By the time you’re ready to go back to cooking, there’ll be three kidnappings, a couple “Awe, that was so sweet” moments, and a few (if not more) “holy shit, I didn’t see that coming” scenes.
Be sure to set a timer, because you’ll get lost in the book. When the timer goes off, toss the book and uncover the pot.
Add the 3 jars of green chili sauce.
Stir well.
At this juncture, you’re probably asking yourself if my father used Sprout’s Green Chili Sauce.
No, he sure as fuck didn’t. BUT. If I took a slow cooker filled with my Chili Verde up to heaven and served it to him, he’d love it.
If you want to make the sauce from scratch, it’s pretty easy.
You’ll need a 1/4 cup of chopped cilantro, poblanos peppers, jalapenos, and tomatillos (the little green tomatoes that are covered with husks).
Tomatillos aren’t always available in all regions, hence my initial suggestion for something ALMOST as good.
The recipe for homemade sauce is this: Twice as many tomatillos as peppers. For a 3- or 4-pound recipe of pork (enough to feed a family twice), you’ll need 6 peppers (total). Therefore, 12 tomatillos.
Depending on whether you want it mild, medium, or spicy, you’ll need to adjust your pepper mix one way or the other, with more jalapenos being hotter and more poblanos being milder.
4 poblanos and 2 jalapenos is right in the middle. Try that if you’re uncertain.
Slice all the peppers in half. Toss the stems and seeds. Peel husks away from tomatillos and toss those nasty fuckers aside, too. Slice tomatillos in half. Roast everything in the oven on a cookie sheet for 10 minutes.
As soon as you remove them, place the hot peppers in a large Zip-Loc bag and zip it shut. (leave them in the bag for ten minutes or so). This is the equivalent of steaming them, which will allow the outer skin to be peeled away with ease.
Toss roasted tomatillos and cilantro in a blender. Don’t blend them yet. At the ten-minute mark, remove the peppers and peel away the outer skin. It’ll be a breeze, because you steamed them. Shit can the skins and add the peppers to the blender.
Blend.
Yes, it’s that easy.
So, where were we?
You’re either adding the jars of sauce or the homemade sauce to the pork. Add it.
Cook pork for an additional 50 minutes (on low), 30 minutes with and 20 minutes without lid (in that order). During this time, you can go back and re-read the intimate scenes of the book. When the time is up, set the book aside and get ready to eat.
Serve with Tortillas (or ladle into a tortilla, roll it into a burrito, and ladle more on top). Garnish with shredded cheese.
It can also be served with Mexican rice.
Although it’s not on the list, I suppose I’ll give you my best Mexican rice recipe. If you choose to make this, you’ll want to do it during the tail end of the four-hour window you have while the Chili Verde is cooking.
You’ll need:
(2) 10 oz. cans of Ro*Tel Tomatoes and Green Chilis, chicken broth, long-grain white rice, a couple of jalapenos, some oil, 3-4 cloves of garlic. Cilantro. A couple of large skillets. A plastic (or wooden) spoon.
Blend the Ro*Tel to a puree. Throw one can away and keep the other one for later.
Dump the blended Ro*Tel into a skillet. Add a little salt, a lot of pepper, and a reasonable amount of cumin (two teaspoons or so).
Pour chicken broth into empty Ro*Tel can you set aside. Dump this into the skillet with the pureed Ro*Tel. Add another 1/2 can of chicken broth. Keep the can.
Bring this mixture to a low boil.
Add oil to second skillet. Dump 1-1/2 cans of the long grain wild rice into to the skillet. Heat until it changes color (roughly 6-8 minutes). During this 6-minute window of nothingness, chop up the 2 jalapenos (very fine). Chop up the garlic (4 cloves).
Add minced jalapenos to the rice mix. Add the garlic. Cook until both are soft-ish (3 minutes). Reduce heat to simmer.
Add boiling Ro*Tel and broth mixture to the rice and jalapeno mixture. Stir with your little rubber spatula until it’s mixed well.
Make sure you remembered to add sauce to the rice, and not the rice to the sauce, as the sauce was boiling, and the rice was on simmer. If you followed directions, the skillet one the stove is now starting to simmer.
Cover and let simmer until the rice absorbs all the moisture. This will be about 20 minutes, tops. Remove the lid. If the moisture’s absorbed, stir well, cover again, and set aside.
In 10 minutes remove the lid and fluff it up.
Plop a few healthy spoons of this rice onto your plate (beside a pile of the pork), grab a few tortillas, and get to eating.
Guess what?
There’s not one fucking place in Naples, Florida that serves Chili Verde. Not good Chili Verde, or bad Chili Verde. It’s not available.
I can throw a fucking rock to Cuba from my house, and there’s not one motherfucker in this town (other than me) that makes this shit.
Un. Fucking. Believable.
Make this shit and open a restaurant in your town. Call it “China Tu Madre” and they’ll come running.
Haha.
Enjoy.
CRISPY CHICKEN QUESADILLA
DIFFICULTY: It’s a fucking quesadilla.
TIME: Ten minutes.
What you’ll need from the cupboard: A skillet and a wide spatula.
What you’ll need from the pantry: Mission Carb Balance Flour Tortillas, oil, cheese, and chicken. For the condiments, I like to use sour cream and salsa.
This one is easy, but it tastes like it’s not. Great for a quick meal, an appetizer, or as a side dish to your (now) favorite Pork Chili Verde.
As far as the chicken goes, we typically use leftover shredded chicken. Assuming you’ll have that available, we’re off to a great start.
If you don’t. I’ll provide 2 ways to cook chicken.
Manner number one. Preheat oven to 375.
Cover the outside of split breasts with oil (I prefer Olive Oil).
Sprinkle with salt, pepper, and a little garlic powder. Bake on a cookie sheet, skin side up, for 50 minutes. If you’re weird about chicken (my wife is), poke it with a thermometer and make sure it’s 165 degrees F.
Believe me, at 50 minutes it’ll be fine.
Let the chicken sit for 10 minutes. Peel off the crispy skin. When no one is watching, eat the skin.
Using two forks, remove the chicken from the bone and shred it. Use this chicken in the quesadillas.
OR.
Add half an inch or so of chicken broth to your Insta-Pot. If you don’t have an Insta-Pot, go buy one.
Season the chicken breasts as detailed above.
Add the chicken to the Insta-Pot
Using the “Poulty” setting, cook the chicken on high for 10 minutes. Wait 5 minutes, and then do a “Quick Release” of the steam.
Shred the chicken.
Use this chicken for the quesadillas.
Now, back to cooking.
First, make sure the skillet you’ve chosen is at least large enough for one of the tortillas to be placed inside without curling up the edges.
If it is, add enough oil to the skillet to get the job done. If it isn’t, get a bigger skillet.
As far as oil goes, you don’t want the tortilla to be swimming in oil, nor do you want to be lean on the oil. An initial oil spot the size of half a dollar bill is about right.
Heat oil to medium high. While it’s coming to temp, get all your ingredients ready. When you’re sure it’s medium high, toss in a tortilla. Quickly sprinkle the tortilla with a liberal amount of cheese (shredded cheese of choice, enough to cover the tortilla).