Mexico Night - Pork in Pablano Chili Sauce & Cilantro Rice

Last Sunday was Mexico night, in honor of 3 members of our potluck crew who just returned from a vacation there. Unfortunately, I had already used up my vacation so couldn't go (boo hoo, next year!), but I had a lot of fun thinking about what to make.

In general I'm more of a Rachel Ray cook than French Laundry. I usually have some kind of idea of what I want to make and then do lots of research. I google, I epicurious, I foodtv it. I raid every cookbook I own. I would cooks illustrate it, too, but I'm too cheap. I read a million recipes, sort of develop an idea how I'm going to approach the dish, then go to the store where I buy way too many ingredients (so many ideas, so little time). So most of my dishes are riffs or a merging of a recipe or two or three. I rarely follow a recipe verbatim and sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't.

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Anyway, I knew I wanted to make something Pork-ish (I don't know why) using the slow cooker (makes my life easy) and ended up merging a Cooks Illustrated recipe and a Rick Bayless recipe.

PORK in PABLANO CHILI SAUCE

• 2 T Vegetable Oil
• 4 lbs Pork Roast (or 2 2lb hunks)
• 1 Large Onion, cut up in medium dice
• 1 Bottle of Frontera Grill Roasted Pablano Salsa (conveniently available at our local grocery store)
• Juice of one lime
• Chopped cilantro

1. Liberally salt and pepper the pork
2. Heat up pan with vegetable oil
3. Brown Pork on all sides... or as many sides you have patience for. Make sure you have lots of nice fond. Remove pork and put inside Crock Pot.
4. Do not clean pan. Do not even turn off heat. Add onions to the pan and brown onions a few minutes
5. Add salsa to the pan to deglaze...scrape the bottom of lovely brown bits of pork. Mix with onions.
6. Once deglazed, add hot salsa & onion mix to crock pot.
7. Turn on low for 7 hours
8. After five or six hours, remove lid and shred pork with two forks in the crock pot (you could also remove and shred, but then you'd be a wimp). Cook remainder of time with lid off so that some of the moisture can evaporate and concentrate the flavors.
9. Once done, add lime juice and chopped cilantro to taste

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The next recipe is pretty much from epicurious with my own Rachel Ray approach.

Mexican Cilantro Rice

• 1 T olive oil
• 1 large onion
• 4 garlic cloves, minced
• 1 or 2 serrano chiles (seeded or not - I don't because I'm lazy and I like the heat)
• 2 C or so long grain rice (I didn't have "long grain" rice, but two almost empty bags of Jasmine and Basmati so I mixed the two. In order to finish the bags, I actually cooked something more like 3 cups of rice, but I didn't measure)
• 3 1/4 cups chicken broth (since I didn't measure my rice - too lazy - I used the ancient Chinese secret method of adding enough liquid so that with a spread hand, the liquid is one knuckle deep)
• 3/4 t salt
• Cilantro Dressing to Taste

1. Heat oil, add onion, garlic, serrano, salt and saute until it's pretty cooked
2. Mix in rice and saute for a couple of more minutes
3. Add chicken broth and bring to boil
4. Cover and reduce heat to low.
5. Check after 15 minutes. If still too al dente, add more liquid and check after 5 more minutes.
6. Move rice to bowl and let cool for an hour or so
7. Add cilantro dressing to taste - at least half a cup.
8. Best served at room temperature

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This was part of the previous recipe, but I didn't really follow the proportions at all and instead approached the recipe sort of like how I approach pesto, with a lot of tasting to get what I want instead of blinding following the amounts... but I've included the amounts in case you are not as brave.

Cilantro Dressing

• 1 large bunch of cilantro
• 1/2 to 1 C Olive oil
• 5 T white wine vinegar
• 2 garlic cloves, peeled
• 1 t ground cumin
• 1 t minced seeded serrano chile (are you kidding??? It's going in a food processor, don't bother. Cut off the stem and pop the whole thing in. If it weren't for the kiddies, I would have added more.)

1. Take bunch of cilantro, clean & dry, and chop strategically two or three times
2. Pop cilantro, white wine vinegar, garlic (don't bother cutting), ground cumin, chile in food processor. Process until almost smooth. Season with a bit of salt and pepper
3. While processor is running, add olive oil through feeding tube until it's a creamy consistency. Make sure not to add too much as it's easy to get too greasy.
4. Reseason if necessary