentrate.

After simmering for about an hour, the beef was tender and the bones easily slid out.  I set these aside along with the pork to cool down.  I later chopped these into large chunks to be later added to the mole.

The second to last component of the dish is a ball of masa that is first blended with some of the beef broth, then added to the mole. The original recipe calls for masa made from cooking dried corn in water and powdered lime.  I hope to make this at some point, but for this recipe, I used masa harina mixed with water. The masa acts as a thickening agent while imparting some additional corn flavor.   After stirring in the masa and broth mixture, I cooked for 5 min, before adding in the remaining beef broth. I added the beef and pork that I chopped earlier, then simmered for an additional 15 minutes.

I served the chichilo negro with white rice that I cooked in vegetable broth along with boiled chayote and green beans.  The sauce was rich and had a nutty taste to it.  It wasn't as spicy as I had expected, but I still got a good touch of heat at the end.  The guajillos added some degree of sweetness that you sometimes expect in a mole as well. Overal it had a wonderful and complex taste.  I definitely got the roasted flavor, but can see that I needed to do a bit more charring during my preparation.

There were various components to this dish, and I felt it was a good introduction to the process involved in creating a mole. I felt that I learned some things I can't quite pinpoint, maybe it was the patience to prepare each individual ingredient.  I also feel a lot of it was tied to the smells that came from each ingredient, or the way the chiles changed texture when they were being toasted then again after being soaked. I was impressed with the flavor the seeds brought to the dish, it is something I never did before, but can definitely see using from now on. It is one of those things I kind of assumed I knew how it would go, until I actually tried it.

coconut milk braised pork

I love pork and I love coconut so obviously both together would be amazing.  I had a spare can of coconut milk in my cabinet and wanted to use it.  I initially thought of other recipes I've done which basically involve braising pork shoulder in liquid. Most recipes I found seem to incorporate ginger and lemongrass. That sounded good so I went with that. I also wanted it to be fairly spiced with cumin and coriander.

I began by first adding ginger, lemongrass, chile serrano, and garlic cloves to a molcajete.

I smashed all the ingredients together until it formed somewhat of a paste.

These are pork shoulder steaks.  These seemed easier to manage versus a full shoulder for a weekday meal.

Adding salt to the pork steaks before browning in the dutch oven.

After flipping the second steak.  I'm getting better at not checking it and just letting it get nice and brown.

I removed the pork steaks after cooking at set to the side to prepare the rest of the stew ingredients.

I added coriander and cumin seeds and heated through in the remaining oil and pork fat to extract the flavor.

I added my garlic/ginger/lemongrass/chile paste and sliced onion to the porky spices in the pot.

I added the can of coconut milk along with a canful of water and scraped the pork pieces stuck to the pan.

I placed the pork steaks in the coconut mixture then let it boil slightly before covering and braising on low.

The pork was falling apart after a few hours. It was tender and and the coconut came through.

Not wanting to waste the delicious porky coconut goodness, I added kale to the leftover broth.

I broke the pork up into pieces and placed over rice.  I then ladled kale and coconut broth over.  The dish is rich as expected so to counteract that a little bit I squeezed limed juice before serving.  The spices really came through well and I especially the cumin coming through in the coconut milk.