Shredded Pork Barbacoa

Can I just say that I love pork? This is a modified version of a modified version of a knock-off recipe for the shredded pork at Cafe Rio. (Kind-of Mexican restaurant in Utah.) I got the recipe from a friend, but I can't find it on her blog anymore. And I realize the picture just doesn't look appetizing.

Ingredients

3-4 pounds pork roast *

1 1/2 cups (12 ounces or 350 ml) taco sauce **

3 cloves garlic

1 can chipolte chilies in adobo sauce

1 cup brown sugar

2 cups (16 ounces or ~400 ml) cola (Coke, Dr. Pepper, generic cola are all fine, as long as it's not diet)

Mix together the taco sauce, garlic, chilies (with adobo sauce), sugar and coke.

Pour over the pork and cook in a slow cooker for about eight hours.

When the meat is tender and done cooking, drain the liquid. (Reserve the liquid to store any leftovers, it is also a nice base for other Mexican sauces, soups, etc.)

With a fork, shred the pork. It can be used as filling for burritos, tacos, nachos, added to a salad, etc.

Leftovers will keep for a few days. Pour some of the liquid from the meat on top of the pork to keep it moist, cover and refrigerate.

* I made a half portion with 1.5 pounds of pork and reduced the cooking time to five hours.

** I have a really hard time finding taco sauce so end up making my own. The most recent recipe I used:

1 can chopped tomatoes
1 chipolte, soaked in boiling water and then with stem and seeds removed (I should have used gloves, but didn't)
2 teaspoons vinegar (I used white)
2 Tablespoons sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 packet taco seasoning
1 teaspoon granulated garlic
1/4 onion

Combine everything in a blender and mix until smooth.

Black Beans

I am still looking for that magic black bean recipe. I kind of think it has lard in it. Until I find it, this will have to do.

Ingredients

2 cans black beans

3 cloves garlic, minced

1 Tablespoon olive oil

1/2 onion, diced

2 bay leaves

sea salt and pepper to taste

hot sauce (optional)

In a saucepan, heat the oil. Add the onions and cook until transparent. Add the garlic and saute for about a minute.

Add the black beans, including the liquid from the beans. Also add the bay leaves and sea salt. Simmer until the liquid has reduced to a thick sauce. (I simmered on the lowest heat for several hours.)

Adjust salt and add pepper and hot sauce to taste.

Jamaica Juice (Hibiscus Flower Iced Tea)

There's a 24-hour fast-food Mexican place in Utah called Molcasalsa. I adore their Jamaica Juice, which is iced hibiscus flower tea with sugar. I love this drink because it's red and a little tart. I used the recipe from 101 Cookbooks to make my own Jamaica Juice.

Ingredients

1/4 cup dried hibiscus flowers

2 cups boiling water

1/4 cup sugar (or more if desired)

2 cups cold water

Sliced lime for garnish

Ice

What can I say? Dried hibiscus flower is really red. I mean really red. It could be used to dye clothes.

Add 1/4 cup of the dried hibiscus flower to a tea pot.

Add two cups of boiling water and steep for ten minutes.

Add the hibiscus tea to a larger pitcher and add two cups of cold water and 1/4 cup sugar. Stir until the sugar dissolves. Refrigerate until cold.

In a glass, add ice and a slice of lime, then pour the gorgeous red Jamaica Juice into the glass. Add more sugar if desired and enjoy!

Cilantro (Coriander) Rice

Following on with the cilantro theme, here's a recipe for cilantro rice. Supposedly it's a copy cat recipe from Cafe Rio. A friend sent a version of the recipe to me about five years ago and it's kind of a staple now.

Ingredients

2 teaspoon vegetable bouillon

3 cloves minced garlic

1/4 bunch cilantro (coriander)

1/8-1/4 cup jalapeños

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon unsalted butter

1/4-1/2 onion, chopped

1 1/2 cups rice

1 1/2 cups cold water

Put bouillon, garlic, cilantro, jalapeños, salt, ½ cup water and onion in a blender.

Puree until smooth.

Pour the rice into a saucepan. Rinse and drain the rice in cold water until it is no longer cloudy (to remove the starch). Add the mixture from the blender, the butter and additional 1 cup water.

Bring to a boil and cover.

Simmer until the liquid has evaporated (about 15-20 minutes, without stirring and leaving the lid on) and rice is tender.

Stir rice before serving.

Tomato Salsa

This recipe is pretty close to the green salsa, except it uses tomatoes instead of tomatillos. Ideally, the ingredients would be chopped instead of pureed. But I'm pretty lazy. We did get this amazing salsa machine that would cut the ingredients easily. But it has disappeared and so (except for days when I'm feeling very ambitious, which isn't often) the blender it is.

Ingredients

2 cups Tomatoes

2 cloves garlic

1/2 onion

1/4 cup jalapenos

Salt

Lime juice

1/2 green pepper (optional)

1/4 bunch cilantro (coriander)

We had a variety of tomatoes waiting to be used.

