New Mexico · Main
New Mexico Carne Adovada
- Intermediate
- 3 h
- roughly 1 of 4 for cost
Leads with aromatics blooming from the first bite, acid holding everything up to the light, on a slow, honest burn.
Ingredients
- 1.2kg pork shoulder, in large cubes
- 10 dried New Mexico red chiles, stemmed and seeded
- 4 garlic cloves
- 1 tbsp cumin
- 1 tbsp Mexican oregano
- 1 tsp salt
- 500ml chicken stock
- 1 tbsp cider vinegar
Equipment
Dutch oven
The skills inside
BraisingDry-pan toasting: spices, seeds and nutsSoaking dried goods back to lifeMarinating: acid, salt and time
Allergen screen
None found among the 14 screened.
Screened for: gluten, dairy, egg, nuts, peanuts, fish, shellfish, molluscs, soy, sesame, celery, mustard, lupin, alcohol. Not screened: sulphites.
Screened by keyword from the ingredient list, not reviewed by a person; check every label for what the list cannot show.
Method
- Toast the dried chiles briefly, soak in hot water 20 min, then blend with the garlic, cumin, oregano, salt, and some soaking water into a smooth red sauce. 20 min
- Toss the pork cubes in the red chile sauce and marinate at least 4 hours, ideally overnight. 240 min
- Turn everything into a Dutch oven with the stock.
- Braise at 160C for 2.5-3 hours until the pork is falling apart and the sauce is deep and thick. 180 min
- Stir in the vinegar and season. Serve with rice, beans, or tortillas.
How to tell it is going right
This dish has no standard of its own yet. It is judged on the techniques it exercises: checked at the pan, while there is still something to be done about it.
Braising 39 recipes
- The pieces went into the liquid already deep brown on their faces, and the pot floor gave up its fond to that liquid rather than keeping it.
- The liquid comes partway up the pieces and stays there for the whole cook (not submerged, not run dry), and it never boils: the surface trembles and no more.
- It went long enough for the collagen to convert: a fork twists in it with almost no resistance, and the piece still lifts out whole rather than falling into shreds.
- The liquid has become a sauce: it has body, it coats the back of a spoon, and it tastes concentrated rather than thin and washed out.
- The meat is moist and seasoned through to its centre, not dry fibres sitting inside a good sauce.
Where it goes wrong The oven or the burner ran too hot and the liquid boiled, so the fibres tightened and squeezed their moisture out: it shreds dry into a thin greasy liquid, and more time makes it worse rather than better.
Soaking dried goods back to life 69 recipes
- Fully submerged with room to swell: the level is well above everything at the start and still above it at the end.
- Given the full time, and judged by what is in the bowl rather than by the hours on the clock.
- Tested at the CENTRE of the largest piece, cut or pressed. Anything with a hard dry core will still have one after cooking, because the outside softens first and stops the water getting further in.
- The soaking water was dealt with on purpose: kept because it holds flavour, or thrown away because it holds what should not be eaten, but never simply left undecided.
- Drained before it is used, so the dish does not silently gain all the water that came with it.
Where it goes wrong Too little water, or too little time. The pieces swell until they are packed tight against each other and the ones in the middle never fully take up water; they will not soften later in the dish either, so the finished plate has hard pieces scattered through it.
At the Table
- The Pour
- Off-dry Riesling (Mosel Kabinett)
- Also Right
- Gewürztraminer or off-dry Chenin
- From the Taps
- Crisp lager or pilsner
- Zero-Proof
- Agua fresca or iced jasmine tea
Sugar, cold, and low alcohol are the fire code: sweetness tames capsaicin while acid resets the palate; tannin would fan the flames.
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