Salsa pork (semi-homemade)
Sandra Lee used to date Andrew Cuomo!
I’m feeling the desire to quickly share what I made on Thursday: pork shoulder cooked low and slow in store-bought salsa verde, which is, essentially, a budget / quick pork chile verde. I’m not sure why using salsa came to mind… maybe it was partially because Carolina Gelen somewhat recently used a jar of salsa in a chicken-rice “bake,” and because I wanted chile verde-y pork without having to roast and blend a bunch of tomatillos. But I was still down to put in passive cooking time; now that I work from home Thursdays and Fridays, I can simmer things on the stove while I tune into Microsoft Teams meetings!
This was really, really delicious. I will make it again many times. If you make it, will you tell me? I’m consciously writing this as a recipe so that you might make it…
Serves ~4 if you have plenty of other sides, maybe more like 2 with some leftovers. It’s so good that you’ll want to eat a lot of it : /
Ingredients:
1 lb pork shoulder cut into cubes (I just bought it like that from the store)
Salt
1 shallot or 1/2 an onion, diced
2 garlic cloves, diced
~1/2 a jalapeño if you want the final product spicier than your salsa, diced
1-1.5 cups of salsa verde (I used this kind! I’d definitely go with a not-chunky one, and make sure tomatillos are one of the first ingredients—this depends on the acidity of them)
1/2 tbsp chicken bouillon paste dissolved in a cup of water (or 1 cup chicken stock)
1 tablespoon brown sugar (white is probably fine, honey too. tbh I used turbinado)
1 bay leaf
Directions:
Salt your pork cubes well and let them sit for a little while while you get all your other ingredients ready. Heat up a dutch oven on ~medium. Pat the pork dry, and sear it in the pan once it’s hot. (Do it in batches if you’re disciplined, though I didn’t.) You’ll want to really let the pork brown, which might take a while especially if it’s quite fatty! I think I rendered mine for like 20 minutes, flipping the pieces around a couple times but trying to let them get color. (If your pork is not very fatty, add some neutral oil to the pan.)
Add the shallot/onion and garlic and jalapeño if using, and sweat them down until they seem translucent and have picked up some of the pork color.
Mix the salsa, stock, and sugar together. (I kind of post facto guessed the measurements, but I remember the salsa taking up about half a 2-cup Pyrex measuring vessel, and I filled the rest with water/bouillon.) Pour it over the pork, give everything a mix, and stick in the bay leaf.
Bring everything up to a boil, then turn it down to a simmer. Put the lid on the pot and let it cook very slowly, for about three or so hours, until the pork is so tender that it shreds fairly easily. Taste as you go—adjust for salt more toward the end, and add more water if it starts looking dry or if the pork is only barely submerged. By the pic below, though, you can see that when it finished, my pork was easily peeking out of the surface. This is a stewy meat, but it’s not a stew.
Serve in tortillas or bowl-style, with pinto beans, rice, and garnishes—cabbage, diced onion, cilantro, lime.