Blend ingredients and adjust salt and lime juice to taste.

Pour is a serving container and refrigerate. After a few hours (if you've used a blender) the salsa calms down, goes darker and looks less "frothy".

Salsa Verde (Green Salsa) and Creamy Tomatillo Salad Dressing

Niall bought a big bunch of cilantro (coriander), so while a certain someone who hates cilantro isn't checking the internet so much, I thought I'd post a few recipes to use it up.

Ingredients

1 can of tomatillos*

3 cloves garlic

1/2 onion

1/4 cup jalapenos

1 Tablespoon lime juice

1/4 bunch fresh cilantro (coriander)

salt and pepper to taste

Place all ingredients in the blender and blend until smooth.

If you'd like to make a creamy salad dressing, add ranch dressing to the salsa verde. In a pinch, I suppose bottled ranch would do. (I have some issues with bottled ranch that are probably better left alone.) We have a supply of powdered ranch dressing.

I add 1/2 cup milk, 1/2 cup mayo, 1 1/2 Tablespoons of the ranch dressing to 1/2-3/4 cup of the salsa verde and blend.

The end result looks something like this:

It makes a good topping for a salad. Since I come from a land where ranch dressing is used as a common condiment, I also think it's normal to use the dressing for all sorts of other things. (Bread dip, topping for burritos, baked potato topping, pancake topping...I'll stop.)

*Tomatillos are kind of like little green tomatoes, except they're actually gooseberries (or so I've been told). Fresh tomatillos come in a husk. I've had a hard time finding fresh ones in the UK, but can occasionally get them at Borough Market in London. I tried growing tomatillos and failed (the pots were too shallow). Maybe I'll try again this summer.

Enchilada Sauce

Once upon a time I lived in a far away land where there was so much Mexican food that I took it for granted. If I wanted to eat Mexican I had my pick of restaurants, specialty shops, a Latin food isle at the supermarket and really generous Mexican neighbors, all that provided amazing food that I didn't properly appreciate. The end.

Living in an area where Mexican food isn't a staple means that I have to make pretty basic sauces from scratch. The type of thing I used to just order or buy. I haven't found a Mexican cookbook that I love, but do use the "Maui Tacos Cookbook" (Why, yes. I did buy it from the food court in the airport.) for Enchilada sauce. It takes an hour or so to make because of the simmering, but the prep time is about ten minutes.

Ingredients:

2 whole dried ancho chilies, stem and seeds removed
1 quarter water or vegetable stock
2 bay leaves
3 cloves garlic
1 Tablespoon ground pepper
1 Tablespoon ground cumin (I consider this optional and don't add it)
1 teaspoon sea salt
1/4 cup chile powder
2 Tablespoons tomato paste
1/2 onion, cut into large pieces
1 cup white flour
1/4 cup oil
1/4 cup water

This recipe makes a lot of sauce. I typically half it. The recipe will keep for a while in the refrigerator and I find is fine to freeze.

In a skillet, dry roast the whole ancho chilies on medium heat (without oil) until they begin to puff up. Remove from heat. This should only take a few minutes. (Here's the part where I admit we ran out of ancho chilies and our supplier has run out, too. So I used Pasilla chilies, which are also fairly mild, but much bigger. They worked okay, but the pasilla chiles made the sauce hotter than the ancho. So hot it made Niall hiccup. He was happy.)

When the chilies are roasted, cut off the stems and remove the seeds. I save the seeds for other dishes. I should have used gloves (will I never learn?) because I got chili oil on my hands and accidentally kept touching my face and it burned.

In a blender, add 1/2 of the vegetable stock (my blender isn't big enough for all of it), garlic, pepper, salt, cumin (if you're using it), salt, chile powder, tomato paste, onion and the ancho chilies. Blend until smooth.

In a separate bowl, use a wire whisk to make a roux by combining the oil, water and flour.

In a large pot add the sauce from the blender, the rest of the vegetable stock and the bay leaves. Bring the sauce to a simmer over medium heat. Slowly stir in the roux. (I start out by adding 1/2 the roux and adding more as needed.)

Simmer until the sauce begins to reduce and thickens, usually about 40 minutes to an hour, stirring occasionally to make sure it doesn't burn. The sauce should coat the back of a spoon. If it gets too thick add more vegetable stock or water.

We typically use the sauce for enchiladas, but do add it to beans and/or rice and other dishes.

For burritos, we fill a corn tortilla with beans (black or pinto, refried or not), a bit of cheese and about a bit of the enchilada sauce.

Roll the tortilla and repeat.

Cover the filled tortillas with the sauce and sprinkle with cheese. Cook it in the oven (I've used a broiler before but the bottom doesn't heat up enough) on 350 degrees until the cheese is hot and bubbly.