Pork Tacos with Tomatillo Sauce

Earlier last week, Steve and I made some delicious pork tacos.  This recipe is Steve's and my interpretation of one written by Rick Bayless.  Steve adapted a tomatillo sauce recipe, which is also shared here about 3/4 of the way down the page! (not pictured here, unfortunately)

tacos topped with guac and cilantro :)

I started by boiling about 1 to 2 quarts of water.  Steve carefully removed the seeds from about 3 ounces of ancho chilis and California chilis. I heated these up in a dry frying pan filled with  for about 3 minutes. Then, I moved the chilis to a large bowl and pour the hot water over, then covered them a plate (a lid would work, too) to keep the chilis under water.  We let them hang out and soak for a good 20 minutes or half hour.  When they were done soaking, we didn't throw out the liquid!  We needed a little bit of it later.

(Side note: At this point, I was nervous because my tolerance for spice is not very impressive and the number of chilis were intimidating. However, the sauce won't end up very spicy at all, there was no need to worry!)

While the chilis were soaking,  I gave a small onion a rough chop. Then, I threw the onion pieces into a blender and added 1/2 tablespoon of oregano, 1/2 tablespoon of cumin, and 3 cloves of garlic (or a good pile of garlic powder).  Once the chilis were ready, I added a cup of the scary looking chili water (intimidatingly red! eep!) and all the chilis. The blender was full of deliciousness. I covered the top and blended it to make a delicious paste for the meat! It was red. I was scared but hid my fear. I wish I could say Steve was scared, but I just don't think it was true.

Meanwhile, Steve had been hacking the >2 pound pork shoulder into cubes with side length of approximately 1 inch. We bought the boneless pork shoulder to make the chopping a little easier, but he still spent a bit of time getting rid of some of the excess fat.  Then, he got out a couple frying pans and browned the meat in a bit of canola oil on really high heat. The hotter the heat, the better. Use your heaviest, best frying pans!

After about 6 minutes of browning, add the sauce to the pans and continue to cook for another 6 minutes or so.  Then, pour all the meat and sauce into one big pot. (I know, lots of pans to clean up. I'm sorry. Maybe you can find a more efficient way to do this. Perhaps a wok would work? No idea.)  Put a cup of water into each of the frying pans, swoosh it around, then dump it into the big pot.  The meat needed more water anyway, and now you don't have to waste any of the sauce that was left in the pans!  Simmer the contents of the big pot for a solid hour.

Steve made a delicious tomatillo sauce while I cleaned up.  He broiled 4-5 tomatillos and a fresh jalapeno until toasty brown. Then, he placed it into a blender and added 1/2 cup of cilantro (leaves only), juice and zest from half a lime, 1 teaspoon of garlic powder, salt (to taste), 1/4 cup of agave (sugar works), and half a chopped onion.  This will create a sauce with a really bold, refreshing flavor. If you enjoy lime and cilantro, you will looooove this! Unfortunately, we ate this all up before I got to take a picture of it! Sorry! I'm sure we'll make this again though, so you'll see it someday.

While the meat finishes simmering, bust out your corn tortillas and start salivating. If you are making the tortillas, good for you (but we just bought some authentic-looking ones from Cub foods. Cool thing: all the packages we came across in the grocery store were made locally! Of course, making them in your home counts as them being made locally too. Whatever.) You can heat up your corn tortillas either in a dry frying pan or in the oven.

The first night we ate these tacos, we placed a couple spoonfuls of pork and sauce onto the slightly crispy tortillas.  Then, we added some slices of ripe avocado and a generous helping of the tomatillo sauce.  Garnish with some cilantro if you like pretty food. After a couple meals of tacos, we ran out of tomatillo sauce and substituted guacamole instead.  The flavors of the guac didn't stand out as sharply as the incredibly tomatillo sauce, so I was mildly disappointed, but the tacos were still delish!