NEW RECIPE: Pork Chile Verde

© Constantine William Spyrou

I love tons of different cuisines of food because each has their own intricate flavor and innovative style to do food. The Greeks are huge fans of the basic combination of lemon, garlic, oregano, and olive oil, for example. Thai cuisine is infamous for having the perfect balance of all five flavors: spicy, sweet, salty, sour, and tangy. French food is known for refined technique and delicate cooking processes. However, I'm pretty sure that the cuisine that takes the cake for me is Mexican. It's got a great balance of not only marinating meat (one of my favorite attributes of cooking), but also able to do slow cooking very well, from dishes like carnitas and machaca to one of all my all-time favorites: Pork Chile Verde. 

Pork Chile Verde consists of slow-cooked pork that simmers with acidic tomatillos, warm chiles, and plenty of spices for hours and just gets this amazing flavor that is hard to replicate in other dishes. This is my version of Pork Chile Verde, which is extremely slow but has an amazing taste to make up for it. This goes great with rice, tortillas, or a rainy day. It's sure to warm and fill you up while destroying your tastebuds with flavor! 

You can also easily make a vegetarian version of this dish by replacing the pork stock with vegetable stock and not utilizing pork. Slow cooking the chilles and tomatillos creates an amazing green chile sauce that you can put over anything and make taste great! 

Recipe will serve up to 20 people.

Ingredients:

5 pounds boneless pork shoulder, cut into about 1 inch-thick cubes
5 cups tomatillos (Blanch them first to remove the skins, then blend into a puree before adding.)
1 cup serrano chiles, chopped
2 cups Anaheim green chiles, chopped
1 quart water
1 quart pork stock (If you can't get it, vegetable stock works just as well)
2 large Spanish white onions, roughly chopped
1/2 cup dried Mexican Oregano
10 cloves of minced garlic
4 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons ground cumin
2 tablespoons ground coriander
2 tablespoons garlic powder
2 tablespoons onion powder
3 tablespoons kosher salt
3 tablespoons black pepper

Cooking/Assembling:

1. Take a large pot (about 4+ gallons should suffice) and place it on high heat. Add olive oil once the pot is hot, then add the chopped onions and garlic. Add about a third of the spices at this point as well.
2. When the onions turn translucent, add in the pork and sear on all sides, cooking for about 10-15 minutes to ensure all of the pork is colored. Also add in another third of the spices.
3. When the pork is all seared off, add the water and pork stock. Stir in the remaining spices, your tomatillos, and the chiles. Lower the heat to a simmer, and cook for about 2 1/2 hours or until the pork is fork tender (falls apart when you touch it with a fork).

Like with most Mexican dishes (the mole being one of the few exceptions to this), this pork chile verde is simple to make. You just have to wait for the cooking to finish, but once you do, this dish has a great balance of acid, heat, and rich pork flavor that goes together so well!

I hope you enjoyed this recipe! Let me know what you think and what you would change. If you make this at home, let me know how it turns out! Enjoy! =)