The boyfriend had brought home a pork loin. By the time I was done breaking it down into a small roast and chops, I had a piece that wasn't really fit for roasting or pork chops. It was about a pound or so. I labeled it "for tacos" and put it in the freezer.
Well, I am always shopping for clearance items and trying to be frugal... we can't always afford shopping at the Fresh Market and such. I ran across Herdez Verde Salsa for under a dollar on clearance and I wanted to try it.
Now, I had a reason to use it. And with the help of another item found on clearance, Ortega's Green Chiles, I was able to make my Pork in Verde Salsa.
I used a 5 quart dutch oven for this. I wanted to have room for browning the meat.
In this pot I used about a tablespoon of bacon fat for a little flavor and to help with the browning. I cut the pork into chunks. Browned them, drained some of the fat leaving behind probably about a tablespoon or so. I added diced, fresh garlic, diced onion, about a teaspoon of cumin and ground corriander, to your tastes red pepper flakes, black pepper and just about 1/8 of teaspoon of salt. I let this mingle in the fat until I could smell it then mixed it into the meat. I added the green chiles, then the jar of salsa. I made sure as I stirred that I scraped the bottom getting all the fond off of the pot. It was a little on the thick side so I added just a little water. You could add low sodium chicken broth if you wanted to, but just add enough liquid to thin it just a bit. This should cook down to form something that looks like a thick stew.
I let it simmer for about 90 minutes. Keep an eye on it, it could stick. For me, 90 minutes was long enough to make the meat tender. I let it cool a little and I removed some of the "sauce." I shredded the meat.
So for assembly, I used corn tortillas, Monterey Jack cheese (shredded), cilantro, chopped green onion. This stuff turned out better than what I thought it would. So here is a picture of the finished product.
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If you decide to try this, let me know how it turns out.
You could probably brown your meat really well and put all the ingredients in a crock pot and let it go all day. Serve it over rice if you didn't want to make tacos. Or use it in tortillas and make enchiladas. Or just put it in bowl, top it with what I used for this and eat it like chili. I am really glad I tried this out. Maybe next time I will do it from complete scratch with fresh tomatillos and all. This suffices for now though!
