Pork Chile Verde and Smothered Enchiladas

  adding pork One of the best things about learning to cook is having the freedom and the ability to make what you want to eat taste the way you most enjoy it, and also to be able to make it with the ingredients you decide to use. I believe that your food should be about making what you enjoy- without rules imposed by others. Skills that get you there?, well yes, those are things that you should learn and eventually master so that you can get the result you want from your cooking. Recipes should be a launching point to give you a structure to improve and make each dish your own. This is my Pork Chile Verde recipe. It may not be how others make it and it may not even be traditional but it’s what I like, the way I like it- that’s all that matters to me- not making it “perfect”. You can eat it in a bowl with cornbread or tortillas or you can use it in and or on top of enchiladas, burritos, tostadas and chimichangas. Really- it’s good in any form. You choose. cheese enchiladas smothered with pork chile verdeHere’s the recipe:

Pork Chile Verde – my way

  • 4 pounds of boneless pork shoulder (Boston Butt) trimmed of most of the fat and all of the connective tissue you can see
  • 1/2 cup all purpose flour
  • 1/4 teaspoon ground cumin
  • 1/4 teaspoon sea salt
  • 1/4 teaspoon black pepper
  • 2-4 Tablespoons cooking oil, I use sunflower seed oil
  • 4 links breakfast sausage
  • 2 medium yellow onions, peeled and diced
  • 4-5 smallish garlic cloves, peeled and minced
  • 1-3/4 cups fresh roasted Hatch green chile paste (recipe below)
  • 1 large can whole tomatillos (or about 3 cups fresh tomatillos)
  • 2 cups chicken stock, organic if possible
  • 1 large can green enchilada sauce
  • 1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
  • 1/2 teaspoon good chile powder ( I use Rick’s homemade)
  • 1/4 teaspoon Mexican oregano
  • salt and pepper to taste

ROASTED HATCH CHILES

chile paste Hatch Green Chile Paste

  • 2 cups fire roasted, skinned and seeded green Hatch chiles
  • 2 Tablespoons white vinegar
  • 2 teaspoons salt

Roast the chiles, skin and seed them, then measure 2 cups in the bowl of a blender. Add the vinegar and salt and blend until smooth. Store in the fridge until use.

To make the Pork Chile Verde:

Trim the pork and cut into bite sized pieces. Pat dry as you can on a bed of paper towels. Mix the AP flour, 1/4 teaspoon cumin, 1/4 teaspoon salt and 1/4 teaspoon pepper in a medium bowl. Add the pork pieces and toss with your hands to coat. Shake off excess flour. The pork should be lightly coated. Heat the cooking oil in a heavy bottomed large Dutch oven or stock pot. Add the pork in small batches, taking care to not overcrowd the pan. If you do the meat will steam instead of brown. Remove to a plate and keep warm in the oven while you cook all of the pork. Then cook the links of sausage in the same pan, breaking them into crumbles as you go, and remove the sausage to a paper towel lined plate to drain off the grease. They will be adding a toothsome richness of little bites of meat to the sauce. There will be lots of brown bits “fond” in bottom of the pan when you are finished. Add the onion and cook until it turns translucent, scraping up the fond as you go. This adds a depth of flavor to the dish. When the onions are soft, add the minced garlic and cook it together for a few minutes. Add the Hatch chile paste and stir it all up. Cook for about 5 minutes more. Drain the can of tomatillos. Place them in the blender with 2 cups of chicken stock and whiz up. For fresh: remove them from their papery husks and give them a rinse. They have a soapy, greasy feel and you want that removed. Cook them in the chicken stock until they are softened. Blend them and proceed with the recipe. Add the blended tomatillos and chicken stock to the pot. Add the green enchilada sauce too, and the cumin, chile powder, oregano, salt, and pepper. Stir it all up and cook until hot. Add the sausage and stir in. Finally add the pork pieces with any accumulated juices on the plate to the pot. Heat it all through. At this point you can let it simmer away for another couple of hours on the stove on low, stirring fairly often, or you can put it in a crockpot and leave it covered and mostly unattended for the same amount of time. I always start my crockpot on high to get everything bubbling away and then turn to low until ready.

pork shoulder mise dredge mixfloured porkbrowning pork chile pastegarliconions garlic fondwith chile pastetomatillostomatillos whizzed upadding sausagepork chile verde cheese enchiladas smothered with pork chile verde

Cheese Enchiladas Smothered with Pork Chile Verde

  • Flour tortillas (I use whole wheat)
  • 1 medium onion, diced
  • 1 clove garlic, minced
  • oil
  • Shredded Monterey Jack and Cheddar cheese or whatever you want
  • Pork Chile Verde

Sauté the onion and garlic in oil until softened. Mix the cheeses. Roll the onion mixture and the cheese into a tortilla, line in a baking dish, cover with chile verde and top with more cheese. Bake at 350F for 25 minutes until heated through and bubbling. Enjoy!

making cv enchiladas in the dishsmothered

2 comments

  1. Gabi says:

    Hi Dawn, great to have you visit. I will check out your blog too. Hope you enjoy and have a wonderful day! 🙂

  2. Dawn says:

    Hi Gabi!
    What a wonderfully, delicious blog! I made my way here from Susan’s blog. I must choose one of your favorite recipes and give it a try very soon! Wishing you a lovely day! ♡

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.