I lived in Colorado for about five years and grew to love Mexican food so much. My favorite hole in the wall was a little restaurant 'across the tracks' in Fort Collins which served the best green and red chili made with pork. We'd sop it up with fresh flour tortillas before we headed back to the chem lab, trudging through our doctorates. Every month we'd also bike over to another Mexican restaurant for margaritas after the monthly 2-hour evening cumulative exam. The next day they would post the 'topic' for the next 'cume' exam for which you would study your heart out for. Pass 14 out of 21 months and you could continue in the doctorate program. Otherwise you were out - and I saw friends drop out...
I thank God for Chili and margaritas for helping me make it!
You can serve this chili (really almost a stew) in a bowl with tortillas, on top of rice or as a basis for pork street carnitas, as shown below. Whichever way, this is a real hit. I used three different dried chilies (not hot) but you could most probably use whatever you have.
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Seeded and stems removed:
1 dried passilla pepper
1 dried guajillo pepper
2 dried ancho peppers
6-7 tomatillos, husked
1 onion, quartered
1 red Fresno chili, sliced
3 lb boneless pork shoulder, cut into 2-3 inch pieces
1 large onion, thickly sliced
1 tsp ground cumin
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp dried oregano
1/2 tsp dried crushed sage
2 plum tomatoes
6 whole cloves garlic, peeled
Bring 2 cups of water to a boil. Add the stemmed and seeded dried peppers and allow to steep for about 20 minutes on the counter. I usually break up the peppers to smaller pieces to help the steeping.
Meanwhile, bring the tomatillos, onion and Fresno pepper to a boil in a pot of water. Cook for about a minute or two and then drain.
Add the onion to the Dutch oven and cook over medium heat for about 10 minutes, stirring often, to allow the onions to soften and caramelize in the pork fat. Add a dash of olive oil if there is not enough fat to cook the onions gently without burning. Add the cumin, cinnamon, oregano and sage and cook for another 2-3 minutes.
Meanwhile (as if you are not busy enough yet!) toast the tomatoes (whole) and the garlic in a dry (ideally cast iron) skillet over medium-high heat for about five minutes. Watch very carefully, turning the veggies quite often to brown but not really burn. A bit of dark scorching is OK and adds flavor.
Strain the peppers and reserve the liquid. Add the peppers to a blender with about 1/2 cup of the reserved soaking liquid. Blend until you have a creamy sauce.
Add the cooked tomatillos, onion and pepper to the blender and pulse just enough to make a rough salsa. Pour the salsa over the pork.
Bake in oven, covered, for about 2 hours, stirring after the first hour. Watch carefully until the pork pulls apart easily with two forks. It may take another 30 or so minutes, but it depends on everything, so be vigilant. Adjust seasoning with salt and pepper to taste.
Serve pork chili over rice or use in street tacos.
Cook’s Notes: You can serve this pork as you like. You can easily make street tacos with this delicious pork (seen at top) using small flour tortillas which you brown using tongs over a stove flame. Add the pork and whatever you like - I like shredded cabbage, carrots, pickled onions and fresh salsa, green or red.
Or you can serve over rice (seen just above). Or, as a stew, with flour tortillas to sop up the sauce (the way we ate it in grad school). If so, you may want to add a bit more water to the final product if you want a more watery 'stew' for a red chili dish. Keep in mind you can enhance the 'heat' of this dish as you like - this recipe is really fairly mild, but amp it up with jalapeños or crushed red pepper flakes as you see fit.
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