Braised Mexican Pork And Rice Recipe

How to make it

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• Stem, seed and soak the dried Guajillo chilis in the 2 cups of heated chicken broth for about 30 minutes before you start the cooking process. Be sure to reserve the soaking liquid. Once fully soaked and soft remove from the liquid and chop in large chunks.
• Trim any majorly excess fat from the outside of the pork shoulder then cut into large (approx 2 inch) cubes. Sprinkle with kosher salt and fresh ground pepper on all sides.
• Dice the onions
• Dice the carrots
• Chop the garlic
• Cut a shallow X in the bottom of the roma tomatoes and drop one at a time into a small pot of boiling water. Let boil for 1 minute, remove and working from the points of the X, peel the skin completely off the tomatoes. Once peeled slice in half from stem to tip and scoop out all seeds. Dice the tomato halves.
• Heat a large skillet (I use a dutch oven) on high, add the avocado oil and in uncrowded batches brown the seasoned pork shoulder cubes on all sides. Don't fiddle with them, let them brown heavily on one side then turn. Color is flavor! Some sticking is expected. Remove to a plate and move to the next batch.
• If you are using the chorizo, brown it now and get some of that lovely, spicy fat in the mix. Remove to the plate with the pork shoulder.
• Brown the onions and carrots in the drippings. When the onions are translucent and carrots are slightly softening (10 Minutes) throw in the garlic and stir until it is aromatic and slightly browned (1 minute). DO NOT BURN the garlic!
• Add in the cumin, oregano, ancho chili power and the smoked paprika. Stir to incorporate and bloom the flavors (1 minute)
• Add in the soaked Guajillo chili pieces and the diced tomatoes. Stir and sauté (2 minutes)
• Deglaze the pan with about half of the Guajillo chili soaking liquid and scrape up all the browned bits from the pan. If you need more liquid use more. Don't leave any bits stuck to the pan! Therein lies the flavor!
• Dump the pork shoulder and chorizo in a large crock pot.
• Take the sautéed vegetable mixture and blend it in batches with additional chicken stock until it is a thick (pea soup like)but smooth braising liquid. Taste each batch and adjust salt to taste, usually a nice thick pinch.
• NOTE: When blending hot liquids, never fill the blender more than halfway and ALWAYS hold the top on with a folded kitchen towel and start by pulsing, then slow then fast. Be safe out there!
• Pour each blended batch over the pork in the crock pot until all sauce is in the crock and the meat is mostly covered.
• Using a microplane, shave your chocolate into the braising liquid and meat and stir it gently in.
• Turn your crock pot to high and cook for 5 hours or so until the cubes of pork fall apart when pressed with a fork. Stir your crock occasionally during the cooking process. Be extra careful near the end as you don't want to break it all up if you are eating it like a stew.
• We serve this very saucy over steamed basmati rice from our rice cooker. I will leave this up to you. It is also great as a shredded taco filling with less sauce. Any reserved sauce is a great base for enchiladas or some other baked meat Mexican dish. Use your imagination.