Pork Tinga Experiment

That is, a spicy pork filling for things like tacos.

Also, the second experiment in the little crockpot.

Ingredients:

  • Small pork roast, 1.7 lbs with bone in my case, trimmed of excess fat and divided into natural pieces
  • 1 medium onion, minced
  • 2 tsp minced garlic
  • 1 tsp thyme
  • ½ tsp salt
  • 2 cups beef broth
  • 1 T olive oil
  • 1 T oregano
  • 1 tsp cumin seed
  • 1 roma tomato, minced
  • 1 ancho chile, cut up
  • 1 bay leaf
  • 1 tsp powdered guajilo chile
  • ½ tsp chile arbol
  • ½ tsp cayenne (ran out of chile arbol)

Preparation:

Put the onion, tomato, and seasonings into a small crockpot.  Put the meat on top.

Add beef broth slowly (it takes a while to work its way down through the layers) until nearly covered (remember, crockpot should be less than ¾ full).

Cover and cook on high for 5 hours.

Take out the bone, picking off and returning any edible bits.  Mash the remaining meat with a potato masher (it should be cooked enough for this to work).

Notes:

I served this in soft corn tortillas.  Adding crystal hot sauce made it considerably better, it was not sufficiently seasoned initially. There’s too much liquid to use directly, dish it up with a slotted spoon or have very soupy tacos.

We got 4 servings out of this, each of which filled three tacos decently. Adding some garnishes, chopped onion and sour cream for example, would probably help.

The original recipe called for tomato sauce rather than actual tomato, and had no cumin in it (shock, horror!). And had numerous other differences (and was for a much bigger batch).

I’d want to increase the chiles, the cumin, and the herbs.  And add something, beer or wine or vinegar, to move the flavor that direction a bit.

 

Mexican Spicy Pork

The pork variant of the taco filling recipe from a bit ago.

Ingredients:

  • 3T or so olive oil
  • 4 yellow onions, minced
  • 10 cloves garlic, minced
  • 1.5 pounds pork (maybe somewhat less after boning and trimming)
  • 1t fresh-ground black pepper
  • 3T flour
  • 1T paprika
  • 2T cumin seeds (or so)
  • 1T ground ancho pepper
  • 1T ground guajillo pepper
  • 1/2cup accidental zinfandel vinegar (well, past-drinking zinfandel)
  • 3T oregano
  • 2 cups water
  • small corn tortillas
  • 1tsp salt
  • 3T olive oil

Directions:

Cut pork into small cubes (say 3/4″).  Mix the pepper and flour, and dredge the pork in this.

Heat 3T oil in a good skillet, and brown the pork in it.

Meanwhile, heat 3T oil in a pot big enough for the whole mess, and sauté the onions, garlic, and seasonings in this.

Add the pork when it’s done, and the wine, and about half the water (to cover).  Bring to a boil, and turn down to simmer.

Cook about an hour, adjusting water as seems fitting.

Notes

Flavor is still a little dark, and texture is a little pasty.  Maybe leave out the flour entirely?  Or at least use less, and add it as a thickener later?

This one didn’t have any salsa; didn’t seem to help or hurt.

Maybe some lime juice?

Water level and texture was better this time. Note that I used proportionally less water, not just absolutely less.

 

450° Oven

Tonight I tried a technique that I got from Lynn on The Splendid Table last weekend (while I was driving around town alone; that’s when the radio is on). She gave it in response to a college student who liked to cook and wanted a new technique (he started with stir fry, as did I).

Worked great.

It’s one of those general ideas that can be applied millions of ways.  If I understood right, the name comes from the fact that the oven temperature is really the only thing that holds true across the whole range of things you can do with it.

Here’s what I did:

Slice about 3/4lb of pork and marinate in lemon juice, olive oil, red wine, a couple of cloves of garlic, and rosemary.  Oh, and a good squirt of oriental pepper sauce.

Preheat oven to 450°.

Peel and slice one sweet potato pretty thin (3/16 kinda).

Cut one red and one green peppers into strips.

Cut two onions so they fall apart into strips.

Cut one yellow zucchini into 1/4inch-plus slices.

Dump the veggies into a pan as big as will fit (in area; doesn’t need to be deep).  Or two.  Pour on some olive oil, quite a lot of oregano, some basil, salt, and pepper.  Mix a bit.  Dump the meat and marinade over it, and get the meat spread out.

Put in oven until done.  Was about 50 minutes this time.

We ate it wrapped in burrito-scale tortillas; sort of Italian burritos.

Lydy and I voted it a success, but there were some leftovers anyway.