A Mexican meal
Saveur came out with their second summer Mexican issue this year (the last one was last summer) and I was inspired. Josh and I started cooking on Thursday for our Saturday night dinner. It was the key as there is a lot of chopping involved. Then on the night of our dinner I got the family to all jump in on to make life easier…and fun.
Here is the meal. slow roasted marinated pork shoulders, guacamole, pineapple salsa, tomatillo salsa, corn salad, mexican rice, corn and flour tortillas and sliced pineapple.
The pork was marinated for 24 hours. In a blender I mixed up half a chopped pineapple, one small spanish onion, 1/2 cup orange juice, 1/4 cup white vinegar, 2 tsp. kosher salt, 1 tsp. cumin, 1 tsp. oregano, 1/4 large dried black chile that I had brought back from Mexico and 1/2 tsp. of canned adobe chiles. Put this in a zip-lock bag with two 3.5 lb. tied up pork shoulders. When the time came, I put them in the oven at 250 for about 6 hours until you could pull the pork apart.
Guacamole is my standard. No recipe per se but just feel. Chopped avocados, chopped Vidalia onions, chopped Italian tomatoes, chopped cilantro, chopped jalapenos, lime juice and tabasco sauce.
Pineapple salsa. 2 cups chopped pineapple, 1/2 cup chopped cilantro, 1/2 cup fresh lime juice, 1 tbsp. sugar, 2 tsp. kosher salt, 2 jalapeno peppers chopped, 1 small red onion chopped. Mix together.
Green tomatillo salsa. 4 tomatillos peeled, 2 medium white onions chopped, 2 jalapenos stemmed, 1 tsp. sugar, a bunch of cilantro. Place the tomatillos, onions and jalapenos in a saucepan and cover with water about 1" over. Bring to a boil and cook until slightly soft. Drain and reserve 1 cup cooking liquid. Transfer to a blender with the liquor, sugar, cilantro, salt and pulse until chunky. I made ours more pureed.
Mexican rice. This serves 8 people. I doubled it for our crew. 1 cup chicken stock, 1 15oz. can whole tomatoes with the juice, 2 serrano chiles halved with seeds removed, 1/2 small spanish onion minced, 2 cups white rice, 1 cup frozen peas. Place stock and tomatoes in a blender and puree. Heat oil in a sauce pan and add in the onions, chiles and rice. Saute for about 2 minutes. Add in the tomato mixture (measure it as for 2 cups of rice you need 4 cups liquid) and peas. Bring to a boil then down to simmer. Cover and let cook until done. 15 minutes or so. Fluff with a fork and add salt to taste.
Corn salad. I grilled all the ears of corn then took it all off the husks. I added fresh lime juice, a tiny bit of mayonaisse to stick, some cayenne pepper and grated queso blanco cheese. We got the cheese from a local Mexican grocery store. Not always easy to find. I played around with the amounts until I got it right. Really good.
A really good meal. What I love about the tacos is that they are interactive. Everybody creates their own taco to their liking. It is like when I used to take cupcakes with all the fixings to the kids classrooms when they were young. You would get the most creative cupcakes. Same thing with the tacos. Everybody had a little bit of a different take. These are Josh's above.
Comments (Archived):
Sounds very tasty…how come you cooked the pork in the oven and not a slow cookier? (is it just because you don’t have/use a slow cooker or is there a cooking/flavor reason?)
Rainy day and decided indoors was better than outdoors
Nice thanks…will have to give this one a try 🙂
Okay, I feel inspired… I love the colors and interactive quality of this meal.
I just picked up that issue of Saveur at the airport yesterday – the cover looked so delicious!I’ve been on a big mexican kick recently, it just feels like summer.
Exactly
What’s the beverage?Beer? Curious if a wine or two made it to the table.
tequila, wine, beer
Do you think your son will become a chef? I do.
i am pretty sure our middle daughter will go into the food business in some capacity. perhaps josh…only time will tell.
wonderful family
Where do you get your Mexican cheese always have trouble finding it. i also am huge fan of taco night!
at a local specialty store that basically carries spanish and mexican products.
Looks amazing! Trying to make a low fat version of taco night tonight, as on a mission to get healthy, this looks like a pretty good act to try and follow!
.Damn, I am speechless. In my part of the world, Tejas, Tex-Mex is a religion. You could easily be a Cardinal.You eat some tacos, you drink some Pacifica, you watch Friday Night Lights and then you are a naturalized Texan..
We love making pork or shrimp or mahi mahi or… … tacos at our house, too. I really like slow-cooked pork and pork verde. Your meal looks great.Here’s a tomatillo salsa recipe that we like. Maybe you or your readers will enjoy it.
What a great looking meal.I left a comment with a link to share our tomatillo salsa recipe and it disappeared, so I guess it was treated as spam. Oh well, sorry.
🙂 Kind of funny, I was sharing this post with a friend because we’re now sharing recipes online. Now we’re also sharing Smitten Kitchen recipes and food52!