Cooking: Pork Chile Verde

There's a chain restaurant here in town called Rosa's. Over the Christmas holiday, I decided to pick up dinner and took a chance and ordered their Chile Verde.

It was SO good. Seriously good. So good, that I went back two days later and got it again. (I rarely do that!)

Steve really enjoyed it too, and so I began a quest to find a good copy of it that I could do here at home.

And... I have SUCCESS! Steve even likes mine better than theirs. Hooray! 

One problem with the recipe I found (the main one, mine is a combination of several), wasn't discovered until I started making the dish. It made enough for 20 servings. I really should read the instructions and details in their entirety before shopping for ingredients. 6 pounds of pork should have set off an alarm of some sort. But, it didn't. :) 

Here's my recipe, portioned down to feed 6 adults. Enjoy!!

(The pictures is from my phone, courtesy of Instagram.)

Ingredients:

2 pounds cubed pork stew meat

1/4 cup vegetable oil

1 large yellow onions, diced

2 cloves garlic, minced

1/4 tablespoon sea salt

Freshly ground pepper, to taste

1 tablespoons ground cumin

1.5 quarts chicken broth (you probably won’t use it all)  

3 fresh poblano chile peppers

1 fresh jalapeno pepper

1 yellow bell pepper

1 pound fresh tomatillos, husks removed

½  bunch cilantro leaves, coarsely chopped

INSTRUctions:

1.      Wash the tomatillo’s and quarter them. Trim the stem end off of the jalapeño’s and cut them into two pieces. Put them both in a large saucepan with 1c of the chicken broth. Cook them until they’re soft.  

2.      Cut each of the peppers (poblano’s and bell) in half and deseed them. Broil them in your oven until the skin is blistered. Remove them from the oven, and place them into the saucepan with the tomatillos and jalapeño’s. Using a blender stick, process until smooth. (If you don’t have a blender stick, you can use a regular blender.  (You can also put the peppers into a closed bag or container so that they steam, and then remove the skins. I don’t.) Keep the sauce simmering.

3.      Lightly flour the pork. Sear in vegetable oil until golden brown in a large stock pot. Remove the pork from the pot. (It took me several batches to get it all done)

4.      Add the chopped onion and garlic, in the pot, in the reserved oil until onions are tender. Season with cumin, then stir in pork.  Add the pepper sauce and stir. Add 1-2 cups of chicken stock. Simmer the sauce for 2-3 hours, or until the meat is to the tenderness you like and the sauce is thickened to where you want it adding more chicken broth to thin it to your preference.  (Mine has been simmering for 4 hours.)

Serve over rice or with flour tortillas. Or... both!

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