Showing posts with label pork. Show all posts
Showing posts with label pork. Show all posts

Saturday, September 3, 2011

Pork Tacos, Dallas Gas Station Style

What, you might ask, are "Gas Station Style" tacos? If you're a Texan, and I'm not, you may know that gas station tacos are renowned for being something special.

Lisa Fain, author of the upcoming The Homesick Texan Cookbook, writes "It's a wonderful thing -- y ou walk into a gas station and in the back will be a short-order cook heating up tortillas and stuffing them with all sorts of savory fillings."

If that doesn't draw you in and and encourage you to hop plane, train or automobile to the closest Texas taco-serving gas station, particularly one in the "Dallas' South Buckner taco belt," I don't know what will!


Pork Tacos, Dallas Gas Station Style
from The Homesick Texan Cookbook, page 167

For the Pork
4 pasilla chiles, stemmed and seeded
2 lbs. pork shoulder, cut into ½" chunks
1 canned chipotle in adobo
4 garlic cloves
½ tsp. dried oregano
½ tsp. ground cumin
small pinch ground cloves
¼ c. orange juice
¼ c. pineapple juice
1 Tbs. white vinegar
2 Tbs. olive oil
salt, to taste
1 Tbs. vegetable oil

For the Tacos
6 jalapeƱos
tortillas, flour or corn
cilantro, chopped
yellow onion, small dice
1 lime, cut into wedges/slices

Lisa's six steps are:
1. In a dry skillet heated on high, toast the pasilla chiles on each side for about 10 seconds or just until they start to puff. Fill the skillet with enough water to cover chiles. Leave the heat on until water begins to boil and then turn off the heat and let the chiles soak until soft, about 30 minutes.


2. While the pasilla chiles are soaking, rinse the pork and trim the fat. Cut into half-inch-size pieces.


3. Once the pasilla chiles are hydrated, drain and rinse. Place the chiles in a blender (or food processor) along with the chipotle chile, garlic, oregano, cumin, cloves, orange juice, pineapple juice, vinegar, and olive oil. Blend until a smooth puree forms. Add salt to taste.


4. Toss the diced pork with the chile puree, place in a non-reactive container, and store covered in the refrigerator for 8 hours.

5. Before cooking, let the pork sit at room temperature for 30 minutes. To cook the pork, heat the vegetable oil, in a heat skillet on medium. Fry the pork in the skillet for 15 minutes, stirring occasionally.


6. While the pork is cooking, place the jalapenos under the broiler and cook for 10 minutes, or until blackened, turning once. 



6 1/2. Serve pork in warm tortillas, topped with cilantro and onions, along with the roasted jalapenos, lime wedges and salsa on the side.


Yum!  Given the amount of food, we invited friends over for dinner, and the result was a unanimous two thumbs up! The Homesick Texan wins the first time off the bench! YUM!



Check out some of my co-posters' dishes:



This post is part of The Homesick Texan Cookbook Spotlight and Cook-Off sponsored by Hyperion and hosted at girlichef.

Sunday, January 9, 2011

Healthy Sweet & Sour Pork with Veggie Stir Fry

It's so nice to be cooking again. We've benefited greatly from Mom & Dad's cooking, but it's nice to pay back our stay at Chateau Mom & Dad and get into the kitchen, though we're still waiting to have a kitchen of our own.

I'm still often the resident salad ninja, but I wanted to help out with dinner tonight, so I pulled out my latest Clean Eating  for inspiration and found a fantastic recipe for a Sweet & Sour Pork.

Being that we didn't have all of the ingredients, it's -- as per normal Erin cooking -- completely improvised, though inspired by Clean Eating. I found a sweet & sour-ish marinade recipe in The Best Little Marinades Book and improvised from there. I love stir fry... and I really love serving little medallions of meat. I really love vegetables.

It follows, that this dish would really be a big hit with me. It is.

And it's sooo good.

I hope that you enjoy.

Sweet & Sour Pork Chops
1 recipe Pacific Pineapple Marinade (below) modified from The Best Little Marinades Book
3 large pork chops


Marinate chops for an hour. If you have time, every 20 minutes, spoon marinade over chops to soak in a little better. Grill the chops for 10-12 minutes on each side, using the remaining marinade spooned over the top for additional flavor; discard remaining marinade. Cut the chops into small slices. Set aside.



Veggie Stir Fry
1 recipe Pacific Pineapple Marinade
4 large button mushrooms, sliced
1/2 red pepper, julienned
1/2 yellow pepper, julienned
1 cup broccoli florets
1 can water chestnuts, drained and sliced
remaining pineapple chunks from can

Add 3 tablespoons marinade to bottom of pan and toss in the veggies, stir frying until done. Add additional marinade sauce as needed to impart flavor to the veggies, but don't let them get soggy.
Serve pork chop slices over veggies and over rice.

Serves 4.

Pacific Pineapple Marinade
1/2 cup pineapple juice (about 1/2 of the drained pineapple juice from a can of pineapple chunks)
1/2 cup teriyaki sauce
1 tsp grated ginger
*I added a few pineapple chunks to each batch of marinade
**To the first batch, I added 1 Tablespoon of umami sauce

This is linked up with
Hearth & Soul @ Girlichef
Dr. Laura's Tasty Tuesday
Foodie Friday @ Designs by Gollum
Inspiration Friday @ Southern in my Heart
Friday Potluck @ my very own EKat's Kitchen
(so nice to have something to BRING to linky parties)

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